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"The Storm" by Jennifer Flynn - © 2008
<- FROM THE EDITOR -> A special high school English teacher
by Derek Alger
"Mr. Duffy and my mother both knew I could write, actually thought I would become a writer long before I had any inkling of it. I have no idea what they saw, or how they knew, but here I am writing this, so they must have known something. I can say this, however, it was only years later that I came to really appreciate what Mr. Duffy had done for me as a teacher."
<- ONE ON ONE -> Jamie Malanowski
interviewed by Derek Alger
"No editor or publisher ever wakes up in the morning, looks out his window, and scans the landscape for a brilliant writer who’s just too shy to put himself or herself forward. It’s a put yourself forward business, at every level."
Molly Peacock
interviewed by Derek Alger
"I went to the State University of New York at Binghamton and studied with the poet Milton Kessler. He gave me the best advice about my poems. He’d point to something in a poem that he thought was successful and he’d say, 'See that?' 'Yes,' I’d say. 'Well,' he’d say, '“do that again.'”
Walter Cummins
interviewed by Derek Alger
"All through college, I wrote for the school paper and even edited a humor magazine, for a while emulating a then-popular humor writer named Max Shulman. Junior year, with trepidation, I signed up for a creative writing course, which started my life of fiction despite the disasters of those early stories."
<- ESSAY -> Katie Couric is No Friend of Mine
by Paul Casey
"When I figured out the gloved, masked woman’s task, I remembered my advice to my teenage daughter...Sarah, who had the cat on her lap, suddenly thrust the animal off of her lap and screamed. I spotted the problem right away, a turd clinging to the fur on the cat’s ass...I told her if that happened to me I would kill myself."
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<- POETRY -> Adult Orthodontics
by Pam Uschuk
Grant's Pass
by Sid Miller
<- MACRO-FICTION -> The Big Night
by Bronwen Hruska
Lilly did appreciate facts. She appreciated that the sun was 93 million miles from the earth, that the Empire State Building was 1,250 feet tall, that the human brain weighed three pounds, that E=mc2. She did not appreciate the fact that her mother had decided to kill herself because Lilly was unable to conceive a child.
<- MICRO-FICTION -> The Black Pool
by Steve Armour
She lies as she lies in bed sometimes. “It’s good, my flat chest,” she says sometimes, “I can sleep on my stomach.” Sometimes she will sleep on her stomach and her hair will pool around her head just that way. Sometimes it will do just that. And I have seen that.
A Set Theory
by Letizia Pezzali
Of the various possible partitions of humankind, the division between those who swim and those who don’t is actually a very well-known one. Levante belongs to the non-swimmers set and when he goes to the seaside he is a spectator. Miranda is a protagonist instead...She simply enjoys swimming and if she was presented with the set theory she wouldn’t necessarily understand. “I like sports, that’s all.”
<- BOOK LOVERS -> Three Balconies--Stories and a Novella
by Bruce Jay Friedman
reviewed by Charles Salzberg
Crazy Love
by Leslie What
reviewed by R. A. Rycraft
"There is a lot of fear embedded in some of these stories. Men and women fear spending their lives alone, but also fear the possibility of spending their lives with one another. Often there is potential for companionship within reach, but the character, burdened with the baggage of insecurity, isn't capable of overcoming her fear of closeness."
<- GUEST COLUMN -> Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America
by Thomas E. Kennedy
by Walter Cummins
"Tom Kennedy enjoys a unique perspective for writing about America. He has spent half his life in Europe, primarily Denmark, and has traveled throughout the world. But he retains his American citizenship and makes frequent trips back to the U.S., staying in close contact with family and his many friends in this country. This international context enriches his observations."
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