Are we going to need that? Matty said.

You never know, I said. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  I guess, he said.

He sounded unconvinced. I wrapped the gun in a towel and shoved it in the bag with the drugs and my makeup. I wasn’t interested in convincing anyone of anything anymore. I figured one man was as good as another, a car as good as a father, a womb full of rage as good as a baby for keeping you warm at night. I sat down on the arm of the couch and laced up my boots. I took a last drag off my cigarette and ground it into the carpet.

At this point, I figured Shannon would escape from that place pretty well destroyed, and although I wasn't exactly wrong, I also had no idea what was coming next.  The ending of this story is as dark and terrible as anything I've read lately, a denouement that stunned me when I first read it and upsets me to think about now. 

Read "Fistful" in the new Dogzplot, as well as a new Steven McDermott story ("Sisyphus, the Snowball, and Hell," something different from his usual offerings), plus fiction and poetry from many other writers.  So far, this is the best issue of the magazine I've read.

Alice Blue :: Big Muddy :: Blood Lotus :: The Cimarron Review :: Columbia Poetry Review :: Connecticut Review :: Diode :: The Dirty Goat :: Earthshine :: Gargoyle :: Glimmer Train :: The Greensboro Review :: Manoa :: Natural Bridge :: Paradigm :: The Sewanee Review :: SUB-LIT :: Virginia Quarterly Review

Also, Absinthe 9 just came out, and I got my copy yesterday.  I can't wait to read it.

Thanks to Aaron Burch for pointing this one out.

Also, I believe this is FRiGG's fifth anniversary issue, if I'm doing my math right.  Congrats to Editor Ellen Parker and her staff on keeping it going this long, and at such a high level of quality (and I'm not just saying that because I was in it years ago).  I'm looking forward to reading FRiGG for years to come.

Arkansas by John Brandon :: Sensational Spectacular by Nate Pritts :: Oh Baby by Kim Chinquee:: The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon by Charles Jensen :: Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee  :: You Must Be This Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane :: City of Regret by Andrew Kozma :: Spring Wind Brings the Fireworks by Christopher Kelen and Agnes Vong :: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley :: The Musical Illusionist by Alex Rose

Storyglossia, the magazine my story was originally published in, had three other Notable Stories as well, by Michael J. Davis, Stephanie Dickinson, and Anthony Neil Smith, who also guest-edited the just released Storyglossia 28, the Crime/Noir Issue (which includes a story by writing group partner Barry Graham).

Congratulations to everyone involved, and thanks again to Storyglossia and Steven McDermott for publishing all of us.  It's my favorite online magazine for full-length fiction, and I'm glad to have been a part of it over the last two years. 

 Other good news: I just had a short story ("Ten Scenes From a Movie Called Mercy") accepted for the first issue of No Colony, a print collaboration between the web journals Lamination Colony and No Posit.  Judging by their respective web presences, it should be a pretty cool issue.