Recommended Reading From Online Magazines

March 14, 2010

How many literary journals are there? How many stories in those journals?
Thousands.
If you’ve got time to read them all, we want to know your secret.
For the rest of us, here’s a sneak peek into the world of online literature, where stories — really truly great stories — abound.
Enjoy.

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Happy Birthday, Jack

March 12, 2010

“And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on the innocent cupboard doors it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void–”
– Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969)

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Noted Abroad

March 11, 2010

Getting Awkward In the Bilingual Boudoir
by Charlie Geer
They say that if you didn’t learn a given language in the cradle, the next best way to learn it is in the sack. If you really want to learn Polish, for example, date a Pole. Be this as it may, the conjugal bed should not be considered [...]

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Three Noir Poems

March 11, 2010

Dirty Bits
by Merril Cole
No, it’s not pornography.
The suture hardly holds.
It sags like old glass.
Cut in half,
A smile becomes sellable.
No, not ghosts.
The laundry of the dead,
Listing in the wind.
Stains quiet in early light.
Among the eyeless dolls
And unpriced socks.
Hit with limbo,
The body grows damp.
No, call it a garden,
Where sallow flowers bloom
Like low wattage bulbs.
Merrill Cole is an [...]

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Thursday’s Flurry of Words

March 11, 2010

We wish you nothing but the best. Success is good for you, us, the world. We also wish for the success of literary endeavors — most of the time. Maybe it’s just that our version of literary success and someone else’s version of literary success cross in the overlapping mutuality of the Venn diagram. Either [...]

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Wake Us Up When It’s Awesome

March 10, 2010

We’re in the middle of spring semester, and our procrastination is killing us. We’ve got piles of papers to grade, submissions to sort through, and some stories to edit and send away.
Our lives are the equivalent of Rip Van Winkle’s farm: weedy and barren. We want to carry our guns out into the Catskills. We want [...]

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Sonic Truth

March 9, 2010

Last week, a Large Hearted Boy got us thinking about all those sexy people we’re dying to date — writers who can sing, singers who can write. A few of these People Who Are Obnoxiously Talented At More Than One Thing include our imaginary boyfriend Ryan Adams. Adams has published a collection of poems entitled [...]

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Kitchen Knife

March 5, 2010

by Ed Higgins
Kitchen Knife (n.)
1. A standard kitchen tool consisting of a sharp blade attached to a handle intended for cutting, peeling, chopping, slicing, and dicing.
2. Used primarily for food preparation (see also BUTCHERING; BACKSTABBING; JACK THE RIPPER; DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS).
3. Operated by hand, although some powered by [...]

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Naked As The Rain

March 4, 2010

by William Doreski
The rain today looks more naked
than usual. It bastes the treetops
with id. I dreamt I walked a horse
beside the railroad. The creature shrank
with every step until I stuffed it
into my largest coat pocket.
At home I caught you dissecting
an ordinary garter snake.
Split lengthwise, it resembled
a stretch of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Out of my pocket, [...]

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Thursday’s Flurry of Words

March 4, 2010

Sunrise gets more praise than it should. If we’re awake for a sunrise it means one of several things has happened: we’ve had a brush with alcohol poisoning, insomnia, or have just an ungodly reason for waking up earlier than normal. No, instead of filling us with warmth and optimism, sunrise reminds us of a [...]

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