We continue to get more and more submissions - stunning work, too - but alas, we can't publish everything.
This is just a reminder that if your piece isn't chosen one week, it could on another. The editorial process is subjective and is often based on the overall issue, just as with any other publication.
So keep it up. Our readers need you!!
4.29.2008
4.08.2008
How Things Were
by Doug Mathewson
56 words
Family called us difficult children. School and the neighbors called us worse.
Late at night, I would squirt lighter fluid on our boots, my sister would strike the match, and we would run screaming through the house.
Doug Mathewson writes very short fiction that occasionally finds itself being essay or poetry. He is current project is "True Stories From Imaginary Lives." He has been published most recently by PenPricks Micro-fiction, Creative Soup,and Tuesday Shorts. His poetry will appear in the March issue of eMuse-zine.
More of his work is available at his own blog, www.little2say.org
Copyright © 2008 Doug Mathewson
A Day in the Life: The Guinness Counter
by Cicily Janus
100 words
100 words
A thousand words a minute.
5a.m. flight to Bangor, Maine.
More words than anticipated: 1,259.4
Winner: by default. Her competition--asthmatic.
The breathless could have won, gasping out, inhaler! Good last word. The other woman chattered, the winded collapsed. I laughed--sick, twisted laughter.
Last week: World’s longest conga line--New York City. CEO announces 20% salary increase, complete outbreak of idiocy.
Count: (people, dogs, canaries) 2,450.
Deaths: 1.
Report doesn’t mention it. Death warrants disqualification.
Tomorrow: Hotdogs--Weingarten, Germany.
Hot Dogs to be digested: 110.
I’ll be there.
I’m the senior Counter—part of the absurdity; an out-numbered oddball.
Cicily Janus is a writer in Colorado Springs, CO. Her writing has appeared in many online and print journals. For a complete listing of her projects, both writing and otherwise, you may visit her website at: www. cicilyjanus. net Cicily is also hosting a writers retreat in Vail, Colorado this fall with award winning authors and editors. Visit the retreat website at: http://www.freewebs.com/literaryretreat4couples
or on myspace at:
http://www.myspace.com/writingaway
Copyright © 2008 Cicily Janus
For the Record
by Noel Sloboda
66 words
While studying Stein manuscripts at the Beinecke library, Beth turned out to be a poor steward of history. Taking notes, she used red pen, which leaked onto the precious pages of the Mama of Dada.
66 words
While studying Stein manuscripts at the Beinecke library, Beth turned out to be a poor steward of history. Taking notes, she used red pen, which leaked onto the precious pages of the Mama of Dada.
Beth’s guilt was great, only mitigated by the implausible hope that a future scholar, studying the same pages, might mistake the origin of the accidental mark and conclude Stein bled ink.
Noel Sloboda lives in Pennsylvania, where he serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival and teaches at Penn State York. His writing has appeared in venues based in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada. Look for recent work in Chronogram, Vulcan, Keyhole Magazine, bottle rockets, Gentle Strength Quarterly, Poems Niederngasse, and Pen Pusher. He is also busy with a collection forthcoming from sunnyoutside.
Copyright © 2008 Noel Sloboda
4.06.2008
Stolen Lunch
by Sarah Holland
100 words
Lightning necklaces the sky as Cordell Reno dashes into the bushes with a lunch sack stolen off the WPA supervisors’ truck. He’d lifted each bag, comparing, then grabbed the heaviest one. I’ll get found out...the drive boss will can me for sure. Work’s scarce, but he doesn’t care. He hasn’t eaten anything but flour all week, and his stomach is scraping up against the back of his spine.
"We’re poor people, son. We got our own laws," his dad says.
Safely hidden with his prize, mouth watering, he opens the bag.
Inside is a bunch of black walnuts, and a hammer.
Sarah Holland lives in Maine. Her fiction has appeared at Six Sentences.
100 words
Lightning necklaces the sky as Cordell Reno dashes into the bushes with a lunch sack stolen off the WPA supervisors’ truck. He’d lifted each bag, comparing, then grabbed the heaviest one. I’ll get found out...the drive boss will can me for sure. Work’s scarce, but he doesn’t care. He hasn’t eaten anything but flour all week, and his stomach is scraping up against the back of his spine.
"We’re poor people, son. We got our own laws," his dad says.
Safely hidden with his prize, mouth watering, he opens the bag.
Inside is a bunch of black walnuts, and a hammer.
Sarah Holland lives in Maine. Her fiction has appeared at Six Sentences.
Copyright © 2008 Sarah Holland
the first date
by Louise Yeiser
16 words
oh my god the look on his face when i told him i didn’t eat fish.
louise yeiser is a freelance writer, studying creative nonfiction at the university of pittsburgh, who doesn’t go out much.
16 words
oh my god the look on his face when i told him i didn’t eat fish.
louise yeiser is a freelance writer, studying creative nonfiction at the university of pittsburgh, who doesn’t go out much.
Copyright © 2008 Louise Yeiser
Shake ‘N Jake
by Mike Reczek
95 words
Copyright © 2008 Mike Reczek
95 words
"What’s for dinner, Mom?
"Shake ’N Jake!"
"Awesome! Hey, Dad--Mom’s making Shake ’N Jake!"
"Shake ’N Jake? What’s that, honey?"
"Shake ’N Jake is a quick and easy meal that’s perfect for the whole family! Jake comes fully dismembered and disemboweled for convenient choosing of the body part you want! Simply shake the contents in the freeze-loc bag for tasty seasoning and place in the microwave! Who’s ready for Shake ’N Jake?"
"Me! I want an arm!"
"I’ll take a leg!"
"And I’ll have the lymph nodes!"
Shake ’N Jake: THE ULTIMATE WHITE MEAT!
Mike Reczek is a TEFL teacher currently working in Taiwan. He has been to Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, and Jakarta and, to his knowledge, and never willingly eaten Shake ’N Jake.
3.13.2008
Untitled by Kelly Irmen
87 words
She could not understand what he was still doing alive. She glared at him and said, "I wanted you to vanish into the box-spring once I had gone."
She always listened to his fingers plucking at the strings. And it seemed almost insect-like, the arch and jerky movements of his fingers- like something substantially small working its way through an over-grown landscape.
The courtyard is silent until a screen door opens and kids burst forth screaming to play tag. It is like watching a building give birth.
She could not understand what he was still doing alive. She glared at him and said, "I wanted you to vanish into the box-spring once I had gone."
She always listened to his fingers plucking at the strings. And it seemed almost insect-like, the arch and jerky movements of his fingers- like something substantially small working its way through an over-grown landscape.
The courtyard is silent until a screen door opens and kids burst forth screaming to play tag. It is like watching a building give birth.
Copyright 2008 Kelley Irmen
The Unique Sound Properties of Ethylene Glycol by F. John Sharp
94 words
Tyrus heard about the accident when he was at work. In front of his house, all that's left are tiny glass pieces and the coolant reservoir with a kinked hose attached. He picks it up; it's vibrating. The hose straightens and he hears something leaking out. He puts the end to his ear—it's crying, screaming, calling for mommy. There're sirens, and voices of EMT's prying off the door and strapping the driver to a gurney and covering her face. Tyrus puts his thumb over the end, hugs the container, and closes his eyes.
F. John Sharp has published in print in Peninsular, Snow Monkey, GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Birmingham Arts Journal and Opium, and online in Eclectica, Pindeldyboz, Salt River Review, Paumanok Review, and Lunarosity, among others. His poetry appeared in the anthology, 'An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind,' published by Regent Press. He has worked as an associate editor for the literary journals, Night Train and Story Garden, and is the fiction editor for Right Hand Pointing. He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Tyrus heard about the accident when he was at work. In front of his house, all that's left are tiny glass pieces and the coolant reservoir with a kinked hose attached. He picks it up; it's vibrating. The hose straightens and he hears something leaking out. He puts the end to his ear—it's crying, screaming, calling for mommy. There're sirens, and voices of EMT's prying off the door and strapping the driver to a gurney and covering her face. Tyrus puts his thumb over the end, hugs the container, and closes his eyes.
F. John Sharp has published in print in Peninsular, Snow Monkey, GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Birmingham Arts Journal and Opium, and online in Eclectica, Pindeldyboz, Salt River Review, Paumanok Review, and Lunarosity, among others. His poetry appeared in the anthology, 'An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind,' published by Regent Press. He has worked as an associate editor for the literary journals, Night Train and Story Garden, and is the fiction editor for Right Hand Pointing. He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Copyright © 2008 F. John Sharp
Cheers to Sylvia Plath by Timothy Gager
99 words
We all tied one on after you told me that you lost the baby and how the ultra sound showed an empty sack and debris floating around.
"I'm really drunk," you said as almost daddy started warning us about addictions and the loss of creative geniuses "gone too soon." Peeking over my scotch, the ice-cubes imploded when he said, "Imagine if they were alive. Hendrix, Janis....Sylvia Plath…"
I hadn't opened my mouth much until I said, "It would really fuck up the head in the oven poem I wrote." I'm no genius but I've lived to say inappropriate things.
Timothy Gager has been widely published in print and electronic journals. He lives at www.timothygager.com.
Copyright © 2008 Timothy Gager
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