Tag: Fiction

Original Side A Short Story: “Fresh Start” by Jane Snyder

Fresh Start When the car broke down, Doug said it was the fan belt. It wasn’t a bad place to be, if it had to happen, close to a plasma center and a Union Gospel Mission. We’ll give plasma now, he said, then we’ll go to the Mission. Dakota asked why, if we’re getting…
Haunted Passages Fiction: “My Acting Years” by James Pate

My acting years grew new things in me. They gave me unfamiliar words to work my mouth around with each incoming script. They lent me names through which I could expose the more fleeting instances of myself. That I was often anonymous-seeming and lacking in talent only boded well for me. If most people are…
An Excerpt from Danny Joseph’s Shortish Novel Danny the Ambulance

Danny the Ambulance is a novel about a man who walks into a bar and over the course of the night realizes everyone in the bar is named Danny. The Jury Room feels like a long thin unendurable shack and the rain pouring down overtop has the cadence and impact of tiny hammers falling on…
Abby Frucht Interviews David Winner on His New Novel, Master Lovers

While clearing out his great aunt’s midtown apartment after her death, author David Winner discovered artifacts of her storied existence: notes from opera stars, love letters, and artifacts from the Middle East of the 1930s. His Aunt Dorle had been a co-founder of Angel Records and a prominent figure in the mid-century classical music world.…
The Future Has Fiction: “Inside of a Dog, It’s Too Dark to Read” by David Ebenbach

1. Vulcan whimpered a little and then she let out a tentative yap. It was starting to get pretty warm in the lander. 2. There had been no good reason to send a dog to Venus, but that’s one of the interesting things about humans: we invented reasons in the first place, but, upon doing…
Original Short Fiction from The Future: “Hard Boiled Ovaries” by Marty B. Rivers

Xiang Lee arrived home from work greeted by his Siamese cat, perched on the kitchen counter. “I’m hungry. Feed me.” Xiang blinked, looked at the cat, “Did you just speak, Toshiko?” “I’m hungry,” repeated Toshiko, pacing. “Feed me. I want sardines.” Toshiko then screamed a baby-cry of dissatisfaction. Wide-eyed and trembling from what Xiang considered…
New Side A Fiction: “Bricknose” by K.P. Taylor

Bricknose It was like when Randy Johnson killed that dove during spring training. It came sailing out of left field just as Randy fired off his fastball, and a moment later, it exploded into a cloud of feathers. Just like in those old cartoons. Well, that’s what it was like this morning, except it was…
Haunted Passages New Fiction: “Originality” by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

I finish my story; I’m very proud of it, but I’m sure there are some loose parts that need tightening, or my ending could be less metafictional, so I bring it to workshop to get that little bit of feedback it needs. But instead of telling me how brilliant my characterizations happen to be, Kate…
Original Bad Survivalist Short Story: “The Mall” by Duncan Rivers

“Die in a field and tell me what rots first, you or your clothes. When the crows swoop down from the peaks of the barns they roost on, where will their beaks be persuaded to strike? Will it be the nylon handbag you carry over your shoulder, or the sunken eyes that wilt away in…