Fiction
Dentist of the Wild West
Fiction
by Deborah Vlock
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For a dentist he’s fairly good looking, but not in a way that makes you feel insignificant. Linda is his lax assistant—she doesn’t even consider using Mr. Thirsty until I’m drooling onto my pink paper bib—and I think she’s his girlfriend, too. What with the square dancing.
On Syntax: Creating Silence
a Craft Short
by Mary Stein
I have a confession to make. There is a perverse and envious part of me convinced poets are permitted to dip from a well of inspiration while prose writers must crouch, dog-like, to lap at the damp muddy edges of puddles.
The Happy Ending Effect
A Craft Essay
by Heather Sharfeddin
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One of the biggest frustrations literary authors face in publishing is the pressure to write happy endings. We consider ourselves artists, but publishing is a business—a money-making, dollars-and-cents business. It is driven by trends in consumer spending, just like any other.
11 Strategies for Ending Works of Fiction: What We Can Learn from Chekhov
A Craft Short
by David Jauss
Here are brief definitions of some of Anton Chekhov’s innovative strategies for ending stories, followed by a list of examples.
Death By Pufferfish
Fiction
by Mayumi Shimose Poe
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the writer's image of her main character
The torafugu was in his mouth. It was slippery-smooth—tsuru-tsuru, Kazuo recalled the term—so fresh it seemed to be swimming around of its own accord, milling about amongst pearly rice grains. Expect a resilient chewiness, he thought as he closed his jaws onto the flesh. Open, close, open. Not exactly slippery—kind of slimy, but the rice was familiarly comforting. The taste will be as subtle as the fragrance of spring rain, as pristine as the water flowing over a river stone flanked by a virgin forest. Close, open, throat tickle. Long pause, but grandfather was looking at him. So, close, open, swallow. The bite of fish was still largely whole when it went down his throat. It stung as it went. Stray rice grains required a second swallow. And even then, the stubborn fish tried to swim back up, like a stupid salmon with the urge to spawn.
Bobby Malone
fiction by Clint McCown
from the novel Haints
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He half expected the Reverend to ask about his hand. Bobby figured he must look like Napoleon with his arm tucked in his uniform jacket the way it was. But the Reverend didn’t seem to notice. Maybe his mind was already distracted with other people’s problems. He might well have been coming home from helping out at the scene of an accident. Or maybe he’d had an accident himself. It was certainly possible, judging from the look of him.
“I lost my right hand,” Bobby told him.
Doc McKinney
fiction by Clint McCown
from the novel Haints
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He raised the artificial leg from the crate and held it out before him, a torch lighting his clear path into the future. The crowd gasped at this new escalation of gore and impropriety.
Jerry Lee Statten
fiction by Clint McCown
from the novel Haints
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The shoe was hard to move because it wasn’t empty. There was a foot in it, and probably a leg beyond that, stretching off into the darkness of the tunnel. Jerry Lee had grabbed hold of something straight from his worst nightmares, the ones where Jesus didn’t save him from the Enemy.
Nocturne
Fiction by Karen Munro
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I went home with a woman from the bar, which is something I never do. She had black hair with a long streak of grey in it, and I thought she looked tragic and romantic. She reminded me of my aunt Dolorosa, who grew a grey streak after all her stargazers died at once.
Unlike my aunt, this woman had wings.
