Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I Can Haz Published Now?

Worried Note | GwI

Yup, yours truly gets published every now and then.

This is a non-fiction piece about my early days in Chicago when I lived in the notorious Uptown neighborhood amongst crackheads, crack dealers, prostitutes, and murderers. My block (Malden between Montrose and Wilson) was home to 10 murders one summer. That was the highest concentration I could find in all of Chicago in my analysis of a Chicago Tribune map.

Anyhow, I hope you read and enjoy the story.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Flash Review - Alan Michael Parker Takes a Meeting


THE COLLAGIST: Report from the Committee on Town Happiness by Alan Michael Parker

The pond. Still water, fed from beneath. Possibly fed from an underground source, if we could ever find someone to go check. Perhaps then the pond might be reopened to the town.

It remains a 3, better than two, as deigned by the Committee on Town Happiness, a collective of 7 individuals. Yet it remains closed, though they open their hearts, though they never truly share with one another.

I really like Alan Michael Parker's writing here. I've appreciated his poetry since i heard him read a few years back and now I'm pleased to find him in prose.

I must say that this flash remains somewhat of a mystery to me. Still water running deep, beneath a veneer of sheer, clear prose. Focused, engaged, prose, which I find necessary for the best flash. Even for good flash.

Anyhow, it's always a pleasure to find a great flash. It's rather like finding a pure diamond.

I give this one a tall glass of fresh spring water.

Comments are open. What do you think of, Report from the Committee on Town Happiness?