Happily Ever After is Hard

By C. C. Petersen
98 words


Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet and wondered what the hell a tuffet was. She was damned tired of curds and whey, but since that was the diet she'd chosen, she had to stick to it. Only 23 pounds left to go and she'd be giving Cinderella some serious competition at the big Harvest Ball in a few weeks.

Cinderella, on the other hand, was just glad that Coldwater Creek had a sale and that stuff still fit after all the parties she'd attended. Keeping up with the courtier's dress code was a pain in the arse.



C.C. Petersen is a science writer by trade and specializes in astronomy and space science and blogs at: http://www.thespacewriter.com/wp

My Father, Kafka

By Howie Good
100 words

Here’s an old photo of my father oddly alone on a city street, he’s as slim as a novella and dark as a gypsy prince, he looks like Kafka, thick, black hair slicked back and comet-bright eyes, the wariness of someone suddenly summoned to appear at such and such a time at such and such a place, the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute, and he’s on his way there now, hands thrust deep in his pockets as if to hide certain deformities, but, of course, this is not K., and that is not Prague behind him, and I am not born.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of six poetry chapbooks, including the e-book, Police and Questions (Right Hand Pointing, 2008), available free at Right Hand Pointing.

Singeing

By Peter Cherches

91 words

I singed my hair for a lark. I wanted to see how it sounded, how it smelled, and it sounded like a lark, like a songbird. Hair singeing, singing, it must have been a mating call because a lark landed on my head and started singing, and it was a beautiful duet, my hair singeing and the lark singing, a beautiful song, and it kept going through my head long after it was over, so beautiful that I didn't care that I was now completely bald and burnt to a crisp.

Peter Cherches blogs about food, travel, dreams and writing at http://petercherches.blogspot.com

To Lessen the Bite

By David Erlewine
99 words

I’m making a Rum and Coke when Billy stomps a stray cat in our backyard. It stumbles into a milk crate and vomits.

I bang on the kitchen window. Billy stares at me with hollow eyes, mouths “sorry”.

I should haul him inside, demand an end to this crap.

I take a sip, add a little more Coke to lessen the bite. He’s not the only kid to freak after a parent’s death.

I can’t help but wonder if doing it makes him feel any better. Perhaps I'll give it a try, just to see what I’m dealing with.

David Erlewine has flashes and short stories published in a variety of print and web lit journals, including In Posse Review, Literal Latte, Pindeldyboz, Slow Trains, Smokelong Quarterly, and Word Riot. Flashes are forthcoming in Dogzplot, Elimae, Right Hand Pointing, and Drunk and Lonely Men.

Allot Your Time

By Hector Duarte
86 words

So that nothing interrupts the valuable time meant for ME and YOU -- time that comes few and far between now that you’ve blossomed into a mature orchid.

Why answer the call when we’re in the middle of a conversation? I can hear the male tone on the other end. It bores into my head at night after you leave, taunting me awake.

A giggle. I thought I was the only one so successful at that feat?
Allot your . . . Hell, what’s the point?





Hector Duarte Jr. is an inspiring writer who resides in Miami, Fl. and loves the smell of fresh cotton laundry detergent.

J.U.D.A.S.

By Phil Abrams
100 words

The Associated Press reports this week that a number of churches and synagogues are installing global positioning system chips inside nativity scenes and menorahs so that they can be quickly located if they are stolen.

- Overheard on N.P.R.

Concerned for this year’s baby Jesus (last year’s was stolen off our lawn), I invested in a high-tech unit for manger security. News stories proclaimed churches were seeking GPS products to safeguard their Chosen Ones. Upon cutting open the box though, I realized that the Jesus Undercover Detection Alarm System was simply less than divine. Flimsy lights, cracked plastic poles, cheap kinked-up wires (thin as spun sugar) were revealed, along with instructions in Greek, or possibly Latin. My wise wife was right. Yea, I was deceived. No, betrayed! “What did you expect for only 30 pieces of silver?” she chimed.

In alphabetical order, Phil Abrams is an actor, father, husband, shadow teacher, and sometime writer. Favorite Popsicle is Trader Joe's lime Fruit Floe.

Tuesday Shorts interviews N. Frank Daniels

Recent Nashville transplant N. Frank Daniels, who calls Atlanta home, is one of those lucky few self-publishing success stories. Most self- published authors can dream of "making it," but realistically, most won't. It's possible Daniels had a feeling he would, though - and if not a feeling, a sense of determination. The copyright page of his self-published version of futurproof identifies it as the "P.O.D. edition." Which implies there will, someday, be a different edition.

He was right.

Futureproof, released in bookstores January 27, was first published in 2006 as a P.O.D. book through Lulu.com.

Daniels, who had spent almost two years trying to find a publisher for his book, was about to give up the search when he received a call from Harper Perennial, a division of HarperCollins.

"I had literally not a month earlier given up on getting futureproof published," Daniels says. "Sept. 20, 2007 - a day I'll never forget. It was like all that work had finally paid off, and in the most unexpected way."

Daniels explains how they found out about futureproof:

"My book was reviewed by PODdy Mouth, then the most influential POD reviewer on the Web, and it just so happened that two weeks later Entertainment Weekly did a small piece on PODdy Mouth and highlighted her last five book reviews," Daniels says. "'Futureproof' was one of them."

[The others making up the top three on the list were (1) Henry Baum's North of Sunset and (3) Susanne Severeid's The Death of Milly Mahoney.]

Of course, Daniels is more than a self-published writer-turned Published Author. He would have to be, or his success would be relatively short. There are a lot of one-hit wonders in the book world (none to be named here), but the reviews of Daniels' work and his plans for his writing future indicate he'll be around for a while.

In the following interview, Daniels discusses futureproof, the transition from self-published to published, and his future plans.

TS: What kinds of things were you writing before you started work on futureproof?

N. Frank Daniels: I wrote about everything, really. I saw myself as a sort of social commentator. A lot of what I wrote was specifically for my college newspaper--more column-type stuff than actual news. Also short stories, poetry, etc. Writing has always been something I have used to get my head clear and in order to navigate my way through life without going completely batshit insane.

TS: Where can people find some of your short stories?

NFD: I have never published a short-story and have never attempted to publish one. I have around three that I've considered sending out but is just so much work to get one story published that I figured I would wait until after I published a novel (my main goal in getting published) before I took the time to pursue having a short story in print.

TS: Why did you write Futureproof? That is, was it something you felt you could do well, or was it something you felt you needed to do?

NFD: I wrote FP because it was a story that needed to be told. I wanted to kind of chart the fall of someone who had never really risen in the first place. I guess that’s the case in most stories involving drugs, but there was just something undeniably heart-wrenching about a kid who has nothing really, and then makes all sorts of decisions that leave him with even less. The book is really just about being loved and how terrible it is to not feel loved at all.

TS: Your book also touches on some other topics, such as classicism and racism, as well as the human tendency to cast judgment. The Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes were particularly revealing of the differences in people, but at the same time, the sameness of all of us. What comment, if any, would you make about human nature and the way it affects a person's sense of his or her place in the world?

NFD: I think that any person that really takes time for serious introspection can see that we are, to a one, all alone most of the time. When you do realize this, I think it makes it harder to define where your place is in the world. People are defined most by their jobs and their income and their standing in the social strata. So when you feel like "no one understands" and that you are all alone in the world, to find a few other people who feel the same things--it somehow makes it easier to be alone, even if you essentially remain alone. "Well, at least all of these people are alone too", you know?

TS: I understand you're also working on a memoir—will you be writing more fiction, too, and if you are, do you already have a story in mind?

NFD: I'll always write fiction. I already have a third novel in the preliminary stages. It will be the last chapter in the story of Luke from futureproof and involves porn, lie detectors and the complete absence of love.

TS: How does the experience of writing as an author with an agent and publisher differ, if at all, from the experience of writing as someone who had neither?

NFD: The only difference between writing when you have an agent and/or publisher is that you know that at least a few people are going to read your work. I don't feel any need to compromise anything I write for anyone, but I also know that it is pretty much a given that eventually I am going to have to compromise to some degree with what the final product is. Just part of the game. And honestly, I like having these guys question some of what I write because it ends up just being another part of the writing and editing process. It can only help make the books better. You just have to have an eye and an ear for what truly makes the book as good as it can be and let that be the guide more than ego or pride or any of that.

TS: Many people who want the book publishing dream fantasize about what it would be like to have an agent and publisher. How does the reality of it compare to what you imagined?

NFD: The reality of having an agent and having a book published is everything you can probably imagine. It's nice. We strive our whole lives for that kind of final acceptance and when it happens you have to be thankful. I most definitely am. I've gotten a really good agent and editor. I really hope for great things in the future.

TS: Self-publishers enjoy the freedom of having the opportunity to choose their own book covers and tend to muse over the covers they believe they would have if they were to find an actual publisher. Did you have any say in the cover that was chosen for your book?

(original cover)

(new cover)

NFD: I can only speak for Harper Perennial, but I'll tell you that with them I was always given a choice. We went through seven or eight fully designed covers before we settled on the final cover. They asked me if I had any ideas, I told them what they were and we messed around with possibilities until we were all happy. I like the new cover better than the one I chose for the self-published version of the book.

TS: Your past blog posts--back when you were struggling to find a publisher--more than hinted at your dissatisfaction with the publishing industry and its reluctance to publish a certain kind of fiction, opting instead for fiction that is easily marketable and more commercial. Have your thoughts about publishers changed now that you've been given access to the "other side"?

NFD: If I said my thoughts about publishing changed I'd be a total fucking hypocrite. No, its still business as usual. I guess the difference now is that I see that it isn't some kind of thing only focused on publishing. Its everywhere.

Being an artist and trying to break through in any field is soul-crushing. There are millions of people trying to be represented in the market place and there are only so many markets. A best-selling album these days has to sell far fewer copies to be considered 'best-selling' because everything is so cut up and spread around the different demographics. There really isn't a single popular culture reference point any more. So in one way that's good because a lot more people can get a piece of the pie. That piece will just be far smaller than it was before. So that being the case, I'm sure you can see where my frustration originated. With there being such small pieces of the market share, only the stuff that these large entertainment conglomerates deem as appealing to the largest number of people is going to get through.

Luckily for me I found the perfect publisher in Harper Perennial. There's a story that was published in The New York Observer about Harper Perennial publisher Carrie Kania and how she has made Perennial into a "clubhouse for losers" that only publishes "the most literate schlemiels." Doesn't sound very flattering (and this was supposed to be a puff piece!), but it is what it is. Ms. Kania has made a niche for herself and for writers of a certain kind of fiction. They have the complete Bukowski back catalog as well as other outsider writers such as Sylvia Plath and Aldous Huxley.

In this way I could not be happier with the position I am in with my writing career. Harper Perennial is a fucking awesome imprint and as far as I'm concerned is the new trend in how publishing can actually work if there is someone like Carrie to really nourish it and the authors she finds to represent it well into the future.

Thanks for taking the time, Frank. Best of success to you in your writing - and general - future.

- Kristen

Plucked

By Foster Trecost
99 words


The playground was always empty, like the children had been plucked away. This fear forced me to find a new route, but avoiding the playground didn’t help, so I returned to my prior course.

Soon after, I heard an early morning mother’s voice. She laughed and called her son’s name. I smiled; she took shape, standing before a swing, pushing it gently.

“You’re a bird,” she said. “You’re free!”

Then enthusiasm surrendered and she wept.

Closer, the truth became clear with the confirmation of my fear: a lonesome mother left behind by her child who wasn’t there, plucked away.




Foster Trecost began writing in Italy; he continues in Philadelphia. His stories appear or will appear at Insolent Rudder, The Linnet's Wings, Pequin, and Static Movement, among other places.

Bling-Bling, Bang-Bang

By Elizabeth Creith
55 words


Joe Bowie retrieved both bullets, each cast from an heirloom crucifix, from the werewolf's body, pocketing his for recasting and chucking the other. The novice werewolf hunter, cooling beside his quarry and killer, had shot true; his ammo had let him down.

Hell of a way to find out your family silver was just plated.





Elizabeth Creith has written flash fiction for the last four years. Her 55-word flash "Companion Animal" placed twelfth in the 2008 Writers' Union of Canada Postcard Fiction Contest. It also served as the seed of a novel currently in progress. For ten years she wrote humour for CBC radio, both regional and national. She is passionate about art, good writing, country life and animals, and currently pays the bills by working part-time at the pet store she and her husband own in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Elizabeth lives, writes and commits art in Wharncliffe, Northern Ontario. Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Hairy

By Jane Banning
93 words


My son brought home a tarantula. It's a pink-toed, non-poisonous tarantula. It has fangs. There are hairy legs twitching in the next room. What if it escapes its cage and I find it under my bare foot in the shower, in a dark drawer, or blinking at me from the linen closet? I'll flail out with a flattening squash, not meaning harm. But then I imagine the crunch and the grayish, sticky sludge. The quiet creature would be gone and my son, sad. I can't imagine why boys do this to their mothers.




Jane Banning lives in Oregon, Wisconsin with her husband, son, Jack Russell/Beagle, and Harry. Her work has been published in Brava Magazine and soon, the U of Iowa Daily Palette.

911

By Kyle Hemmings
99 words


In a room of taffeta dresses and dust, I pay the spider-limbed gypsy to straddle my thoughts. Now sitting across from her at a table made for two and a half discounted souls, she reads my palm. You're really dead, she says, you died in a car accident yesterday or the day before. She describes the exact car that t-boned mine. Then her face disappears in undulations of cigarette smoke. Outside I watch the procession of people who perhaps have left their bodies somewhere else. On my cell phone, a text message from myself: Please call. It's kinda urgent.

Kyle Hemmings wishes he could play surf guitar like Dick Dale and sing like Brian Wilson. Then, he would call himself Dale Wilson. He lives and daydreams in New Jersey.

Able Motivators

By Eric McKinley
100 words


We took walks around your parents' development. On one of them, we got to talking about family. It was an October evening at dusk. You said you wanted me to be your children's father.

"They'll have the best vocabularies."

"Yeah," I said. "But they might be too quiet to speak up."

You disagreed.

"Well I think our son could grow up to be President."

We never had that son. You sacrificed your children, their words. Now, they'll sound like the rest, with their "likes" and "totallys." I hope money and fear were able motivators. Because your parents are missing out.




Eric McKinley is a Philadelphian. He is a former public defender in the former most dangerous city in America, Camden, New Jersey. Now, Eric is an MFA in Fiction Candidate at Rosemont College, slightly reducing the likelihood that he'll get stabbed. He writes a story every now and again. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Aurelian Literary Journal, The Battered Suitcase, apt, Conceit Magazine, Forge, and Faraway Journal.His work and other nutritious items can be found at www.ericmckinleyfiction.com

I ate a slice of orange today

that tasted like Grandma’s wine made from a magic potion of flowers—maybe marigolds and tulips, dandelions and chrysanthemums, or for all I know a ten-ton toad’s nose, sloth snot, egrets’ regrets. I tasted love, years lived by those vines fermenting fruits fat beneath the sun, grapes squished between tall women’s toes sprouting stained yellow petals saturated juicy red and looking like bloody floral sandals.


By Molly Gaudry
65 words




Molly Gaudry co-edits Twelve Stories, solo-edits Willows Wept Review and Willows Wept Press, and she is a recent addition to the Keyhole Magazine editorial team. She blogs at http://greencitynews.blogspot.com.