PANK's Online Issue 4.7 has just been posted, and includes work by Anthony Bromberg, Robert Brown, Ricky Garni, Lee Goodman, Lesa Alison-Hastings, Caroline Klocksiem, Ashia Lane, David LaBounty, Sharon McGill, Steve Meador, Sid Miller, David Moyer, Edwin Wilson Rivera, Ethel Rohan, Laura Ellen Scott, Allan Shapiro, Anne Valente, Robert Alan Wendeborn, Joel Willans, and xTx.

While there are tons of great writers I'm happy to get to read here, I'm most excited to see my very close friend Anne Valente's fine story "Nines" published in such an excellent magazine. It was one of the first stories of hers I read after we met last fall, and PANK has published both the story itself and an audio file of Anne reading it.

Here's the beginning of "Nines":

The ingredients emulsified – olive oil, balsamic, a pinch each of salt, pepper and sugar – and Jenna poured them over the lettuce she’d torn, adding a few sprigs of rosemary on top. She set the mixing cup in the sink and watched it flood with water, the oil refusing to blend, its spots pooled on the surface. She watched for only a moment, then grabbed a box of Triscuits from the cabinet, setting a handful on her plate.

She’d almost put the box back when she counted them – nine crackers – and added one more, an even ten. As she put the box back on its shelf, she knew, in the way people make small concessions and move on, that the choice was purposeful, and that for her – today – there would be no nines.

Click here to read the rest of the story, and then here to see what other literary goodness this issue has to offer.