small town girl

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outside Lukie’s store, the pay phone rang. at the checkout Mrs. X, in her slippers and curlers, grabbed me by my ear and tugged hard. “Thief,” she hissed. she thought i’d stolen scratch tickets and there was nothing i could do to convince her otherwise; i had not choice, i moved where she tugged. fortunately … Read more

books i read in 2015

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here they are. i’m missing a few because i forgot to write them down. Anatomy of a Girl Gang by Ashley Little (fiction) Missing Men by Joyce Johnson (CNF) Minor Characters by Joyce Johnson (CNF) Journey Prize Anthology #26 (2014)(short stories) Novelists by CP Boyko (short stories) (half-read) The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (fiction) … Read more

b

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  blind black-and-blue blueprints to be or not to be bustling blindfold battle battlefield bottle-blond boobs bruises baseball first-base second-base third-base home-base baseball bat blue truck bearings bastard blank black blacked out black mascara running best friends blabber assault and battery baseline borderline blue, blue, blue burning oh boy boys bad boys barking dogs bad … Read more

george saunders

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a craft essay by the one, the only, George “no bullshit” Saunders. http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/419391/george-saunders-on-story/  

(let’s) burn this motherfucking system to the ground

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it’s been a week. i’m not fond of November because it’s dark. the news is fucking unrelenting. and then there’s this year-long realization of conditions in the misogynistic literary landscape. i had hopes. i did. the evidence isn’t supporting my hopes. then this article came along ‘on pandering’ and it’s got me thinking: where am … Read more

ambiguity in fiction

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i’ve just read an interview of Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, in which he discusses three qualities of exciting short stories, or the stories he’ll publish in the magazine: a voice, a narrator with urgency a narrator who tries to persuade you he/she is telling the truth wisdom, a kind of moral authority, or an … Read more

betty

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if you could read my mind, I’d tell you a thing or two about pink turtlenecks and regrets. listen up, you little shits wearing black-and-blue. life’s too short for a bruised beat. besides, that’s what you get from loving. listen up, will you? I’m so tired from writing it all down. listen up, don’t make … Read more