FICTION
Best
Gary Sheppard
10.31.11
The thing about love is not that it's terrifying––it's that it may one day cease to be terrifying. Gary Sheppard knows Best.
rags of motel carpet waited to grow a brain
Mark Baumer
09.26.11
The two most important questions upon waking are: Where am I? and, Where are my pants? Leon is going to have trouble answering either of these. New flash fiction from Mark Baumer.
Sam in a Slipshod Style
Laura Jane Faulds
08.31.11
This is an ode to co-dependence. Let's all be extremely self-conscious and revel in the knowledge that we are imperfect beings that not even Keith Richards can illuminate. And who is Keith Richards to you, anyway? And how can you be sad in the summertime when he shows up precisely not to give you love or validation? Let's take a walk in the park. Let's hold ourselves tight and sing, Baby, baby keep me happy.
"Same Heart They Put You In"
Mike Young
04.26.11
Mike Young has range. First saw him reciting poetry with puppets & other props, performing sans script. Was pretty blown away, especially after reading such weirdness sculpted beautifully in the book We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough. But wait, Young writes short fiction too - see Look! Look! Feathers which includes "Same Heart They Put You In". Here's a wincingly funny bildungsromanesque (it's a long story) that captures a 90s voice as well as Cameron Crowe's Fast Times caught the 70s, John Hughes the 80s, or George W. Bush the 00s (who did capture that last decade?...Mike may've got that one too). So I'm bad for hyperbole, but in short, expect a blockbuster out of Young's writing one day. And more puppets! -CM
"Le Rire de la Meduse" - an excerpt from The Correspondence Artist
Barbara Browning
11.15.10
The Correspondence Artist, Barbara Browning's 21st century epistolary novel is jam-packed with cultural references and lubricated body parts and has been praised by Harry Matthews, DJ Spooky and Rebecca Miller. In a fiction that merges with cultural theory, Vivian and her lover Tzipi Honigman, a 68-year-old Nobel Prize-winning Israeli novelist, make out to a mix tape that includes such hits as Lacan's seminar on Poe, Sartre and Simone Beauvoir's threeway, Tippi Hedron the Swedish Jew and mistranslated sexual idioms. Is it a federal offense to steal a letter or is it in fact totally impossible? When you steal a letter, do you become the letter's true intended audience? Either way this is mail worth rifling through. The book is due out in February from Two Dollar Radio.
That Which
Lonely Christopher
10.13.10
Lonely Christopher brags "You might be the loneliest person in the world. You'll never be as lonely as me," but what he lacks in friends he seems to be making up for with admirers. His short story collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse is due out in February from Akashic and has already been praised by Dennis Cooper, Kevin Killian and Dale Peck. His story "That Which" explores the mother-child bond with the apocalyptic intensity that only a true shut-in can know.
"Ice Melter" a short story from "Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls"
Alissa Nutting
09.08.10
Alissa Nutting's collection of short stories Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls was selected Ben Marcus as the winner of the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction. Both funny and experimental, each story in the collection is told by a woman stuck in an unpleasant job, such as zoo keeper, knife thrower, corpse smoker and even the rather unlikely human ant farm. Her story "Ice Melter" is a cocktail of diabetes, heroin chic and social anxiety. The collection is due out on October first.
"It Hatched and It Died" an excerpt from Brand New Berto
Matthew Jent
09.01.10
If you drive to a parking lot in Ohio over the Labor Day weekend, you might see this exact story taking place. Matt Jent nails the teenage experience of this spot on the calendar: making a name for yourself at a new school, the thrills of the the backseats of cars, the anxiety and excitement of, gulp, hanging out with older kids. If like me, your heart still dies a little every time you see a "Back to School Sale" sign, Matt Jent's impeccable pacing and a great ear for dialogue ought to take the edge off. Accompanying illustration provided by Ben Costa, winner of a Xeric Award for his self-published comic book Shi Long Pang.
People In San Francisco
Wyatt Williams
07.10.10
In San Francisco, as a protean breed/brood/batch of entrepreneurs keep floating through a misanthropic freelancer's life, the writer realizes the only person he hates more than his subjects is himself.
Teen Porn
Andrew Leland
04.30.10
You never know where this business starts. Erotica - You know? Maybe in the future everyone will be writing it. Everyone. Andrew Leland, ultrasuperstar in my book (and the book of many) gives us a peek at that future (Hey whatchoo lookin' at Willis?) This is spores, this is pottery. I mean this is prose, this is poetry. I mean this is the stuff, so read. Art by Danny Jock.
Women Making Love With Monsters
Emily Schultz
04.27.10
Maybe you are well versed in mythology, like you have a good grasp of the Greek monsters - the minotaurs, centaurs, harpies, and such? the Irish Dulhallan, or the Hebrew Leviathan and Behemoth always ready to duke it out? But have you ever seen any at a party? Have you ever run your gaze over an entire Dewey Decimal horde of unearthly beasts and got your pick of the litter, the most well hhhh… happy to see you? Well parties, as they did in Roman times, still tend to end rather ugly, with drunken garrolousness and folks fighting in the streets. Emily Schultz, author of Heaven Is Small and cooeditor of Joyland, guides us on a night like no other. Art by Danny Jock.
Everybody Loves Ramen
Jimmy Chen
03.16.10
So you're a fan of Ray Romano eh? Yes No Maybe? Well fuggetabouthim and reflect for a moment on that other show, you know the 'controversial' and hugely popular, metafictiony, Wong family sitcom known as Everybody Loves Ramen? Jimmy Chen tells the tale of a show still basking in the aether of our retro-consciousness (whether you know it or not). Watch for falling boom mics, and enjoy.
The Lever
Jim Ruland
02.24.10
Jim Ruland is the author of the short story collection Big Lonesome, a recurring contributor to The Believer, and the host of the irreverent reading series Vermin on the Mount at the Mountain Bar in L.A.'s Chinatown. Ruland lives in San Diego and has family on both sides of the national dividing line. His story "The Lever" reflects life in a border town during the current narco-conflict and how even those who aren't causing the violence may begin to feel culpable. Accompanying image by Eugene Delacroix.
Happy Rock
Matthew Simmons
02.08.10
Matthew Simmons is the author of the short story collection A Jello Horse and a recurring contributor to the Believer. Here he limns that eternal question: Is humanity regressing or did I just move back to my hometown?
Accompanying images of "Graybows" are from artist Joe Hardesty.
Unicorns
Joanna Ruocco
01.17.10
Joanna Ruocco's writing is packed with odd and intelligent linguistic adventures and has received praise from Robert Coover and Carole Maso. In her first short story for Fanzine, she addresses Derrida's football scholarship, drinking gimlets in body stockings, gluten allergies, the Cuban revolution and the self-conscious feeling that arrives when we become concerned that our thoughts and fantasies are determined by the power structure. "Unicorns" is from her forthcoming short story collection Man's Companions. The accompanying images are from Portland-based artist and designer Sarah Gottesdiener, who is also one half of the performance duo, The Gay Deceivers.
Greyson, Griffin, Guillermo
Matt Bell
01.06.10
In the still nebulous world of internet fiction, Matt Bell is a writer who embraces its possibilities. He edits Dzanc Books' online fiction journal The Collagist and when his novella, The Collectors, praised by Brian Evenson and Deb Olin Unferth, quickly sold out its limited print run, Bell posted the PDFs of the book on his website for anyone to read or print. His first short story for Fanzine "Greyson, Griffin, Guillermo" has a kind of old testament gruesomeness and the accompanying images are courtesy of painter Joshua Hagler, who shares his captivating and unsettling aesthetic. Hagler is also the creator of the comic book The Boy Who Made Silence.
The Odditorium
Melissa Pritchard
11.21.09
Believe it or Not oh ye future genius writers to be, who slave away for free as interns and fact checkers at various magazines around the world, just know this - that behind every great magazine, great published story, or great huxter of the world, like say a Robert LeRoy Ripley of grand sideshow fame, there is usually a great "fact checker," as it is reveled here in Melissa Pritchard's great story, "The Odditorium".
'Indentical City'
Joshua Cohen
11.04.09
Scary doesn't end abruptly each year at the 24 hundred hour, 10/31. We're gonna keep up the creep through the new year if we can help it… thusly, here's a nervy piece from Joshua Cohen. One of the most productive and inventive authors we've read in years, Cohen is always a pleasure to have on Fanzine. His teeming talent is metered by an earthy humor and humility (when I wrote him and said I thought he was more Joyce than Faulkner based on a recent Rumpus interview, he said actually all the inspiration comes from The Uncle Floyd Show). 'Identical City' is from his Genizah series, which he will be reading from November 6th at the Writers House at New York University (58 West 10th St., 5pm. Come if in NY). Art here by Danny Jock.
The H Word
Carlos Kotkin
08.04.09
When ChickenWhisperer finally meets up with BeachVixen78 via an online dating site, sparks of only a minor velocity fly. Things begin as these things do, which is to say, pleasantly. Several misunderstandings later, coitus ensues. Like many daters, ChickenWhisperer was a fan... then he had this date, and maybe developed a misgiving or two. Surprise, surprise. So will he end up burning her house down? Will she be able to tell that he did, if he indeed chooses to, in the ensuing two weeks post-date number 3? Read the story to find out. Art by Danny Jock.
Letter to My Ex-Wife, in Need of an Explanation
Matty Byloos
07.06.09
Ah - "The L.A. Jacks," a secret group of men who get together... intimately, and well... Well sometimes you can just write too much in a letter to an ex, as our friend Mitch does here. Explanations can often snowball, and then... heck, everything's relative, and everyone's a little pervy, right? - "Japan even has a soup called 'bukkake udon,' it’s so normal over there." Stateside we just throw in some nativity imagery and out pops a glistening gem like this one from Matty Byloos' psyche plumbing, often painfully hilarious new collection of stories, Don't Smell The Floss. Art by Danny Jock.
Stay Busy Line
Dallas Hudgens
06.27.09
Okay true it’s summer, and the Stanley Cup is firmly in Penguin hands till next year, but we got one more hockey story for you, some new fiction from Dallas Hudgens - the tale of a down on his luck semi-pro from Ontario who never quite learned his half and whole steps on the piano is battling to keep it together, at turns giving piano lessons to a young lady, stocking shelves in a Rite AID, while hallucinating the horrors of his father and body checking everyone who might breathe at him funny. Meet Serge in 'Stay Busy Line.' Art by Danny Jock.
First Signs of Life in the Desert Outside of Las Vegas
Kevin Paul Giordano
06.19.09
If you’ve ever driven to Vegas on a wild itch to burn some money, raise hell, or...cough...take the family for a good wholesome time, you may have witnessed the grandeur of some of the sites that surround it, the desert in all its glory at sunset, the jackrabbits, cacti and purple silhouettes of mountains, or a little project from the Depression days known as the Hoover Dam. Vegas teems with desperation, and so does that which surrounds it. Here’s a story from Kevin Paul Giordano, art by Danny Jock.
100 Percent Handsome
Robyn Weisman
06.14.09
"Did you get my profile?" I get in an email and a couple of surprise chats, and I'm like oh hell I am so behind with Ms. Weisman because the other piece she sent in was like 25 pages and I am thinking - profile, oh no, it could be longer - and I'm about ready for adderol therapy, but then breathe and then fall into that tunnel, you know that vortex of clarity and focus that means something's good and realize we have a bona fide gem of hallucinatory gonzo style profilage on Fanzine's hands, lizards and all, but just a taste now, like a lemon biscuit for tea. And heck I have a half chihuahua thing too, a dog, albeit!...but so you have to read this...NOW!
Bury My Heart at Tataouine
Brian Joseph Davis
06.11.09
Who here recalls Westworld? - in which a robotic Yul Brenner made the bald-guy-in-cowboy-hat look hip long before today’s slew of Hair Club, Stetson-glued-on, Nashville stars? Well, that’s neither here nor there for this story, except that it's a loosely cloaked sci-fi western. Brian Joseph Davis, author of the novels I, Tanya and Portable Altamont, and one of the editors at the esteemed lit site Joyland, puts Star Wars fanatics into a faux journalistic, Jodorowsky style western that's dry and crisp like a fine Chianti washing down a spaghetti shoot-em-up. Enjoy a taste here. Art by Danny Jock.
'The Candidate's Daughter'
Elizabeth Searle
02.19.09
Say your mother is running for Vice President of the United States and you are a pregnant teenager, stuck on the campaign bus tending to your mother's latest baby and brooding about your hockey-player boyfriend. In real life, you might feel totally trapped, but in Elizabeth Searle's fictional version, the candidate's daughter decides someone in her life needs a plan besides 'Mommy and God.' The trick is how 'Cristal' can give mother and the national press corps 'the slip' and start building her own power base. So dial back into election mode, and remember that any resemblance to actual individuals, living or dead, is purely - or maybe not so purely - coincidental. Art by Danny Jock.
'Slush'
Joshua Cohen
01.09.09
It's hard not to be gun shy in writing a blurb for this gem from Joshua Cohen. After all, it’s one of the king of quips, the slush pile lord, who gets his clock cleaned in it. Cohen's recent work includes the novels Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto and A Heaven of Others, and Aleph-Bet: An Alphabet for the Perplexed (three texts). For more see his website. I command ye to read more Cohen, yes.
Online Help
Robyn Weisman
08.26.08
The world of employment agencies and temp workers is a bizarre one, and when it intersects with a graveyard shift proofreading at a legal firm, things can can get downright maddening. Here, Robyn Weisman recounts the experience of working with the kind of woman that temp agencies just love - pleasant, chatty and eager to increase her words-per-minute - and watches her true identity emerge over the course of the night. Art by Danny Jock.
"Purple Dolphin"
Nick Sylvester
06.18.08
Well we had to get this joke out of the way from the git-go...that it's a true blast to finally read Nick Sylvester's "real" fiction (which is to say if the gonzo reporting tradition was never your cup of tea, then there are plenty of News Corp. outlets out there now to get your "facts" from...). Here's a chapter from Sylvester's debut novel, the forthcoming Ten Minute Wait about "a secret society of waiters on the brink of exposure, a mistranslation that triggers a city-wide kitchen staff revolt, and a desperate downtown poet-waiter type who accidentally becomes famous off a silly pomo gag." Art by Danny Jock.
Wilderness Year
Sean Dungan
05.05.08
Psychic messages from a military base bagboy. Sean Dungan just published his first collection of stories, Unwelcomeness, a book designed with class by Caryn Aono and beautifully illustrated by Gail Swanlund. Dungan, a west coast author, whose range and strangeness of vision harkens (to this blurber anyway, if I may take liberties) the work of George Saunders, Ben Weissman or Ben Marcus. Here's a taste, the story "Wilderness Year" - featured in Unwelcomeness that is very welcome here on Fanzine. Art by Danny Jock.
Sitter
Rachel Sherman
04.22.08
Like the teacher who thought you'd amount to nothing, or the boy in the third grade with the runny nose you couldn't help having a secret crush on, it isn't easy to forget your babysitters. Bet none of them were like this one. Fanzine first encountered Rachel Sherman, author of The First Hurt (a finalist for the 2006 Frank O'Connor prize), on Jaime Clarke's Talk Show column. Here she brings to the table a flash work of fiction. Art by Danny Jock.
Gatlinburg
Douglas Light
04.03.08
Here's a deft dab of a story by Douglas Light, author of the 2006 Benjamin Frankling Award winning novel, East Fifth Bliss. In it, a couple, soon to be 'Life-mate's, find themselves at an impasse of words.
Manifest Destiny
Andrew Lewis Conn
02.21.08
Andrew Lewis Conn returns to Fanzine with an unsparing short story about a father, a son, and the American Dream. Frederick Jackson Turner never imagined a theory of the frontier like this. Illustrations by Robin Brasington.
from The Season of Gene, a novel
Dallas Hudgens
09.25.07
Dallas Hudgens, FANZINE regular and author of the rollicking Drive Like Hell, returns with another novel for sports fans and literati alike, The Season of Gene (available now). Here's an excerpt (Chapter 20 in fact) of this tale of beer league baseball, mobsters and gamers, pain pills, lost love and lifted lids. Illustrations by Danny Jock.
Gardeners Anonymous
Trinie Dalton
09.02.07
Trinie Dalton, author of Wide Eyed, delivers Fanzine a tale of ghosts, gardens and Pinocchio, just right for ringing out the summer! The story was inspired by the accompanying plant drawings by Dalton's brother Greg, an avid botanist and artist based in LA.
Is this Ed Park?
Ed Park
06.30.07
Ed Park's first novel, Personal Days, will be published by Random House in 2008. While we wait, Park shares with us another peek at his Borgesian work-in-progress, The Dizzies. Illustrations by Park himself.
Concerning the Work of Dark Red Paw
Ed Park
10.28.06
In what is arguably Orson Welles' best movie, F For Fake, the director (with sly chagrin beaming from glassy eyes) serenely references a line from Kipling: "It's pretty, but is it art?" Later in the film, he updates this question with more modern, art market apropos flair: "It's pretty, but is it...Rare?" Ed Park's hero from this excerpt of his manuscript The Dizzies is forced to ask himself: Is it pretty, did I break it, and how much are we talking about here? Fanzine is proud to have this preview from Park, a founding editor at The Believer and a caustically funny, formidable storyteller in his own right. Enjoy now, and remember later, you read it at Fanzine first.
accompanying illustrations by the author
"In the Blink of an All Seeing Eye"
Ben Bush
10.16.06
Ben Bush delivers to us this tale about superfamous filmmaker Vic Graburn (in words and illustrations by Bush himself).
Sh...
Peter Jacoby
04.01.06
Meds, Cereal, and Horror Movie Icons: a new story by Peter Jacoby. The title photo "Chain of Doors" is by Adam Lampton. The illustrations of Freddy and Jason are by James Braithwaite.
Untitled: A Review
Joshua Cohen
10.27.05
A book reviewer finds that a submission is more than a tad bit personal. 6 million pages worth. This story is from Cohen's recently released collection on Twisted Spoon Press called The Quorum.
Ohne Titel (der Punkt)
Matty Byloos
09.09.05
Berlin in the last days of Hitler. A travelling spot on one's foot. Bicycles. An accident. Matty Byloos delivers one of his signature surreal stories in the tradition of Kafka, tinged with the neuroses of Bernhard.
Oceanic
Trinie Dalton
07.21.05
"Oceanic" from Trinie Dalton's collection Wide Eyed on Akashic Books' Little House on the Bowery Series, edited by Dennis Cooper. Now available for order! Beaches, marriage, rum and the fear of things swimming beneath you.