Meg Pokrass: Needles

Find Meg's latest at w i g l e a f : (very) short fiction.

I love a good Pokrass story. I also love saying that I love a good Pokrass story.

Ahem.

Here, Meg tells a tale about needles. Things that needle and fester, needles that release, and the actions we take which prolong pain; actions which numb ourselves to the needles of both pain and relief.

Pains from childhood, pains acquired as an adult. I love the bulbous man in the story who drives a Mercedes but who cuts his own hair. He nails it for me, shows me that the narrator is pepetuating a cycle, one more time around, taking her out of her element into a foreign world where she is a Martian, a willing martian on display for his camera.

Well, just go read it.

Flash a Thon

This week in the Zoetrope Flash Fiction wing, there is a flash-a-thon going on. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, it works thusly: for a week, you attempt to post one flash per day. For each flash you post, the system requires that you review 5 flashes.

Sounds like a tall order, and it is. However, this is a great way to push yourself or to take up those abandoned fragments and see if something can be salvaged from them. That's what I did during my first flash-a-thon as a Zoe newbie last summer. Heck, I was just coming off my first residency for my MFA so I was a virtual newbie to (serious) writing.

So, if you can't catch up enough to participate this time around, do get a Zoetrope account and poke around. Then, when the next 'thon comes around, you'll be seasoned and ready.

Don't forget to buy a silly t-shirt at FlashFrenzy!!!

Dripping Humanity

Fish: 'Swicks Rule!'

Kathy Fish has an uncanny ability to depict humanity in a very real, raw way. Her characters always seem to have a bit of grease on their nose and maybe a pimple on their neck. Not grotesque necessarily, though she does go there on occasion, but just very human.

Here, your heart just breaks for the narrator, sensing his tension and pain. He's being a good sport, surviving horrible heartbreak and loss. Just read it and let Fish show you.

I suggest reading this story and then heading to Google to find Fish's other works. You won't be disappointed if you do.

Don't forget to visit the main Wigleaf page, either.

Elvis by Hobie Anthony

Elvis by J. Hobart Anthony

I hoped they would change the pen name, but no dice. No biggie, it's still me and it's my story.

I based the dog after my friend's dog Elvis who has all four legs but who is a lab. Their earlier dog, whose name currently escapes me, was in fact bitten by a rattlesnake and had one of his back legs removed. So, I combined the two dogs, removed a leg et voila: Elvis!

I'm considering a rewrite here. I'm conceiving a collection of stories set during Chicago's infamous heat wave of 1995.

Maybe this One by Randall Brown

Word Riot

I read this one back when I first started really writing. I remember critiquing it and being somewhat of a jackass. Of course, it did need work as the piece was really a mess - written as though the author were on the way back from a Dead show with all the psychoactive implications of that.

But, it's neat to see the final form. Brown sets us up with a couple travelling and lost, a couple bound for nowhere. Free and easy out on the road until they run out of gas in a bilingual land. Love unrequited, but not by the 1st person narrator who is still yet left with something of a loss.

Check it out. Word Riot does good work, so be sure to check out the other flash pieces there.

Always Beautiful by Thomas Kearnes

w i g l e a f : (very) short fiction

I've read Thomas Kearnes work for a while at Zoetrope and I find this piece to be somewhat of a shift. Not only is he writing about a woman, or with a woman in the story, but he's taking a more poetic turn, it seems.

This is a rather nice piece, it seems to me. Anyhow, take a look and then hit the Wigleaf main page to find their other wonderful treasures.