Storyglossia Issue 20 Is Complete

If you haven't been reading along as each story has been released, the full Issue 20 is now available featuring stories by: Conor Robin Madigan, Eileen Corder, Elizabeth Ellen, Myfanway Collins, Jocelyn Johnson, David Michael Wolach, Marcela Fuentes, Mark Spencer, Shubha Venugopal, Jacquie Powers, Michael Wigdor, Sabrina Tom, Julee Newberger, and Priscilla Rhoades.

Want to read all my commentary on Issue 20 on one page? Yes

Issue 21 will start in a week or so.

Buttercup, Peaches, and Doodle-bug

The newest addition to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Bio-Mom Returns" by Julee Newberger. Goaded by his children to follow through on a prior commitment, Rollin Price seeks out his birth mother. He finds Katherine, but is she his mother? That's up to you to decide. She does have an impressive array of pet names for Rollin, which Newberger uses in a surprising way to focus the story's undercurrent.

Julee Newberger received an MFA in creative writing from American University, and fellowships in fiction writing from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Vermont Studio Center. Her fiction has appeared in WordWrights! and her nonfiction has appeared in numerous newspapers and online publications. She currently does communications work for the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland.

Pass the Grapefruit

Just up in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "The Hollywood Diet" by Priscilla Rhoades. Although set in the late 1960's, hollywood waifs are current in today's news and tabloids (Leno did a joke about the too thin Nicole Ritchie again last night), so this take on dieting and body image also has a contemporary feel. The story is narrated in what might be termed the classic first-person style, with a faux-memoir structure and tone. A real strength of this story is that Rhoades doesn't allow the narrator—who's bounced around foster homes—to wallow in self-pity as she tells her story. The foster homes fact is casually mentioned in the first sentence and becomes subtext to inform the daughter-mother interactions, which shows just how much meaning can be imparted from a key detail, and without belaboring the narrative with backstory.

Priscilla Rhoades is a writer of poetry and short fiction whose work has appeared in Mississippi Review, The Iowa Review, and the Beloit Poetry Journal.

If You're Not, Who Is?

One of the true pleasures of editing and publishing a literary journal is introducing a new writer to readers. So please welcome Michael Wigdor, whose "I'm Not Tom Cruise" is his first published story. This latest addition to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 continues the theme explored by some of the other stories in the issue: identity, self-image and how the perception of others shapes them. Strong story arc in this one with a neat double denouement. I also liked the sly humor and the allusions to the movies Cruise has made.

Michael Wigdor lives and works in Boston, is an avid movie fan, and has a Screenwriting Certificate from Emerson College. He has written a couple of screenplays, one of which made the quarterfinals of a national contest, two short plays, and several short stories. He has never been to Pittsburgh.

Was it a Slip or a Fall?

New today in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Pseudocyesis" by Jocelyn Johnson. This story begins with a a trip and a verbal slip, which then sets the narrator off on a surprising path, as she experiments with her image. I like the way the themes of self-perception and perception by others is portrayed through the actions and reactions of the narrator/character. Don't want to spoil the read by giving away too much . . .

Jocelyn Johnson's fiction and essays have appeared in Salome Magazine, Rumble, Antithesis Common, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. Her blog is JOCELYN'S STORIES: fiction and prose about motherhood and more.

Time for a Tune-up

Just up in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Dr. Mechanic" by Sabrina Tom. What excited me about this story when I first read it as a submission was the mixture of meditative musings within the storyline. A smart and deep story. A story for our time. A story that sets aside pure interpretation so the narrator can say something about life. Many have gone down in flames trying such a narrative, but Sabrina Tom succeeds where others have failed. Which just proves that if the writer possesses a strong enough voice and a confident sense of style any form of narrative will work.

My mother and I have the same birthday. Today she turns fifty-five. I will be thirty-two. I hear that time speeds up as you get older, that one night you go to bed in the prime of life and the next day you wake up old. It's not that you look old, and you don't act old, but you sense it, from the tip of your eyelashes down to your toenails, which is exactly where the anxiety begins, in the parts of your body that are noticeably dead. But it's not too late, you think. You run your tongue over your gleaming white teeth (they run in the family). Past that, you can taste your salty center. The core of you is intact, it's just the outer shell that needs a little work. So you go to someone, anyone with competence and the patience to listen, and tell him you want a tune-up. You tell him you want to be new again.

Which expresses universal and timeless concerns while adding an absolutely sweet contemporary spin by asking for a "tune-up." Yeah, Dr. Mechanic, a shaman for our times.

The story has abundant themes, which is another of its strengths: mother/daughter relationship, body image, aging, among others. One that stood out for me, however, was the contrast between the rejuvenating power of plastic surgery and the rejuvenating power of a relationship:

All during the dinner with my mother and Dr. Mechanic, I could feel their giddy energy. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. My mother's voice acquired an upward lilt. She gestured wildly with her hands. Every once in a while she would squeeze his arm, though whether it was to reassure him, or herself, I couldn't tell. In between her exclamations, he took over as the ringleader. Part of it had to do with the inflections in his speech. Everything with enthusiasm and showmanship. He described the food as being "out of sight!" and the service as a "miracle!" He called my mother "doll face" and me "doll face two." There was also the sight of my mother sitting next to him. She looked younger, more vibrant, and not just because, after her facelift, the skin around her cheekbones was taut and shiny. She glowed from the inside out.

The narrator is drawn deeper into their spell as the story progresses, including a scene at the end that includes cake (you knew food had to be in the mix, too, didn't you?), which I will leave for you to discover as you read this wonderful story.

Sabrina Tom is the fiction editor at Hyphen. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Big Ugly Review, Slow Trains and Utne Reader. She has attended the Hedgebrook Residency and the Napa Valley Writers' Workshop and currently lives on the sunny side of San Francisco, where she is at work on a novel.

And, yes, the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize 2007 contest is still open for submissions. First prize is $1000. Deadline for entries is July 15, 2007.

A Three-Day Journey

Just added to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "The Swans of Tuonela" by David Michael Wolach. I can't say too much about this one without giving away the story's powerful ending, so I will instead enumerate three of the story's other virtues. Notice the tight three-act structure, done here as a triptych. The conflict happens scenically, character against character, and doesn't require character interiority for us to appreciate the dynamics of the relationships. The use of myth (in Finnish mythology Tuonela is similar to Hades) and symbolism to deepen the story's meaning.

David Michael Wolach teaches Philosophy and Art at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He's the managing editor of the literary magazine Wheelhouse. "The Swans of Tuonela" is from a collection, Electrical Fires, parts of which have been published in Heartlands Magazine, The Missing Fez, The Peralta Review, and others.

And don't forget, the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize 2007 is now open for submissions. First prize is $1000. Deadline for entries is July 15, 2007.

A Constellation of Dichotomies

The latest addition to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Difference" by Shubha Venugopal, which, as the title suggests, thrives on dichotomies. It's those manipulations of language and the wealth of particular details that elevates what is essentially a flat narrative line until the exchange of dialogue on the home stretch shows the black hole in the relationship.

Shubha Venugopal is completing an MFA in fiction from Bennington College. She also holds a PhD in English and recently joined the faculty at California State University, Northridge. Her works are upcoming or have appeared in Post Road, Gambara, Word Riot, VerbSap, Flashquake, Literary Mama, Antithesis Common, The Angler, Elimae, Eclectica, Mslexia, Kalliope, Boston Literary Magazine, and Women Writers: A Zine.

And don't forget, the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize 2007 contest is now open for submissions. First prize is $1000. Deadline for entries is July 15, 2007.

Braided Storylines

Just added to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Don't Tell Your Mother" by Marcela Fuentes. Usually, I have a strong bias against stories that begin with a dream—it is such an overdone opening—but I was drawn into this story by the precise details and the tension of the interaction between father and daughter. As you'll see when you read the story, this dream (memory) scene foreshadows both action and subtext in the scenes ahead, and in doing so deepens the connection between the memory scenes (shown in italics) and the present (at least in story time) action. These two stories are braided together as they alternate and mingle their meaning. Such two-tracking creates a powerful blended story full of evocative imagery, menace, rage, and gritty heartbreak.

Marcela Fuentes is a writer living in south Texas. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Central Michigan University. She teaches writing and literature at Southwest Texas Junior College. Her work has appeared in the Indiana Review and is forthcoming in the anthology Best Stories from the Southwest 2007. She will be an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop this August 2007. Please wish her luck. Marcela can be reached at marcelisima at gmail dot com.

And don't forget, the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize 2007 contest is now open for submissions. First prize is $1000. Deadline for entries is July 15, 2007.

From Words to Canvas

Just added to Issue 20 is "The Painting" by Jacqueline Powers. This is the third story of Jaquie's that I've selected for STORYGLOSSIA. Her story Green Pants and Lavender Golf Carts appeared in Issue 8 and "Life Class" appeared in Issue 13. What I enjoy most about her writing is the way she captures mood. And you feel it right here in the first paragraph:

Dara stood before the open window, almost invisible in the dark. She held the paintbrush in her hand, brushing the sable bristles against the sharp angle of her jaw. Down her throat. The air was heavy with salt, the sea a black canvas flecked with gold. She watched as waves dipped and rolled. The moon looked ready to fall into the ocean, fat and succulent. She imagined it beckoning beneath the sea.

It's not just mood that drives this story, however, but the grit of a relationship gone sour:

She tried not to pull away. Nonetheless something showed in his face. His eyes, almost black in the moonlight. She wondered why she had let him come back.

As you might expect with a story about painting, metaphor is prominent, and yet, despite being expected, the primary metaphor comes naturally from within the story, which is a difficult feat to pull off and a reason that I admire this story.

Jacqueline Powers is an unconsummated novelist with a short attention span and love of words. Her poems have been published in canwehaveourballback, [plug].poetry, Delirium Journal, kaleidowhirl, Poesia, Chronogram, and California Quarterly. Her play, "Swimming Upstream," was produced in Ithaca, N.Y. Two of her stories have previosuly appeared in STORYGLOSSIA: Green Pants and Lavender Golf Carts in Issue 8 and "Life Class" in Issue 13.

The Gritty Return to Lucidity

The latest addition to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is Mark Spencer's story "Time Traveler." As I've mentioned previously, I had been seeing a flood of submissions on the theme of dementia/Alzheimer's/elder care etc. I published three such stories in Issues 16-18 and Spencer's story, although not exactly on those themes, was the last such story I accepted before putting the stop sign in front of further submissions on those themes.

What drew me into "Time Traveler" was the combination of sensuality and regret, the portrayal of "guilt and longing mingled like gasoline and rain water," the flux between dreamscape and memory. What sold me on the story, however, was the gritty realism of the ending, the physicality of the return to lucidity, and the metaphysical plea of the last clause.

Mark Spencer's books include the novels Love and Reruns in Adams County (Random House) and The Weary Motel (Backwaters Press) and the short-story collections Wedlock (Watermark Press) and Spying on Lovers (Amelia Press). His work has received the Faulkner Society Faulkner Award for the Short Novel, The Omaha Prize for the Novel, The Bradshaw Book Award, The Cairn/St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Award, and four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize.

Orange Crush

Intellectually, I know the whole postmodernism argument and how realism is a sham, and then there's Gass' argument that it's all just words on a page that can't really be visualized anyway, so why bother with realism, and, besides, what's the use of scene-based stories because film does it much better?

But . . .

Take ten minutes right now and read Myfanwy Collins short story "Orange Crush," which is the newest addition to Issue 20.

Maybe I'm just a throwback because I still love to read short stories that aim for the emotional response via realism. "Orange Crush," with its scenic depiction of a fourteen year-old girl having her crush crushed, is just such a story. Yes, the movie version might have us crying in our seats, but this heartbreaking story of a fourteen year-old girl seeking to be liked and more is no less affecting for being words on the page.

"Orange Crush" consists of eight scenes, each of which uses actions and dialogue, along with exquisitely chosen interiority, to reveal Julie's needs amid an artfully blended welter of emotions.

The joy of such stories, if you give yourself over to them, is that despite all our differences, once again it is revealed that inside us all (psychopaths excepted) lives the same bundle of conflicted desires and fears.

Myfanwy Collins work has been published or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, Cream City Review, AGNI, The Jabberwock Review, Swivel, Caketrain, and other venues. She is an Assistant Editor at Narrative Magazine.

She Meant It

Elizabeth Ellen's flash fiction piece "What Was Meant" is the latest addition to STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20." As those of you submitting flash fiction to STORYGLOSSIA know, I have been an extremely tough critic of the form lately. Ellen's story is the only flash piece I accepted for Issue 20.

What struck me first about "What Was Meant" was that the remark is never disclosed. As the saying goes, it's the thought that counts (more on this later). The words spoken aren't important because it's the feelings they provoke that matter. I was drawn into this piece by the way the tightly controlled language nevertheless reveals the wounds and distrust. Starkly honest expression; with a hint of danger ahead. After repeated readings I was impressed with how meaning continues to expand in this surprising progression of statements. And those eyes at the ending! Working both literally and metaphorically. Stellar and sticky.

An interesting bit of synchronicity is that when this submission came in I had been reading Lisa Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and The Novel, which is another of those dense, but fascinating theory of narrative texts on my shelf. (I'll save the review for another time.) The relevance to Ellen's piece, however, is that Zunshine discusses how one of the pleasures of reading, and as a corollary (although Zunshine does not say this), one of the pleasures of writing, is mind reading. So when I read in "What Was Meant:"

She didn't mean what she said. I'm fairly certain of that. Or, if she did mean what she said, she probably didn't mean for what she said to come out the way that she said it. Perhaps she didn't mean for it to come out at all. I remember she turned her head slightly to the left afterward (I was on her right), a gesture I interpreted at the time as regret, though it is possible, in hindsight, that she turned her head to the left to clear her view (she has very long hair, this woman) and the thought of regret never even entered her mind. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I went ah ha! This is a far different form of the pleasure of the text than that meant by Barthes, but one that I thoroughly enjoy.

Elizabeth Ellen is the author of Before You She Was a Pit Bull (Future Tense Press). She lives in Ann Arbor. More links to her online publications can be found at her website.

STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20

Just a reminder that STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 has started publishing with a new story coming out every 2-3 days. The first two stories are up now: Conor Robin Madigan's Timothy's Mother and Eileen Cordor's Ana.

Coming up tomorrow is new flash fiction by Elizabeth Ellen. And on Saturday it's a new short story by Myfanwy Collins. Followed over the next few weeks by stories from: Jocelyn Johnson, David Wolach, Marcela Fuentes, Mark Spencer, Shubha Venugopal, Jacquie Powers, Michael Wigdor, Sabrina Tom, Julee Newberger, and Priscilla Rhoades.

Check back here in the blog for publication announcements and commentary as each story publishes.

And don't forget, the STORYGLOSSIA Fiction Prize 2007 contest is now open for submissions. First prize is $1000.

Not Playing with Dolls

Next up in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is "Ana" by Eileen Corder. Another example of literature as art in which traditional mimesis is given the heave ho. This is one of those stories that I knew I was accepting after the first read. Even when I didn't understand what I was reading, the power of the writing, the riveting voice, was unmistakable. And then the challenge of spending time lost in the words, creating meaning, building a reading. Take up that challenge. This is a short short that is deserving of more than one's short attention span.

Eileen Corder’s work has appeared in Nthposition, White Walls, Poetics Journal, Hills, and Street Spirit, among other publications. Throughout the Eighties she was co-director of Poets Theater San Francisco, and in the Nineties directed and performed with homeless groups including John Malpede and the Los Angeles Poverty Department. Currently she lives and works on a farm in Northern California.

Literature is Art

First up in STORYGLOSSIA Issue 20 is Conor Robin Madigan's story "Timothy's Mother." This is Madigan's first published story and it is the kind of slush pile discovery that makes editing exciting. When I say that literature is art, "Timothy's Mother" is a perfect example of what I mean. The author knows the story, but instead of telling it to you he embeds it in the presentation and allows the story to emerge from the accumulation of details. You learn the story and its veiled meaning through interpretation. That is art.

I love this experiment with form. As you read on through the story it becomes apparent that you are reading one side of a transcript: the answers. The questions have been suppressed. As has the reason for the implied investigation. This narrative strategy establishes the ontological supremacy of the story and its interpretation over the telling.

Madigan's control of language in this story is superb. Notice how it modulates from section to section, and how it gives primacy to the voices. This is a far superior strategy for revealing the collective's opinion than simply adopting the first person plural. "We" is a limp artifice compared to this multi-voiced approach.

Character development. See how artfully the portraits of Timothy's mother, and Tim, and the town emerges? It's all in the details, the inflected voices, those tag-lined section headings.

Bravo, Conor Robin Madigan. Congratulations on your first published story! STORYGLOSSIA is thrilled to introduce you and "Timothy's Mother" to the literary world.

Conor Robin Madigan was born in Atlanta in 1982, he studied at Earlham College and received a B.A. in English. He pursues an MFA in writing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, repairs guitars at Guitar Works in Evanston, and makes waffles masterfully. As well, he writes songs that have been reviewed by Jim Derogatis in the Chicago Sun Times.