Julia Fine’s American Fable is a strong contemporary portrait of the individualism and unrest at play in this year’s mass shootings, police misconduct and mob behaviour. We introduce poet Annie Christain’s hilarious, delightful and charged with the unexpected poems. Editor’s Choice Mark Svenvold’s work about recording sessions featuring Motown legends are exuberant pieces that solicit introspection. Past contributor Kirk Nesset contributes a micro-essay that clearly defines short-short fiction. We have a micro poem by past translation contributor Randi Ward and Brandon Ayre writes about one of Barry White’s fans in the context of a dysfunctional relationship. Australian Fikret Pajalic brings us a story in the Queen’s English. An excerpt from David Barudin’s Alternate Routes is a smooth and keenly observed river pastoral. Daniel Donaghy’s poem talks about racism in Philadelphia and Michael Prior hashes out one of the late 1990’s most underrated films, Grosse Pointe Blank. Matthew Landrum translates emerging poet Katharina Müller from the German. Prose by Tim Craven and a poem by Anna Leahy open the issue. Alison Smith recounts some instructions from a child that are a bright reminder of wishing parents were perfect and we have two moving poems by Jamie Mcgraw. Guest art editor Owen Duffy picks a range of pieces from galleries in the United Kingdom and the United States.
ART
Virtual Sheepdog
by Christine Navin
Black Rags
(I STILL HATE WEDNESDAYS)
by Amanda Ross-Ho
Black Skull
by Anne Katrine Senstad
Polaroiid Experiment
by Nathan Crowder
Black Parts
by Antony
From series Canvas Is Struck with Sticks
by Conor Backman
airplane window
by Aaron Koehn
Black and White
by Alex Peace
Fish Net
by Samina Iqbal
ESSAY
Short Short, Sudden, Flash Fiction and Micro: The Age of the Miniscule Tale
by Kirk NessetLen Messineo
PROSE
Argentina
by Tim Craven
FICTION
American Fable
by Julia Fine
About Julia Fine
Julia Fine is a Washington, DC area native who has been living happily in the Midwest for the past eight years. She has a BA from Grinnell College and is completing her MFA in creative writing with a Follett Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Luminarts Review, Necessary Fiction, and Literary Chicago, where she serves as Essays Editor. She is the recipient of a 2014 Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellowship from the Union League Club of Chicago, and is currently at work on her first novel.
Excerpt from Alternate Routes
by David Baruden
Wasps
by Fikret Pajalic
About Fikret Pajalic
Fikret Pajalic came to Melbourne as a refugee and learnt English in his mid-twenties. His fiction has appeared in Overland, Westerly, Etchings, The Big Issue, Mascara, Writer’s Edit, Regime, Verity La, Gargouille, Verge Annual, Seizure, 21D, Tincture, Bird’s Thumb (USA), The Red Line (UK), Structo (UK), and JAAM (NZ). He is working on a short story collection funded by Arts Victoria.
Barry White's Fan
by Brandon Ayre
About Brandon Ayre
Brandon Ayre has had stories published in Cartagena Journal, Black Heart Magazine, The Medical Post, and The Northshire Press. He’s studied writing at The Vermont Studio Center, The New School, and The New York State Writers’ Institute at The University of Albany. He is married, has two children, and lives and works in Vermont and New York. Links to his other stories can be found at www.brandonayre.com
INTERVIEW
Interview with Aurelie Sheehan
Interviewed by Alex Carpenter
About Aurelie Sheehan
Aurelie Sheehan is the author of two novels and three collections of stories, most recently Demigods on Speedway (University of Arizona Press, 2014). A novella, This Blue, was published as a Ploughshares Solo in 2013. Her short fiction has appeared in journals including Conjunctions, Fence, The Mississippi Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and The Southern Review. She is a professor of fiction at the University of Arizona.
IN TRANSLATION
German Author Katharina Müller
Fragments of a long-gone summer
Between the weary days of June
do you have a room for me in weimar?
Fragments of a long-gone winter
Translated by Matthew Landrum
POETRY
On Robinson’s Career, an Update
re: The Plan D Sessions,
Plan D
by Mark Svenvold
About Mark Svenvold
Mark Svenvold’s The New Commute, about the quest to solve traffic congestion, appeared in the September issue of Orion Magazine. Instructions Not Included, about the disappearance of the owner’s manual, is forthcoming in Popular Science. He has poems recently published or forthcoming in The New Yorker, Crazyhorse, Agni Review, The Literary Review, Plume, and The Portland Review. He teaches creative writing at Seton University.
Thankless
Panic Attack
by Jamie McGraw
The Albert Street Fire
by Daniel Donaghy
About Daniel Donaghy
Daniel Donaghy is the author of two poetry collections: Start with the Trouble (University of Arkansas Press, 2009) and Streetfighting (BkMk Press, 2005). He is an Associate Professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University.
Survival Under Atomic Attack, October 1950
by Anna Leahy
About Anna Leahy
Anna Leahy is the author of the book Constituents of Matter, which won the Wick Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays appear in an array of journals including Crab Orchard Review, Cream City Review, The Pinch, and The Southern Review. Her essay "Half-Skull Days" was a Notable in the The Best American Essays 2013. She also publishes work about pedagogy and the profession. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at Chapman University, where she curates the Tabula Poetica reading series and edits the journal TAB. She co-writes Lofty Ambitions blog at https://loftyambitions.wordpress.com.
Grosse Pointe Blank
by Michael Prior
About Michael Prior
Michael Prior is a Canadian writer living in Toronto. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as The Collagist, Geist, The Malahat Review, and Prism International. He was the winner of Grain Magazine's 2014 Short Grain Contest, Vallum's 2013 Poetry Prize, and Magma Poetry's 2013 Editors' Prize. His first book will be published by Signal Editions in 2016.
Pitchfork
by Randi Ward
About Randi Ward
Randi Ward is a writer, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and is a recipient of The American-Scandinavian Foundation's Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in Asymptote, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, World Literature Today, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Vencil: Anthology of Contemporary Faroese Literature, and other publications. For more information, visit: www.randiward.com/about
Marilyn Monroe’s First Miscarriage Lives on Colfax Avenue
Tie the Gamelan I’m Sending You Piece by Piece Up to the Heavens
The Last Bulb of the Christmas Tree: Yesterday and Today
by Annie Christain
About Annie Christain
Annie Christain is an assistant professor of composition and ESOL at SUNY Cobleskill and an English PhD graduate from the University of South Dakota. Her poems have appeared in Seneca Review, The Chariton Review, and The Lifted Brow, among others. She is a three-year recipient of the Gladys Hasse Poetry Award, and she received the 2007 and 2008 Jerry Bradley Award for Creative Writing, the grand prize of the 2013 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest, and the 2013 Greg Grummer Poetry Award.
My Child’s Instructions
by Alison Smith
About Alison Smith
Alison Smith is the author of The Wedding House (Gaspereau Press 2001) and Six Mats and One Year (GP 2003). Her work has also appeared in Guernica, The Malahat Review, Event, Pottersfield Portfolio, and Understorey. She lives with her family in Nova Scotia.