Young Bright Things

There Is More Than Fall in the Air

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You have until midnight Friday night/Saturday morning to enter our contest. You know you want to. Take a chance.

Congratulations also to Tara Laskowski who won the Santa Fe Writers Project Grand Prize!

Aaron Burch’s How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew has been reviewed in The Short Review.

The Northville Review’s Poetry for Haterz issue includes poems from xTx, Arlene Ang, Nicelle Davis and Barry Graham.

The year 1583 is chronicled by Brian Oliu at For Every Year.

Shannon Peil and Christina Murphy have work in Short, Fast, and Deadly.

The Fubar Edition of Rumble is up with fiction from ZZ Boone, Brent Fisk,and a review by JA Tyler.

Three AM has three poems by J. Bradley. He also has a very short story at 52/250.

At Everyday Genius, AD Jameson.

Scott McClanahan’s The Baby Birds appears at Metazen. He is also interviewed.

The Hint Fiction anthology, edited by Robert Swartwood, will be released soon. In the meantime, there is an Ultimate Flash Fiction Giveaway and you want to get in on this.

Right Hand Pointing 36 includes Eric Burke. Gabriel Welsch, Kenneth Gurney, and others.  You can also hear Eric’s poem Adam and Eve Next Door, read aloud at Whale Sound.

Husbands and Animal Husbandry are the topic for Dan Piepenbring at Wigleaf.

Solar Luxuriance has The Destruction Loops by David Peak available for only $5. Check it out.

Almost forgot! Jennifer Pashley in Smokelong.

The Chamber Four anthology is now available and includes contributions that originally appeared in PANK by David Peak and Valerie O’Riordan. You can also find a story from BJ Hollars.

In Diode, poetry from Donora Hillard, Clay Matthews, JP Dancing Bear, Bob Hicok, and others.

Pre-order Puerto Del Sol 45.2 which features writing from Clay Matthews, Matt Bell, AD Jameson, and many more.

Enjoy something creepy from Laure Ellen Scott in Moon Milk Review where she is joined by Annam Manthiram, Kristine Ong Muslim, and others. Laura is also interviewed by Ethel Rohan at Dark Sky.

PANK contributors Amber Sparks, Kyle Minor, Joseph Goosey, and Matthew Salesses were finalists in the HTMLGIANT So Many Books contest held earlier this year. You can read their stories and those of the other finalists, online now.

Blake Butler is (not) interviewed at Redivider’s website.

Conjugation, by Jen Michalski is this week’s featured story for Smokelong Weekly.

Sean Lovelace writes of God for NANOfiction.

Literary Los Angeles: Interview with Aimee Bender

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Aimee Bender is one of our city’s best-loved writers, a teacher of creative writing at USC and UCLA, and a fellow L.A. native.   Her most recent novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, is set in the center of the city and filled with references to Los Angeles’ streets and restaurants, to the Santa Anas and jacaranda trees and dingy “garden” apartments with aspirational names.

We talked about her hometown and its impact on her work.

Q: What impact do you think growing up in L.A. had on your personality or your work?

A. It’s hard to tell, of course, since it’s hard to separate, but I do think L.A. provides a lot of day-dreaming time, sitting in cars and staring out windows.  I’ve often thought of L.A. as a secretly introverted city—it seems California is super-friendly, but I think that’s in part due to the escape of cars.  In N.Y., people are rude on the subway possibly to get a break from all the intense socializing of close contact; in L.A. people may be friendly more often because then we run off to our own private driving space.  There’s a lot of room to think in this way, which is good and bad.  But as a kid, it did mean I could make up stories in my head all the time.

Q. I loved reading about Rose’s neighborhood [in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake], in part because it was more or less my childhood neighborhood.   What about that part of town spoke to you as the setting for this story?

A. I’ve lived in four different apartments in this area bounded by La Brea, La Cienega, Santa Monica Blvd, and Beverly and I’ve loved all four places—surrounded by such great Spanish bungalows everywhere.  It was a treat for me to let myself write about an area I know well, in what I think of as a kind of center to an uncentered city.

Q: A lot of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is about loneliness and different types of isolation as well as attempts to reach out and communicate.   Many people have observed that L.A.’s low density contributes to making it a uniquely lonely city, or at least one in which people are often out of close proximity to one another.   But as you’ve said, this low density can also make people more friendly, more willing to be open to others and less irritable and inward-looking than in denser cities.   Is that L.A. tension of isolation and connection present in your work?

A: I haven’t written much about L.A. in the past—this is the first longer piece I’ve written set here.  But yes, I think that tension is in the book—because L.A. is a giant city, it is a place of a lot of mixing and openness—I think all cities have some of that.  But the loneliness is really present too, and I have good friends that live across town and it is frustrating how hard it is to make plans because we always have to factor in that extra forty-five minutes.

Q. How would you characterize the literary culture in Los Angeles, and how does it differ from that to be found in other major U.S. cities?

A. It’s thriving, and it’s the underdog, because of film, and that is often a good place to be. Writers are supportive of one another.  Invention is encouraged and expected.  I think this is probably similar to many other big cities (although L.A. is a city of constant invention and reinvention, maybe more than most)—but it’s different than NY where writing is one of the town industries, which is exciting and also can make it more directly competitive, or business-oriented.

Q. Are there any other L.A. writers (either by location or subject matter) that you have been influenced by or that you recommend?

A. Sure—Chandler, West, Didion—these are writers that affect living in L.A. without question.  Or The Crying of Lot 49—that’s a biggie too.  It’s so easy to think of Play It As It Lays every time I drive a freeway.  And then I really appreciate the strangeness of writers like TC Boyle, or Francesca Lia Block, or Percival Everett, or Benjamin Weissman and Amy Gerstler, or Mark Danielewski, or Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, or DJ Waldie, and on and on—many I am forgetting—writers who are playing with form and content and style and who are pretty free with their experimentation.  There are a lot of non-traditional fiction writers in L.A. and I just love that.

Q. Are there any Los Angeles literary or other cultural institutions that you enjoy or want to recommend?

A. Tons!  Museum of Jurassic Technology’s at the top of the list.  Griffith Park Observatory. Beyond Baroque.  Barnsdall Park.  The Getty.  Zocalo talks.  Categorically Not lecture series on science and more.  Institute of Figuring.  L.A. Observed.  Egyptian revival movies series and the theatre on Beverly and Formosa.  Silent Movie Theatre.  Sit N Spin.  Inside Out Writers.  Huntington Gardens.  Music Center.  826 LA.  KCRW and KPCC, of course.  I’m forgetting lots but there’s a start.

Q: You mention a lot of classic L.A. restaurants in the new book—are any of them particularly special to you?

A: I love them all.  Canter’s, of course.  Rae’s on Pico—everything about that place I find so appealing.  Perfect diner ranch dressing.  I think it’s turquoise inside? Or the booths are turquoise?  And I remember trying Marousch years ago and then going regularly and even having a distant crush on the guy who was making the gyros—it had and has such a good feel, the whole place.  The best falafel I’ve ever had.

MONKEY BARS, Briefly

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MonkeyBarsWebCover2-115x150Monkey Bars
by Matthew Lippman
Published by Typecast Publishing, 10/06/2010
ISBN-13 (cloth): 978-0-984-49610-5
Pages: 72
Size: 6.5 x 8

I am not going to linger long on Matthew Lippman’s new poetry collection  Monkey Bars because Typecast Publishing is also publishing my book of poetry. There is a fancy phrase for what I am not avoiding here by reviewing this book. Do you know what that fancy phrase is, children? It’s called “a conflict of interest.” It’s true, look it up. Learn it. Know it. Live it.

Now that we understand one another, you need to own and read Lippman’s book for the following three reasons:

1. Go ahead, accuse me of hyperbole, but Typecast makes some of the most beautiful artifacts in the small press universe. Presented in a really interesting flush-cut hardback edition designed and illustrated by the genius at  Firecracker Press, if  this tasty little morsel rests in line of sight at home or work, you will appear to all of your book nerd friends much, much cooler than you actually are.

2. There are many, many important people telling you to own this book. Take me for instance. Note how important I am. Listen to what I am telling you. Listen to Tony Hoagland who says  “[these] poems fly straight into the center of trouble and joy of the moment because they are unafraid of dying. . .” Listen to Matthew Dickman who says “Lippman’s work guides us through loss and suffering as well as ecstatic joys and the angelic swells of the living body…[these] poems are the work of the heart; beating, bruised and electric.” Or what about Juan Felipe Herrera who calls Lippman a major poet? Will you listen to that? Check out the book  trailer!  Check out Typecast editor Jen Woods’ amazing Poet/Rockstar Manifesto! Do you hear the ringing of silver trumpets?! Follow the sound.

3. In all seriousness, Lippman’s book is a blast. The poems in  Monkey Bars scream out a father’s panic in a world without bees, but plenty of pharmacologically-induced calm, where Warren Buffet has plenty to be happy about and nearly everybody else is f@#$ed.  And yet, by the end of Monkey Bars, Lippman offers the reader some odd sense of the human capacity for bravery, awe and grace in the face of the most absurd and hopeless circumstances. There’s no easy redemption in these poems, but Lippman’s rowdy poetics are so approachable, so much fun to read, you won’t even feel the wringer. Read the poem Marriage Pants if you don’t believe me. You can accuse me of bias all you want, I really liked this book.

And that’s all I’m going to say.


Mary Hamilton’s We Know What We Are: A Review by Martin Macaulay

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Hamiltoncover-500x597

Mary Hamilton’s ‘We Know What We Are‘  is a collection of thirteen short-short stories, beautifully crafted and condensed into microcosms of  life, love, death and dream. Some of the places this writer takes you, you’ll already know; some you won’t. Others you may have forgotten, or visited in your nightmares or in a previous life. These are stories that sing to you. Loudly. Proper shoulders back, wide mouthed, deep-sea breathing bursting to the surface in a wow-what-the-fuck-was-that kind of way. Some are hymns to the hand that life deals you. Deferential. You’ll get too scared to look up from the scripture you’re reading lest you start believing. Or get unbelieving.

In the introduction, Dinty W. Moore likens Mary Hamilton to a carver working the stone. He has the authority; he was the contest judge that voted this collection the winner of the Fourth Annual Rose Metal Press Short Story Chapbook Contest. You do get the impression that these stories were worked and reworked, with each word and phrase expertly placed into position after untold dress rehearsals to sit and wait patiently for you, the reader, to discover its place and its purpose.

The fictions are as expansive as they are short, and they confound from the beginning. When you read ‘I put a pickup truck in the back of my pickup truck and drove to Milwaukee’ you know this is no ordinary road trip you are about to embark on. It is a tale of fire and ice and companionship. For me this story evoked Jacks London and Kerouac, the Littlest Hobo, Coen Brothers, all put to a thundering rail-road soundtrack. The opening story also introduces you to Theodore, better known as Theo Huxtable from the Cosby Show. He and Bull Shannon (Night Court) share equal billing in this collection, although neither TV character makes a guest appearance in the texts themselves.

It is soon apparent that the scope of this writer stretches from the deeply personal to the universal. The next short is a retelling of David and Goliath, offering a loftier viewpoint than that of the traditional hero. Written in the second person, it shows what it is to be the outsider, to not fit. The humanity glows and the fragility of existence is split apart for all to look upon. We understand how easily we could have been cast in this role, in a body we didn’t wish for, praying to be the infinitesimal.

‘I am fond of you: An ode to Bull Shannon’ is a superbly executed piece. Read it and re-read it and re-read it. It contains so much yet is so simply put. The opening “I BUILT US A HOUSE!” fills the reader with exhilaration; devotion and achievement burst through this little sentence. “And you planted a garden” continues the idyllic theme. But when the feasts stop, and the lights go out, and food is as scarce as human contact, a storm comes: “a giant cloud rolling over the water.” The scale is colossal; it is On the Beach condensed. Look closely, and you’ll see that there is an even smaller narrative within the story reduced to a mere sixteen words. It ends in a plaintive cry in Morse Code. I love this story and I may even print it on a t-shirt. (I’ll make sure I credit the author.)

There is no doubt that Mary Hamilton has a talent for words. With seemingly effortless skill, she creates ultra vivid images that burn hard into your retina. The songbird that “says ‘Watcha doin’? like the knife is invisible or something.” The “spilling blood”. The “raincoat rain of silver and glass.” The life of conjoined twins distilled into nine paragraphs. From the obscure to the taken-for-granted, these are stories for anybody who felt they never quite fitted, tales for the outcasts. Told in stunning simplicity or by a fantastical turn of phrase, Hamilton makes everything out of nothing. I fear I’m in danger of spilling this chapbook’s secrets. It’s better that you discover them for yourself.

—

Mary Hamilton's We Know What We Are: A Review by Martin Macaulay

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Hamiltoncover-500x597

Mary Hamilton’s ‘We Know What We Are‘  is a collection of thirteen short-short stories, beautifully crafted and condensed into microcosms of  life, love, death and dream. Some of the places this writer takes you, you’ll already know; some you won’t. Others you may have forgotten, or visited in your nightmares or in a previous life. These are stories that sing to you. Loudly. Proper shoulders back, wide mouthed, deep-sea breathing bursting to the surface in a wow-what-the-fuck-was-that kind of way. Some are hymns to the hand that life deals you. Deferential. You’ll get too scared to look up from the scripture you’re reading lest you start believing. Or get unbelieving.

In the introduction, Dinty W. Moore likens Mary Hamilton to a carver working the stone. He has the authority; he was the contest judge that voted this collection the winner of the Fourth Annual Rose Metal Press Short Story Chapbook Contest. You do get the impression that these stories were worked and reworked, with each word and phrase expertly placed into position after untold dress rehearsals to sit and wait patiently for you, the reader, to discover its place and its purpose.

The fictions are as expansive as they are short, and they confound from the beginning. When you read ‘I put a pickup truck in the back of my pickup truck and drove to Milwaukee’ you know this is no ordinary road trip you are about to embark on. It is a tale of fire and ice and companionship. For me this story evoked Jacks London and Kerouac, the Littlest Hobo, Coen Brothers, all put to a thundering rail-road soundtrack. The opening story also introduces you to Theodore, better known as Theo Huxtable from the Cosby Show. He and Bull Shannon (Night Court) share equal billing in this collection, although neither TV character makes a guest appearance in the texts themselves.

It is soon apparent that the scope of this writer stretches from the deeply personal to the universal. The next short is a retelling of David and Goliath, offering a loftier viewpoint than that of the traditional hero. Written in the second person, it shows what it is to be the outsider, to not fit. The humanity glows and the fragility of existence is split apart for all to look upon. We understand how easily we could have been cast in this role, in a body we didn’t wish for, praying to be the infinitesimal.

‘I am fond of you: An ode to Bull Shannon’ is a superbly executed piece. Read it and re-read it and re-read it. It contains so much yet is so simply put. The opening “I BUILT US A HOUSE!” fills the reader with exhilaration; devotion and achievement burst through this little sentence. “And you planted a garden” continues the idyllic theme. But when the feasts stop, and the lights go out, and food is as scarce as human contact, a storm comes: “a giant cloud rolling over the water.” The scale is colossal; it is On the Beach condensed. Look closely, and you’ll see that there is an even smaller narrative within the story reduced to a mere sixteen words. It ends in a plaintive cry in Morse Code. I love this story and I may even print it on a t-shirt. (I’ll make sure I credit the author.)

There is no doubt that Mary Hamilton has a talent for words. With seemingly effortless skill, she creates ultra vivid images that burn hard into your retina. The songbird that “says ‘Watcha doin’? like the knife is invisible or something.” The “spilling blood”. The “raincoat rain of silver and glass.” The life of conjoined twins distilled into nine paragraphs. From the obscure to the taken-for-granted, these are stories for anybody who felt they never quite fitted, tales for the outcasts. Told in stunning simplicity or by a fantastical turn of phrase, Hamilton makes everything out of nothing. I fear I’m in danger of spilling this chapbook’s secrets. It’s better that you discover them for yourself.

—

We Can Do Better Than to Say It Gets Better

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This is not a literary post but today is National Coming Out Day and on Friday we debut our Queer Issue and there’s a lot of buzz and chatter about the It Gets Better project so we thought we might say a little something that has been on our minds. The sentiment behind this project is admirable, telling gay teenagers to hold on because life gets better after high school. I appreciate how people from all walks of life are sharing stories of bullying, high school, coming out, and how life gets better so gay teenagers understand they are not alone, so they can have a little hope during one of the most hopeless times in anyone’s life. It’s all very laudable and it’s amazing (and a bit sad) that more than 1.4 million people have viewed the videos on the It Gets Better YouTube channel. Clearly, there’s a need for this nascent community. There is a need for these stories to be told. There is a need for the mere idea of hope.

At the same time, I cannot help but feel that it’s simply not enough to tell gay teenagers that it gets better. We’re telling these kids that there’s nothing we can to do. We’re telling them, “it gets better but for now, you will have to suffer.” We’re giving up. We are failing them. We’re also making false promises. It doesn’t get better for everyone, and in a society where gay marriage is inexplicably illegal in most states, where gay people are still in danger from hate crimes, bullying and harassment; where they don’t benefit from the protections heterosexual people take for granted; where serving in the military and putting your life on the line for your country means you have to hide who you are; in such a climate, it only gets somewhat better, doesn’t it?

I have to believe we can do better. I know we can do better. Instead of telling gay teens it gets better, we have to work to find a way to make life better for gay teens right now, not tomorrow, or next month or next year, but today. We cannot change, overnight, the attitudes of those homophobes and small-minded people (using that term loosely) who seek to torment gay teens but we should demand that our schools protect our children from bullying. We should demand zero tolerance for gay bashing in high schools with the same vigor that a zero tolerance policy is applied to a child who brings a pair of scissors to school. We should demand that our legislators enact the sorely needed civil rights legislation that should have been extended to the GLBT community a long damn time ago. Saying “it gets better” is well and good, but at the end of the day, it feels kind of hollow. It feels inadequate. We owe our children more. We owe ourselves more.  If saying “it gets better” is the best we can do, we’re way worse off than we realize.

Prayers, Poetry, Prose, Perfections

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Who has a chapbook? xTx has a chapbook. He is Talking to the Fat Lady will be released on November 15. You want this chapbook, I assure you. She also wrote the honest, quite touching and insightful  introduction to the new issue of >kill author. In that issue, you will find words from contributors  Ani Smith, Donora Hillard, J. Bradley, Joseph Goosey, Mel Bosworth, Erik Wennermark, Ravi Mangla, and last but never least, JA Tyler.

Things get referential at Referential with a story by Erin Fitzgerald.

At Booth, Aaron Burch, where things are Overcast.

In Wigleaf, a prayer from Sara Crowley.

Ryan Bradley has a story, Like Swimming, up at Atticus Books.

American Fiction’s Miss October is the one and only Lydia Ship. Read her story. It’s fantastic.

New month, new editor at Everyday Genius and new Brian Oliu which kind of rhymes with new.

Mud Luscious 13 includes Thomas Patrick Levy, CL Bledsoe and others.

Mel Bosworth’s Grease Stains, Kismit and Maternal Wisdom rides again. This charming novella will be re-released by Brown Paper Publishing this November.

Enjoy poetry from Bob Hickok in Guernica and a review of his work in the Boston Review.

At Pig in a Poke, a short story from Laurence Klavan.

Elizabeth Hildreth has a new blog and it is exactly what you would expect from a writer of her caliber–engaging, witty, and smart.

Hobart. Jamie Iredell. More from the Book of Freaks.

Word of the Ancient City, in its waning days, comes from Chantel Tattoli and Sheldon Lee Compton.

The third issue of Corium includes writing from Alec Bryan, Tara Laskowski,Joe Kapitan,    Randall Brown, Katie Jean Shinkle, Erin Fitzgerald, Steve Himmer, Ben Loory, JA Tyler, Amorak Huey, and all artwork by Peter Schwartz.

Check out Collaborative Destruction by Adam Moorad and Ana C.

The exceptional Robb Todd has a story in Blip Magazine.

New JMWW, Fall 2010, lots of great reading including work from David Peak, Scott Garson,

The October issue of decomP includes Randall Brown, Annam Manthiram,Kyle Hemmings, and other fine writers.

Glitter Pony has new words and also a big cow. You’ll have to go see to get it. There are not one but two poems from Amy McDaniel, five poems from JA Tyler, and much more.

The new month also brings freshly served elimae with writing from JA Tyler in the form of a review, Mike Meginnis, Eric Beeny.

Matt Bell’s How They Were Found was reviewed in The Believer. You want this book so get thee to Keyhole and buy the book now.

Dark Sky has a gorgeous new design and lots of news. Their first print issue will be released in November and you can read stories from Jensen Beach, Gabe Durham, Jac Jemc, Molly Gaudry, Mel Bosworth, RA Allen, Elisa Gabbert, and others.  Starting on 10/15, you can order Cut Through the Bone, a fantastic (I’ve read it) short story collection from Ethel Rohan. Check out the book trailer, too.

At Sleep.Snort.Fuck, Blue Ribbon by J. Bradley.

Seriously, though, go buy Matt’s book.

Speaking of men named Matt with books, Our Island of Epidemics has a swank website (though we perhaps use the term”swank” a bit loosely)  and you want to buy the book, so go ahead and do that while it is still available.

Ahem. Did I make myself clear?

About books by men named Matt?

Breeding and Writing: Who are you writing for?

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–by Tracy Lucas

 

I’d like to say that I’m writing for myself.

(Totally not true, of course, but I’d like to say it.)

It sounds noble and artistic and like I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about me. It lends the air of being among the writers of old who didn’t bother mailing their material out and just let it be discovered randomly in the walls of their homes after they died.

Writing for myself.

But I don’t.  And I’m betting you don’t, either.

Thinking about it the other day, I realized that I have always written to a very specific, single reader.

In On Writing, Stephen King calls his person “Dear Constant Reader” I always thought that was lame. (Though the book is awesome, and you should get it.) I’m starting to see, though, that he was right.

There is just one. It isn’t a crowd. I’m writing right now for a PANK crowd, and later this week I’ll write for a newspaper crowd, and on Monday I’ll probably write for a radio crowd. That’s work. That’s different. What I’m talking about here is the stuff that pours out of you creatively. Passionate writing, art.

When you create art, it’s moving toward someone. And it’s an uber-specific individual.

My person has drastically changed form throughout the years as I’ve grown and twisted, but there’s always been a lone, devoted person in the corner engrossed with a print-out of my words in my mind.

When I was a kid and I started on this whole writing bent, I wrote to some other nebulous chick who was just like me but a little younger. I told her how everything felt. I wrote about what it was like to get picked on at school, to wear glasses to second grade, to feel like your parents didn’t really like you. It was all quite emo, though we didn’t call it that yet.

(Sometimes, during my goofier eras, there were even imagined fan mail letters about my book, or televised invitations to write lyrics for Jackson Browne or Tom Petty. It was awesome.)

Later, I oozed puppy-love obsession into letters over and over, trying to win the soul of the basketball player I decided I was supposed to fall in love with. Even though I was too chicken to, you know, TALK to him. Ever. Once.

But I wrote to him. Yes, indeedy.

A-B-A-B poems by the dozen.

After my first serious, live-in relationship blew up in my face, I wrote rants and advice diatribes to my ex, then to my future and past selves about my ex, then to girls who had fallen for the same type of man as I had.

When my son was born, I wrote him journal entries and blog posts and post-it notes about what our life was like and where we went and when he first did every little thing, because even in my young age I know we’re all just getting older and I’ll be dead before he matures enough to care. And I want him to know.

My grandfather died a couple of years ago. Just after the funeral, my uncle said to me, “You know, I always wondered what it would be like to go back in time and have met him when he was younger, and just talk to him, hang out. I don’t mean him as our dad when we were growing up, but what he was really like, maybe when he was twenty. I wish I could have known him like that and spent time talking to him without his knowing I was his son.”

Not sure how that relates, but it does.

Who do you write for?  Who will remember you?

Has that person changed along the way for you, too?

And Then There Were Words Which Begat Words and Unto Them Were Born More Words

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We’re loathe to discuss this but both Matt and I as well as Elizabeth Hildreth and others are reading at the Book Cellar, tomorrow night, in Chicago, 7 pm. It’s a launch event for our friends at Artifice Magazine and we’re excited to help them celebrate their second issue.

Brad Green has a very short story, Hunger, in Blip Magazine.

Guess who has a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly? Paula Bomer, that’s who! And it is so very well deserved.

Matthew Salesses discusses the origins of Our Island of Epidemics at the JMWW blog.

Read Roland Goity in Gray Sparrow Journal where he is joined by Desmond Kon and Michelle Reale.

There is a new issue of Smokelong Quarterly with stories by Patrick Allen Carberry, Joe Kapitan,  Ben Loory, Annam Manthiram, Nick Ripatrazone, JA Tyler, and others.

At Ninth Letter, a four part story to which both Matthew Simmons and Sarah Laydens contributed.

Check out Joe Kapitan at Annalemma.

NOO Weekly has Corey Mesler and Corey Mesler and Kyle Hemmings.

Watch Matthew Kirkpatrick reading at the SLC Library. In the Ancient City at Necessary Fiction, Matthew Kirkpatrick uncovers another  artifact as does Kirsty Logan, Alan Stewart Carl, Erin Fitzgerald, and others.

At Dark Sky, Ethel shines her spotlight on the one and only Scott McClanahan.

Donal Mahoney brings up some poetry at New Wave Vomit.

Metazen is right up there for me with Everyday Genius (which, wow, this month is so different an interesting) and this week you can find a story from Kate Wyer.

New DOGZPLOT flash fiction including words from J. Bradley, David Peak, Lauren Becker, and others.

The Fall/Winter 2010 issue of West Branch includes poetry from Nick Ripatrazone.

This week, at LitSnack, Alexandra Isacson not once but twice.

Peter Schwartz writes a New World Love Poem at Sleep Snort Fuck.

Fringe Magazine has writing from Neil de la Flor and an interview.

Issue 3 of SpringGun includes words from Joshua Ware and Adam Moorad.

Congratulations to Matt Bell who not only has a story, Dredge, in Best American Mystery Stories 2010, his story His Last Great Gift was a “distinguished story of 2009” in Best American Short Stories 2010. I loved Dredge very much. You can read it online here.

At HTMLGIANT, a poem from Melissa Broder,entitled Supper.

New Yinzer Fiction features Jason Jordan again with his story Wolverine. Jason also has a story in Bananafish.

Are you familiar with Spine Road? I just got hip to this magazine recently and I’m really enjoying it. Read what they’ve got going on. Send them some good words.

Contributors collide when xTx reviews David Peak’s Museum of Fucked. Speaking of reviews, Ani Smith writes a sort of review of Rachel Glaser’s Pee on Water at We Who Are About to Die.

Out of Nothing, something–words from Adam Moorad and Maureen Alsop.