A lot of very sharp short-shorts make this issue hard to put down. Christopher Benton has a wild tale of art and torture with New Sun Motel. Kieran Shea follows meth addicts to the end of the line in Where Jersey Devils Die. There's also some excellent crime poetry interspersed from the likes of AJ Hayes, Changming Yuan, and others.
While there are plenty of familiar names in here, there were a few new ones who caught my attention. Leland Thoburn has a clever, incisive piece, Wrong Number. He writes laser-like dialogue and works from an interesting premise. I also enjoyed James Gibbons' Headline: Woman Ruins All, which hammers home the point that you might want to skip a career in publishing.
Add in writers like Chris Deal, Keith Rawson, Ben Sobieck, Matthew C. Funk, and Dan O'Shea, and, well, you should buy the damn thing.
Chris you mentioned discovering new writers in this collection of stories and I really like reading that. I think a lot of writers out there were quietly grinding out stories, waiting for a platform where they could share their work. And thanks to the Internet and the growth of self publishing, there are finally ways for an unknown writer to connect with readers. Exciting times indeed.
ReplyDeleteThanks for making us aware of these folks.
have to check it out
ReplyDeleteIt's a really good issue. Got a lot of names that are going places. Somehow they slipped up and let one of my pieces of doggerel masquerading as poetry slip in. The rest of the issue is kick ass.
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