I Read, You Read, We All Read

A few stories I loved recently

Yeah, we all read but there’s so much to read that we can never get to everything. I read every single day. I usually have 3-4 books in progress and I read pieces in litmags consistently, almost to the point of ignoring my books! From time to time I like to share litmag pieces that wowed me in case you missed them. All are a little dark, a little irreverent, but that makes them interesting. Happily ever after is too predictable. Forthwith, here are a few with snippets to tantalize you.

The Arithmetic of Memory by Jacqueline Doyle in Little Fiction/Big Truths:

What you remember. The five of you lounging in a field in Provence on a late summer afternoon, motorcycle helmets and golden corn silk and green husks strewn around you. The rosy light as the sun sank on the horizon. The taste of the pale yellow corn, raw and sweet, and the red wine you swigged out of a bottle, sour like vinegar.

The Rushing Waves by Chloe Clark in Short Story, Long:

Why had he signed up for the mission, then? Maybe, simply because he was one of the people who’d heard the distress call. The screams followed by silence and then something else—an eerie something that could only be described as close to singing, but not singing that any human had ever heard.

Let Me Try To Make It Interesting by Francesca Leader in Milk Candy Review:

I’ll say that just before the parasite absorbed the last remnants of my self, just before he discarded my useless husk to move on to a fresh host, I began, with my mind, to tell him “no”—just “no”—and didn’t stop telling him “no” until, repulsed by the newly-bitter taste of my atoms, he shrank up and withdrew, and my skin grew back as it had been in early childhood…

Wild by DS Levy in Mud Season Review:

My flouncy-fun friend with her chewing gum and crazy nail polish could easily pass for a millennial if she’d snap a dozen selfies—sexy pose, a tad slutty—and post to Instagram. Prolly not. Me and Bets, we’re old enough to remember when photos required Kodak film and you couldn’t see them until you busted ass over to the drugstore and picked them up. Bets thinks she can hang with the young crowd, and at work she spends her break time with the peach-faced studs in Lumber—but nobody’s kidding nobody. 

Freckled Gal by Doc Sigerson in Bending Genres:

Other women come to comfort their fallen friend. These women, these wrens, these orphans of the Great Hunger, had resorted to living in dugout makeshift shelters, little more than holes in the ground. They kept their fires going day and night.

Wow, there are so many great lines and great imagery in these stories. What a pleasure for readers and inspiration for writers. Enjoy!

(Damn, don’t we miss Prince?!)