Fiction 2011
Leave a comment| Airplane Reading | Fatboy Review | Dogzplot | Letras Caseras | Necessary Fiction | Occupy Writers | Referential Magazine | Metazen (1, 2)| kill author (1, 2) | Wilderness House Literary Review (1, 2) | Pure Slush (1, 2) | Atticus Review (1, 2) | Mad Hatters Review (1, 2, 3) | Camroc Press Review | you are here | Blue Fifth Review | 52/250 | Blue Print Review | 4’33” | qarrtsiluni | Used Furniture Review | river of stones | Ramshackle Review | The Rumpus (1, 2) | The Glass Coin | fwriction:review | Červená Barva Press | Short, Fast and Deadly | Wrong Tree Review | 2009—2010 |
|---|
Airplane Reading has a great concept and fits in your pocket, too. My memory “Touching Robert Coover in Providence” was published there. Excerpt: [#94]
«Suddenly I remember my trip through the U.S. in 1980: no cells; the locked dials of the Bakelite phone next to the motel bed. 70s colors everywhere, today’s retro was still just yesterday then.»
My short story “Berlin Pastoral“, first performed publicly at This Berlin Life in Berlin and later at the 4’33” event in London, is published in 12 installments as part of the annual “12 Days” issue in Fatboy Review. The beginning goes like this: [#93]
«Susi, Uschi and Tom live on a balcony above busy Helmholtzplatz in Berlin. They’re not strictly speaking homeless: the balcony has got a roof. They live there throughout the year, in winter and in summer. You know people like this exist. You’ve probably waved at them from the street. It’s tight up there, but they never complain.»
An old lady is smitten with a little man: Dogzplot published “Thumbling“—excerpt: [#92]
«They fucked every night like weasels. Making love seemed to be the only way to fend off the sure knowledge that they’d both wrinkle and die one day. Before daily sex they’d tried: community work; mad shopping; robbing a bank; overeating and puking; complaining; bullying other couples.»
Back at The Rumpus in the “Readers Report Back From…” column. My “Leftovers”: an unnamed flash from the flash novel “Gizella” in which two knights, Hont and Paznan, muse on death and marriage—excerpt: [#91]
«Suddenly, the wind got hold of the hammock. Leaves murmured. It was cold and the sun had gone down.»
Letras Caseras (ed. Roberto C. Garcia) published “a fable” from the animal kingdom—excerpt: [#90]
«the last lion king said nothing when nothing was left to be said to the large crowd of animals who stood in front of his throne his beloved throne and they looked at him as they had throughout the many years of his reign»
Kathy Fish, writer in residence at Necessary Fiction in December 2011, picked my flash “Fox” and published it alongside a drawing by Taffimai and a little background story to the piece, which forms part of my flash novella “Gizella“—excerpt: [#89]
«It had stopped raining. I saw a fox in the garden hide something. From where I stood it looked like a shoe with a foot still in it. I thought perhaps the fox wanted to hide the foot for his brood and he wanted it to rot a little because, who knows, perhaps foxes like their meat somewhat rotten. Or perhaps he liked the shoe and wished to wear it but being a fox he had four paws and needed four shoes and he only found one.»
OccupyWriters.com | @occupywriters
“The Serious Writer Occupies Wall Street” has been published by “OccupyWriters” among a wonderful cast of other writers including the much admired Francine Prose, Alice Walker and Ursula Le Guin. Excerpt: [#88]
«He often cannot find the words these days. He thinks and feels in colors and sounds rather than letters. “Who knows,” says the helper in that moment, “if they’ll ever invent a happy pill. That’s the one I’d like to take.”»
“Mummenschanz” (German for “mummery“), now published at Mad Hatters Review, was originally written for the 100 Days And Nights series of medieval pieces: [#87]
«Timothy Cabbage’s Circus offered the greatest attractions from everywhere in the world: he had the seven-fingered girl Rosa, who was otherwise “beautiful as an Asian princess” though she came from a village on the Adriatic sea; he had Frantik, the dwarf from Andorra, who could support his own body weight with only his tongue; he had the talking elephant, who had lost his voice in a Babylonian fire but could write “I am all alone” into the sand with his trunk.»
Referential Magazine, ed. by poet Jessie Carty, is based on the idea of references, or links between authors and their works. My flash “Tripping” links to a term in my good buddy Christopher Allen’s brilliant “A Husk of Hare” (I made an audio recording of his piece). From “Tripping“: [#86]
«She noticed a piece of vegetable matter stuck between them and tried to suck it loose, making noises like a leaky toilet. “Why do you have to be so dif-fi-fuck-ing-cult, Jacques,” she said, extracting something from her mouth. She held it between two fingers and, slithering towards Jack, held it up in front of his eyes: “Look, cherie, un peu de réalité, bébé,” she said.»
This story for Metazen consists of fragments of a dream & draws on images that my dad told me when I was a toddler & he brought me to bed with a fantastic story of his own making, every night. Enjoy MISERY PARLOR: [#85]
«Every day the same deal: getting up; getting food; getting to work; searching the sky for signs of divine intervention; collecting looks from train travelers; putting the inner clock forward; walking out into the sun during lunch break; dozing off on a park bench with the most exciting wonderful dream in your head…»
Issue 15 of > killauthor is named after one of my favorite writers, Ann Quin. My collage THREE BERG PASSAGES: A TRIPTYCH is named after three of Quin’s novels. It comes with an audio recording (unusually raspy after a cold) & a review by Kenny Mooney [#82-#84]
«The rat was woken by lightning. Next to the rat, on the other side of the paper thin wall, lay a couple. The rat and the man stared upwards (some rats, like men, sleep on their backs) and sighed at the same time, proving the deep connection between their species.»
Photo: Wilderness House Literary Review
“THREE QUESTIONS“, not surprisingly, consists of three questions: WHY, HOW and WHEN, and appeared in the content-rich Wilderness House Literary Review fall issue (6.3), ed. Susan Tepper. I’m sure, Gertrude Stein would have found a more succinct, less flowery way of answering these fundamental questions. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize [#79-#81]:
“I’ve lost track of my question in the course of a lifetime.” —“Perhaps,” she said, “the answers are just as forgettable as the questions were.”
I’m the featured author at Pure Slush in Oct ’11 with five “Serious Writer” stories: “The Serious Writer And His Mother“; “The Social Life Of The Serious Writer“; “The Serious Writer And His Hamster“; ”The Serious Writer Buys An iPad“; and “The Serious Writer Cuddles Up“: [#74-#78]
«At night, the serious writer eats steak and smokes bamboo stalks. He washes the day down with a glass of scotch. His bed is a wet concern at the bottom of an iron lake where he tells himself lies, ambivalence-stricken, looking for true feeling, alone now, a ferruginous plant, watered by the people in his life.»
Photo: Pawel Maciejewski
“The Last Story“: I wrote this rather contemplative story shortly after J D Salinger’s death last year and I’m utterly pleased to have it come out now at the splendid, still spanking new Atticus Review alongside a great editorial by Katrina Gray: [#73]
«The serious writer always knew there would be a last story but when the time was near, he felt ill-prepared.»
Back at Metazen, which some think is a powerful medication, or a temple for meditation…but whatever it is, it’s a great, happening, magazine with daily stories & poems. Out now is my flash “Swingers“—nominated for a Micro Award: [#72]
«…that damned abyss of being that stops us from seeing anyone else but images of ourselves, our image repeated in everyone around us forever.»
Mad hatter material: “Mermaids Are Supermodels” is now at Mad Hatters Review Blog, edited by Marc Vincenz. With its love for “post post postmodern post avant-gardey literature“, mhr is my kind of mag: [#71]
«The deranged sailors’ favorite pastime is the spinning of yarn: one of them, an old guy, ends every story with a loud wet fart.»
It’s lovely to be back at the clean, minimal, story-focused Camroc Press Review, edited by Barry Basden. My flash story “Max Ernst in Sedona“ was prompted by this exceptional movie still: [#70]
«He talks to the rocks. He tells them who he is and he’s impressed by their stoicism. He hasn’t lost his good looks but the Navajo women aren’t interested in the painter who sits half-naked under a Jojoba tree and asks about spirits and sauces because he likes his potatoes with thick sauce like Germans do.»
“you are here — the journal of creative geography” from the University of Arizona, published part of my petrified multi-volume opus “Selected Works Of A Hermit Crab Written On Shells, Stones And Scales” in their issue #14 — Dislocation: [#69]
«A man made his living by writing prose poems on found shells using the finest calligraphy ever seen. Whenever anyone tried to copy his fragile creations, they lost all their might. The president of his country gave 9 of his texts, consisting of 100 words each, written on the dried skinless skulls of the rare Sargasso sea turtle to the heads of state of the world’s 9 leading nations. One day a master thief stole all nine skulls and held them ransom for 1 billion dollars. Subsequently, the heads of state met with the prose poet for 1 incredibly long hour in which he painted one letter on the nail of the right thumb of each of them. The letters spelled “never mind”. From that day on, politics turned poetic and never again became the butterfly business it had been before.»
I’ve been “Romancing My Youth” under the tutelage of editor Susan Tepper in the Wilderness House Review 6.2 — [#68]:
«As a boy, I often laid in my bed and stared through a hole in the ceiling at the ceiling of the apartment above us where a Viking woman lived…When I met her on the stairs, I focused on her freckles, which, I imagined, ran over her neck and shoulders, across the thin skin of her sternum towards her nipples as if they were insects following a sugar track.»
Atticus Review: Ravenous
“Before The Bloodbath” published in Atticus Review, the online litmag of Atticus Books, and edited by Katrina Gray. Untypical for me, this flash came out of a German piece, a “wortblitz” (a flash-led blitzkrieg against the long form): [#66]
« The bonnet of the man on the chair in front of the white wall. The smell of beer on the table. The laughter of the toddler standing up on the synthetic leather stool. The girl crawling across the lino covered floor. »
Trieste Joyce School – © Sergio Bon
Sometimes remembering is not enough, it needs an editor to push you to write it up. I did and “In the nude” is the result. Thanks to Matt Potter of Pure Slush for teasing this memory out of me. [#65]
« We lived in Trieste then, my wife and I physicists both, on the High Street across from one of the places where James Joyce had lived, who’d moved all over town so that it must’ve been difficult for the city to follow him but follow him they did, leaving bronze plates wherever Joyce had as much as sat down, all beginning with “Il grande scrittore…”. »
“Moondog“, began as a short memory flash on meeting the blind musician Louis Harding. The expanded version of this story, featuring brigands and sugar mommies, was published in Blue Fifth Review 11.9 – thanks eds. Michelle Elvy & Sam Rasnake. [#62]
« I also discovered that music was something unlike the weather, something you could make and shape and twist around your ears like the curl of a beautiful girl, and you could get wet doing it and be in the presence of greatness with your eyes closed. »
thirtynine, The 3rd quarterly anthology of 52|250, the year-long flash fiction project edited by Michelle Elvy, John Wentworth Chapin and Walter Bjorkman, included my micro stories “El Asesino” and “The Power“. [#60|#61]
« Walking down a dead end alley, a woman talks unkindly to her man. He looks hurt. »
“Short cuts” is a collaboration with Catherine Davis published in the ‘synergetic transformation’ issue of Blue Print Review, edited by the fabulous Dorothee Lang. “Short Cuts” comes complete with photo, story, process notes, editor’s markup, author notes … it has qualities of a “Gesamtkunstwerk“. [#59]
« I don’t love you anymore anyway, you can go. I loathe you. The sex always sucked. I hate all men. I hate all women. »
"THE SERIOUS WRITER IS BUT A STORY IN A STORY" was written in 2010 under my pseudonym 'Finnegan Flawnt' as his last story ever. Now published as a podcast (week 26) by 4'33'' an audio online magazine. [#58]
« He grazed his chin with the index finger of his left hand while still hovering over the keyboard with all fingers of his right hand and retraced the small dimple that separated the point of his chin from his lower lip and which he had come to think of as one of the centres of his creative powers. »
In qarrtsiluni’s translation issue: “At the ministry” / “Auf dem Amt” with podcasts of the English and the German version of this anti-bureaucratic piece, which was first performed live at “this berlin life!” in Nov ’10. [#57]
« the longer they make you wait, the more you fall for the poetry of power until you read their ministerial orders as if they were odes or gospel. »
One of my micros, inspired by Glenn Gould playing Bach, was published in “pay attention: a river of stones” ed. Fiona Robyn & Kaspalita. Nice to have a pebble in that river. [#56]
« A young man madly in pursuit of sound was milking rather than playing the keyboard and shouting at invisible musical ghosts. »
Ramshackle Review, created by writer and artist Mark Reep, is one of his ‘Dreams in Black and White’. Thankfully, my piece “Falling Into Hugeness” is now a part of his vision. [#55]
« It may just be that by regarding yourself a writer you will enter a new dimension of being on this Earth that brings you happiness and fulfilment way beyond your wildest dreams. »
dada poem “the human adventure” published in the rumpus’ column “wants/needs” ed. by Susan Clements. I love their header with a vengeance. It smacks of Kin-der-Kids. Update: absolutely wonderful reading by Nic Sebastian at Whale Sound. [#54]
« saw three little blind mice today; one in a trap i had set, chewing / away on a piece of cheddar cheese; the second outside of the trap / singing parsley sage rosemary and thyme, and the third wagging its / finger at me for grammatical mistakes i had made in the past. . . . »
The Glass Coin published “Love in a Mist“, a rather sad piece with a Jamesian feel, part of an unfinished novel, a character study of a woman full of hope. [#53]
« Hestia saw herself as the keeper of the flame, the calm center of the household, the place to which the man, the hunter, could return when the elements, in general, and his drive in particular, were beginning to overpower him. »
“Mother burning” appeared at fwriction:review, the sister site to fwriction, the literary bloggish brain child of my fellow fictionaut Danny Goodman. (update: added to “Flash Fiction Chronicles 100 Story Links in Honor of Short Story Month 2011“) [#52]
« That’s our mother, our little, lovely old mother, who’s burning there, don’t you see? She’s lit herself for a good reason and now she’s already burnt half down, soon nothing will remain of her … »
“Posse” written for Meg’s Exquisite Quartet at Used Furniture Review — a collaboration between Meg Tuite, Susan Tepper, Matt Rafferty and Marcus Speh for Valentine’s Day. [#51]
« That night he had dreamt of his mother. It was a dream that he’d have carried to his therapist like a raw, precious egg if he’d had a therapist, and the dream made him wish he had one. »
My story “Rose Petals” appeared in the anthology “Valentine Day Massacre – Poems & Stories by Fictionaut Writers” ed. by Susan Tepper, published by Červená Barva Press (02/2011). Here’s an audio version read by Flawnt. [#50]
« … the Greek grocer, a recent immigrant from Rhodos, the rose of the Aegean sea , flew out of the shop like an angel, sailed across the snow mixed with the woman’s frozen tears and offered her his arm, which she grasped and used to pull herself up. »
Women by Gene Tanta
Mad Hatters’ Review isn’t just a magazine, it’s an online multi-media super-cocktail that explodes in your face and triggers all your senses. Issue 12 contains my three autobiographical texts “Rock, Scissors, Paper” whimsically labeled as ‘Whatnots’, with podcasts and art by Gene Tanta (02/2011). [#47|#48|#49]
« I also had a wife to call mine when I feared to lose my fire in the stormiest storm and who soothsayed my successes from laverbread. We had a child, who was her own from her first moment flopping like a fish on a table top, a girl of greyish temper with thistle green eyes. »
Writing a guest introduction to issue eleven of >kill author (02/2011) was a new, humbling experience. The issue is packed with great writing. My introduction turned out to be a dadaistic collage with a literate coda, featuring all of the 25 featured authors, something between fiction and non-fiction for sure, a riff on radical prose and poetry. [#46]
« Where is your father when you most need him. Is he in India or did he dive and was swallowed alive by a whimsical whale created during a cool cricket match. »
“superfoods“, an extremely short, fast-paced existentialist piece, stuffed with good and weird foods, was published in i58 (16 Jan 2011) of “Short, Fast and Deadly“, a mag full of smashing stories below 420 characters edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela. [#45]
« when i came home, family dinner was waiting: i found bison, ostrich and deer on my plate. »
“The Serious Writer and His First Novel” in Issue 2 of the awesome Wrong Tree Review founded by Sheldon Lee Compton and Jarrid Deaton. This comes at the right time — just when I’m out of excuses, done with shoveling and need some serious writer magic (01/2011) [#44]
« He moves his household to a deserted location called Loch Llamorgan. He buys a large shovel, which he covers with tattoos lifted from a book of Maori motives. »
Read on for my publications 2009-2010.
