Any form of expression is arguably one committed “under the influence.” What we eat, what we say, how we walk—hell, human beings simply walking is really just a biological influence. But historically, for writers, one of the most iconic influences of all time is Absinthe—The Green Muse; a devastating liquor. Everyone from Ernest Hemmingway (his short story “Hills Like White Elephants” comes to mind) to Joey Goebel (with his novel Torture the Artist) has capitalized on the image of Absinthe. What better way to weave my own way into this cultural icon than by way of a lit mag called The Green Muse, with “Refill,” a story about a man governed by substance? I suppose a better way would have been for me to actually use the word “Absinthe” somewhere in the story. But I didn’t.

One of my writing heroes, Denis Johnson, has a few pertinent words on the topic of writing under the influence (of drugs and alcohol):

“I think it’s silly for anyone to think you could write under the influence, but if they’d like to think that, I’d like to keep the legend alive. Maybe I was under the influence when I wrote Jesus’ Son and I just didn’t know it.”

The Green Muse is a monthly journal publishing work both online and in print. They are a young journal so be sure to support them (and me) by purchasing a copy of the print journal here.

Online literary magazines seemed to me for the longest time some form of blasphemy. Not much compares to the tactile and aesthetic appeal of a printed, bound journal. Maybe that sounds a little creepy, but I’m a creepy guy.

So when writer and friend Christopher Dwyer posted over at Write Club about this online lit-mag called Dogmatika I wasn’t exactly crushing keys to get over there. But call me a convert.Dogmatika was the eye opener. It stands as not only the first online lit-mag that I read with regularity, but also the first I loved so much that I felt compelled to submit my own fiction. Head over to Dogmatika now to read my short-short, “Petty Injuries.”

Maybe I was a literary snob. Maybe I yearned too much for the prestige that comes with a printed journal. Maybe I was too focused on the canvas, not the art. I think Albert Camus is correct, that “a guilty conscious needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”Despite the form, the work needs to get out there.*

*Though I would say that many theorists, the late Jacques Derrida being one of them, might point out the impossibility of separating message from forum, that they are part of the same end. I agree. But that keeps me from being able to use the Camus quote, and I really like Camus’s work. And yes, I used the quote out of context. What are you going to do, dig up Camus’s corpse and tattle? You are? Can you get me a postcard or something?

Call it the month of Write Club. Four of us have stories in Dogmatika this month. The aforementioned Christopher Dwyer’s Parabola Jason Kane’s “Letter From Point Pleasant“ and Mark Lazer’s “Three Times Dead“ all share page space in June.