Another fine yarn from ye olde Caleb J Ross takes valuable web space away from more needy charities. This one, an excerpt from my unpublished novel, Stranger Will, is called Formaldehyde and appears at the never disappointing Red Fez.

Formaldehyde is a bastardized version of the opening chapter of Stranger Will, very much pulled apart and reassembled into something with its own horrible intentions. This is all to say that if you don’t like this story, then you may still love Stranger Will. However, if you do love this story then I take back what I said above; this story is exactly like the rest of the novel.

I’ve been clicking over to 3:AM Magazine for quite a while now. I can’t remember where I first heard about it (probably from Dogmatika, where I hear about most every great thing in the underground lit scene), so I can’t place praise with full accuracy. However, I can pass on the good word. And what better way to do so than via the news of my own story, “Snake Girl at Scab,” getting some page space.

Some author notes on the story:

During my first visit to Portland, Oregon (USA), some locals took us to an event called First Thursdays, a neighborhood art gallery orgy (artgy, if you will) with booths, food, music, and lives to be changed. Most cities have these types of events, but due to a strange encounter involving an emotionless girl carrying a snake, this artgy impacted more than normal.

The snake girl depicted in this story is accurately described, with absolutely no fiction license taken. When she approached us at First Thursdays, pink lipstick, barefooted, snake in hand, and arm outstretched with requests for money, I was stunned. Granted this is isn’t the strangest thing to have ever happed to me, not by a long shot, but the combination of unfamiliar territory with such a displaced character stayed with me. I want to do more with the snake girl. I’m sure she will turn up in future projects.

Also, “Snake Girl at Scab” is, in a way, my own sort of scab, patching over a weakness that had been slowly compromising my stories for a while. At the time I wrote this story I had been writing a lot of grotesque stories, forcing visceral imagery and dark situations where perhaps they didn’t belong. Luckily, I’ve aborted these stories so they will never see print. “Snake Girl at Scab” was my way of reconnecting with tried-and-true storytelling.

Click the link above. Read the story. Then stick around for a bit and check out the rest of the site. I’m serious when I say that 3:AM is an asylum for some of the best underground writers around.

Other writers include John Edward Lawson, D. Harlan Wilson, Jason M. Heim, and others.

“The Barber…” is quite a bit different than what I usually write, as my aesthetics since this story was originally written (2004) have changed. This is by no means a denouncement, just a way to say we change. I do love the story, though; I wouldn’t have okayed it for publication otherwise.

Author’s Notes:

My first attempt (of many) at being Brian Evenson. I hope that if I ever get to meet the man—more than the passing book signing plea—he doesn’t beat me for abusing his name like this. Luckily, though, most readers probably wouldn’t draw a comparison to Evenson because really, would you compare a Montana Mike’s Buffalo Burger to a McBurger? They’re both the same style, but one won’t make you vomit.

So, with my newest publication I figure I would do the same. Present Magazine has just posted my story “Dry Dot.” Here’s the thoughts:

At every rain I wonder—though the drop patterns are likely random—if there is a single spot somewhere within the downpour where no drop falls; where the concrete remains dry. Give water’s tendency to pool together, could there be an untouched dot? Further, how would we explain it? Science? Maybe, but wouldn’t that argument just be destroyed by politics? Global warming, anyone? It seems even the earth is subject to abiding by the party with the most supporters.

Also, the strangeness of the name Durzenkya, I think satisfies both the parable-like nature of the story and my Evensonian obsession with crazy character names.

Click here to read the story. Please enjoy.

Present Magazine is a Kansas City area arts publication focused on bringing the area’s best creative talents to the forefront. Also, they bring people like me to the forefront.

Luckily, Word Riot considered my words suitable. Appearing now is my short fiction piece, “Our Guy.” Skim it, then immediately buy “We Were Ugly…” (if not for the stories, do it for purposes of understanding what the title of this post means).

Word Riot is a Monthly online literary magazine with a notable book catalog under the Word Riot Press imprint.

“It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kidnappers had to keep the man alive [...] He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn’t good.”

The internet has without a doubt promoted the art of flash fiction more than any other medium. The internet reader is a predictable type, one with short attention span while simultaneously being offered infinite possible directions. The charge upon the author is to craft something meaningful using as few words as possible (generally about 500 – It’s hard to stay with a story while so much delicious porn lingers just a mouse-click away).

Fortunately, for all of us, flash fiction isn’t being left to fend for itself. Numerous online and print literary magazines are being produced that cater specifically to the flash fiction genre. Head over to one of the best, Vestal Review, to read my flash fiction piece “5″ x 6″ in a Sturdy Frame.” Then read all the other offerings; you’ll have plenty of time left over for porn, I promise.

Vestal Review is a quarterly print and online literary magazine devoted entirely to flash fiction under 500 words. While you’re perusing the goods spend a few bucks and subscribe: you’ll need to fill what little time you spend away from the internet reading something, right?

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.