Featuring stories, poetry, and artwork by dozens of contributors, the new issue of Faraway is now online.
Read the whole issue here, or preview the issue by clicking below:
Poetry: On the Other Promontory by Davide Trame.
Short story: The Book Review by David A. Kentner.
And return tomorrow for a new short story by Josh Mitchell, illustrated with photographs by Atina Thorning.
The latest issue of Faraway is now available. thanks and congratulations to all the writers and artists.
These things always seem to take longer than anticipated. A word on the process: Our pet chimp Dimba solicits short stories, poems, and artwork from his cage at the company fortress in Montclair, California. Accepted pieces are then shipped through a series of tubes to his brother’s underground log cabin in Montpelier, Vermont. His brother uses scotch tape and elbow grease in his spare time to assemble the 
various and sundry pieces into something marginally acceptable for mass digestion. Sometimes an ocean liner is hired to ship material to the chimp’s cousin, who lives in a big wooden shoe in Norway and has more and better digital skills.
The first two issues of this publication were profoundly and embarrassingly amateur hour (still, my favorite bit out of everything we’ve done is the first poem from the first issue). With Vol 1, Issue 3 we started working thematically with varying levels of success. E.g., Vol. 1 Iss. 3 featured birds and trees…um…for no particular reason. Volume 2 Issue 1 was broken up by the 4 seasons and had a cool cover. Volume 2 Issue 2 had a victorian theme, complete with fake ads that i think turned out pretty good.
Since Vol. 2 Iss. 2 took a bit of effort we tried to do something simpler with this one: i had always liked the title of the Nine Inch Nails song “The Line Begins to Blur”. what if we used kind of a Mondrian / straight lines theme that gradually became more blurred, curved, etc? It had a certain kind of symbolism and resemblance to daily experiences. Easy!
4 months later the current issue is on your screen. I think we basically executed this concept, with Sean Wiebe’s last lines of the first half “…a new thought that has been slow in coming” leading to Jeff’s two explosive centerpieces and subsequently more abstract, natural images. This one might have been labored to death, but see what you think.
So, for next time, how about some suggestions for themes? Also- the next batch should plan on submitting their bios in 6 words or less.
Also, for best viewing: download and save, then view as “Two-up Continuous”.
In my continuing series on Six Sentences and Joseph Grant, I encourage you all to head over to http://sixofthemonthmar09.blogspot.com/, where voting is going on for the “six of the month”, a monthly contest to select the best story of six sentences. Our friend Joseph Grant has a story up, “The Incongruous Man”, with a hint of the science fiction to it. You can vote for him or one of the other writers.
In Faraway news, we’re closing in on the release date for the new issue.
The creative writing community Six Sentences, which I’ve posted about before, has just released a book. This book is an anthology of “sixes”–stories only six sentences in length–and it features work by none other than Faraway contributor Joseph Grant (who writes me just about everyday letting me know that something else of his has been published–prolific bastard!). You can order the book from Amazon here, or visit the Six Sentences site.
There was an article in the New York Times by A.O. Scott the other day about the virtues of the short story. The writer describes the decline of the short story since the 1960s, and discusses the need for and signs of a coming resurgence.
To call an American writer a master of the short story can be taken at best as faint praise, or at worst as an insult, akin to singling out an ambitious novelist’s journalism — or, God forbid, criticism — as her most notable accomplishment. The short story often looks like a minor or even vestigial literary form, redolent of M.F.A.-mill make-work and artistic caution. A good story may survive as classroom fodder or be appreciated as an interesting exercise, an étude rather than a sonata or a symphony.
Read the rest here. There is some interesting speculation at the end about Amazon’s Kindle–how, like on an iPod, people may one day be collecting and playlisting short stories.
So, since that is our trade here, what are your favorite short stories, and favorite short story writers? How do they compare to novelists?
Our friend Joseph Grant has just had some more stories published. You can read his story “Reclamation”, just published in The Absent Willow Review, here: http://absentwillowreview.com/archives/reclamation.
I was introduced to a website called 6 Sentences by Joseph Grant, a prolific writer whose work has appeared in Faraway. In lieu of new work on Faraway, I present to you a six sentence-long excerpt of my novel-to-be: Sail excerpt. It contains the longest sentence I’ve ever written, a matter of pride with me, although this section doesn’t quite give an accurate taste of the tone of the rest of the novel. I was reading a lot of Faulkner at the time and trying to emulate his style.
In the near future, we will also have a new issue of Faraway available, featuring a LOT of writers new to our site.
Our friend Joseph Grant, whose work appeared in the last issue of Faraway, has several new stories online for your perusal.
The short story “The Cypher” is online at a delightful digital journal, Six Sentences. Click here to read it!
You can also find the lengthier tale, “The Perfect Hit”, in Underground Voices Literary Review. Check it out!
Just a quick note that a story I previously published here, A Dream of Thunder, is now appearing in the February edition of the e-zine Pens on Fire. Check it out here, and let us know about any of your recent publication news.
Busy times, I know. But perhaps sometime today, during halftime of the Lakers-Celtics game or while you’re waiting for dinner to be ready, click here to read Doing the Dead – 1983, a novella by K. C. Wilson presented by Faraway.
We’ve also got a Christmas story by Michael Pitassi, Baptism By Ice Water: A Christmas Tale.
And, two poems in a series by Katie Friedman, First Date and Physical Love.
Baptism by Ice Water: A Christmas Tale
By Michael Pitassi
December in Augusta, Maine, just after the unveiling of the town lights and decorations, is loved by nearly all who experience it. I say nearly because there does happen to be one rather vocal dissenter among the otherwise joyous inhabitants of this enchanting town.
Eugene Ash, a man only forty-five but thought by most to be many years older, was the town crab. He had gained a reputation for growing exceptionally bitter, year after year, as the month of December advanced toward Christmas Day. He was rather cheerful the other eleven months of the year, but as the rest of the town began to perk up for the holiday, Eugene Ash took on the persona of a cloud of soot. And he didn’t mind the negative attention, in fact he more or less asked for it. He purposefully wore darker clothing around this time, perfected his scowl, and needled the townsfolk with caustic and satirical remarks. Eugene Ash had become as much a part of the holiday traditions in Augusta as the giant Christmas tree in the center of town or the lights strung along Kennebec River.
Because Eugene Ash lived alone, and more so because of his Christmastime theatrics, he came to be known to some as Augusta’s Ebenezer. It was an expected association, but one that wasn’t entirely warranted, for Eugene Ash wasn’t a miser or a “scrooge.” He had very logical and intellectual reasons for disliking the Christmas season. Continue reading
Jim Lyons is a talented young writer from Essex, England. When I first read his story, Thought for Food, several months ago, I was blown away by the superb, original writing. I expect fully to someday find books by Lyons on display in a nationwide book chain. Get on board with this great new talent early, and download Thought for Food now.
There are thousands of books, all with different spines, and I want to touch and absorb every one of them. Savour their flavours. Float their boats. Kindle their flames, you get the idea. As long I can see more of the worlds that exist beyond the frontiers of wild, ancient space, somewhere in that sunny altitude of human artistic consciousness. Here is a single mother’s dream of olive groves in Tuscany, there the bottomless ocean for mer-moles burrowing endlessly in search of worms as dead whales sink past them each time the Oxford-born author gets writer’s block. Not a single book on Mao or the Cultural Revolution dares flush any colour but red for fear of denunciation, while some fantasy sagas stretch across entire shelves, half a writer’s lifetime spent developing the destinies of farm boys and conjurors and plotting epic revelations at Mount Ishtak and Elbrador. I could read them all, but I only want one book.
We’re proud today to bring you a short story by the new writer Andrew Mills. This is first time Mills’s stories have been in print, and I think it’s apparent from Gazing Into the Abyss that Mills possess considerable talent, and I look forward to seeing more great work from his pen.
It was odd. All he could see was the dark abyss of a tunnel, yawning wider than should be possible, threatening to engulf him in its gaping maw. He looked closer into those depths, mesmerized by the utter lack of light, a dark so absolute that he knew he was looking at perfection. The type of perfection seen only when one was about to die.
Frequent Faraway contributor Jared Hernandez graces the pages of our fall issue with his story Artistic Temperament. This story is a snapshot of a few hours in the life of a young filmmaker, increasingly on the outs with his friends and the other people who enter his life. This story is accompanied by a photograph by Karen Greenbaum-Maya, whose work is also featured in this issue.
“So, what’s it about?”
“Hard to say. I guess if you’re going to put a gun to my head it’s about two lost souls searching for a place to be in this harsh reality we call life.”
“That’s a fancy answer. More for the critics. What’ll you tell the public?”
“It’s an action packed tale of two kids shredding through the world kicking asses along the way.”
“Great. That’s great stuff. What’s it really about?”
“It’s about my unhealthy obsession with ground beef.”
She laughed loudly. I’m starting to pick up some vibes from this reporter. I can’t remember her name. Jenny? Ginny? Something like that. Her low cut top is driving my crazy. These young journalist types are all the same. All afraid they don’t have what it takes to make it, so they overcompensate by letting their tits hang out for the world to see. I’ve seen it a hundred times, and I’ll see it a thousand more. Not that I’m complaining though. She is gorgeous. . . .
Click here to read Artistic Temperament or click here to download the newest issue of Faraway.
Joseph Grant is a talented writer living in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals. His latest work, The Campaign Promise, tells the story of Manuel Ortiz, a politician running for office in Mexico. But when Ortiz tells a group of his farmer constituents that he will make it rain, he may have made a promise that he can’t keep.
Manuel Ortiz blotted at the sweat that beaded on his forehead and over his upper lip. Although his upper lip was eclipsed by a thick, black moustache, Manuel Ortiz dabbed anyway, knowing appearances were everything up on the platform where he sat on a creaking metal chair.
It was a good crowd today, he thought to himself. Not like yesterday when Villarosa’s people had infiltrated the common good nature of the townspeople and spread their vicious truths. Ortiz was used to the low-down mudslinging, dog-eat-dog world that was politics and he was used to an opponent using half-truths and lies to paint a negative picture, but never had he known his opponent to stoop so low and to be so malevolent as to tarnish his good political name with the truth.
Read more of The Campaign Promise or download the latest issue of Faraway..
We are privileged to include a short story by Italian-American, New York-based novelist, Vic Fortezza, in the latest issue of Faraway. What is Life? is an exquisitely-written piece of fiction in which a man ruminates on the meaning of life while visiting his elderly Italian mother in the hospital. Visit Mr. Fortezza on the web here, where you can order his novel, Close to the Edge.
He heard her crying out behind the curtain that had been drawn around the bed. Each cry was more strained than the last. She complained about the burning, called the nurses “putane” and threatened to rip out the device they’d inserted into her. He sat there, torn, flesh crawling, wondering, should he intercede, if the nurses would be insulted, if they would think him a mama’s boy.
Again she cried out. His eyes glazed as he fought back tears. He could not bear to see anyone in pain – and this was his mother. He slipped behind the curtain. Each nurse was restraining one of her arms, imploring, trying to soothe her. She’d have none of it, asking what devils had sent them to her. He took her hands. She stopped resisting. Surprised, the nurses quickly completed their chores and left, apparently relieved. Vito wondered how they stood it day after day. And this case was minor compared to many they no doubt faced here in Emergency.
Read more of What is Life? here or download the latest issue of Faraway.
La Commedia Diabolica, a new short story by Daniel Sawyer with illustrations by Scott Sawyer, in the next issue of Faraway. Hitting newsstands soon.
Artistic Temperament by Jared Hernandez.
Look for it in the next issue of Faraway, hitting newsstands soon. Thanks to Mike Pitassi for the photo.
Look for it, in the next issue of Faraway, hitting newstands soon.
We’re in the final phases of putting together a new issue of Faraway for publication, and we’re all really excited about this issue. Thanks to our listing on Duotrope, we’ve received over thirty new submissions from people from all over the world who have great stories to tell or amazing art to share. I’m proud to be able to put work by artists like Jim Fuess and Ellen Perry in this issue; a story from a couple in Australia, Suvi Mahonen and Luke Waldrip; delightful poems and stories from England’s Christian Pinchbeck and Jim Lyons; poems from David Kowalcyzk, stories from Brooklyn’s Vic Fortezza, and from many others, including all the Faraway regulars. Just check out our Contributors page and look at the growing list of writers who have chosen to submit to Faraway. It’s shaping up to be our best and longest issue yet, and I hope it’s going to catapult us further than we’ve ever gone before. Stay tuned for details.
