With no fanfare but much personal satisfaction I would like to announce publication of my short story, "An Archive of Paranormal Inquiry Into Coping" in The Writing Disorder, a new(er) and very hip online journal.
The Writing Disorder's editor, publisher, designer, Christian Lukather, is also designer for POOL, which published a few of my poems last month. He didn't realize the crossover, however, until he'd accepted my story (so I got no favors). When you visit his journal you'll realize his humungo talent.
As for this story, it is a sort of answer to the rejection letter I posted not long ago (see, I Am Rejected: Because I Write Stories Like This). Some years ago I wrote "An Archive of Paranormal Inquiry Into Coping" in hopes of being less weird. My records (submissions/rejections) are home so I can't be exact but I can be inexact. It took a mere six or so years to get this non-weird story published, if indeed it's non-weird. I like it lots. That's what counts, for me. I like this story lots.
Weird. Not weird. Husband/wife (American loves husbands and wives, right?). It is pure fiction in my life. Here's the opener (you're in New York City, the apartment of a traditional boy-girl married, middle-class couple).
“I’m just the psychic." Ms. Marie shrugged as she peered at her cigarette ashes as if they were professional equipage.Read the rest here: The rest of the story . . .
Ludlow brushed them off the table and into her palm. Her mother would have been appalled by the medium’s wanton disregard for waxed furniture.
“Take it for what it’s worth, but they say you’re everything and everyone in your dreams. It’s a theory, although I’m sure you’ve—”
“—Heard it.”
A month ago, Ludlow woke with a mountain—thundering skies, moss turning into ice at the peak, a Sisyphean lug up, a nameless female saint dressed by Hindu devotees—wall-to-wall in her brain. The mountain was old although Ludlow doubted there were young mountains. Younger-er, maybe,than other mountains, she conceded, but young?
“So maybe you could be the mountain.”
“Why not, I was the walrus.”
“Weren’t we all.”
Dear Sarah Sarai
ReplyDeleteAllow me to introduce myself: Martin Burke, Irish poet/playwright living in Belgium where I am co-editor of The Green Door (Issue 5 of which I am attaching as a pdf file) http://thegreendoor.net/
We have, to date, published several issues, warmly received, which have included a wide variety of writers/artists/etc. from the USA and Europe. Issue 6 is now ready but we are working on Issue 7 which is to be, loosely, based on poetic engagement with the (poetic) past. Which is why I am writing to you. I am hoping that you will find time to read issue 5, and the previous issues, and after which you will be willing to contribute to our on-going project. While it is true we have specific poems in mind, we are not so strict in our approach to this theme to demand that you confine yourself to it –any contribution which you might care to make would be more than welcome.
However by an ‘engagement’ with the poetic past we are not (solely) referring to translations, but rather to that wider body of interpretation? Rework, re-appraisal of text and authors which ‘speak to you’ in a manner that it is totally your own. Naturally I am thinking of such poems as Buuel’s Magic Arrow. Therefore, would you be willing to let us republish (with acknowledgements) this poem and any others which would carry on your dialogue in a like-minded or different fashion. Issue 7 is planned for the middle of December so you have time aplenty to work on any aspect which might intrigue you. However if you could let us know of your reaction to this request we would be delighted to receive it.
So, with thanks for reading this and hoping that we will have this opportunity to work together
Sincerely
Martin Burke –for The Green Door