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 radio came alive with the dispatcher advising the Fire Dept of the need for an ambulance at the golf course clubhouse. A man had stopped breathing.
He was just passing that building on his way to check on a house while the owners were away on vacation, so he pulled into the lot and ran inside the building. He checked the man’s vital signs – no pulse, no breathing. He began CPR and instructed a woman offering to help on how to give the man breaths of air while he maintained the chest compressions keeping the blood circulating.
Click here to read the rest. Click here to read more about David A. Kentner.
And there were pools among the rocks
by the sea, deep pools, dark blue,
that would never dry
in the sunlight, I had climbed
to the cliff top and now stood
among them, craters filled as if by surprise
to the brim.
Click here to read the rest. Click here to read more about Davide.
FarawayJournal.com is undergoing some maintenance at the moment, which explains the new look. We haven’t worked out all the kinks yet, but in the meantime our new issue is still available. Give it a read, and be sure to let us know what you think.
Spring issue: http://www.farawayjournal.com/volume-2-issue-3-spring-2009/.
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.
We’re putting the finishing touches on a brand new issue of Faraway. It’s got a fantastic layout and look, as well as a bevy of artists and writers new to Faraway readers, plus some long-time veterans.
In the meantime, our Contributors page has been fully updated to include all of the new writers, poets, and artists from this new issue.
Click on their names to read more about them: Sean Wiebe, Davide Trame, Atina Thorning, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, Ray Succre, Felino Soriano, Luigi Monteferrante, Eric McKinley, Terence Kuch, Mark Konkel, Michael Lee Johnson, Willow Healy, Michael K. Gause, S.P. Flannery, Jen Conley, James Berkshire, Gary Beck, and Shane Bailey.
There’s an article on CNN.com today about the growing demand and popularity for web-based print-on-demand services. If you remember, late last year Faraway published the novella Doing the Dead by K.C. Wilson via Lulu.com. Now, because of the economic downturn, more and more people are turning to services like Lulu and Author Solutions.
Traditionally, self-publishing has been looked down upon by professional publishers and agents, not to mention readers. For one thing, turning to self-publishing usually meant that the author could not find a professional publisher willing to publish their work–in other words, their book must not have been very good. There was also a stigma attached to what the CNN article terms “vanity publishing” where authors would pay to have their books published in bulk and then try to market them by themselves.
Sites like Lulu and Author Solutions are now turning this old thinking on its head. There are many benefits to self-publishing now: total control over the look and marketing of your book, less stress in trying to find a publisher or being rejected, no up-front cost (as opposed to vanity publishing), and now, according to the article, literary success. Although most self-publishers don’t sell a whole lot of their books (most books in general don’t sell very well), some are achieving literary fame and success and are doing away with the old stigmas attached with self-publishing.
Something to look into? Read the rest of the article here.
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?
“Lines Written In Early Spring”
by William Wordsworth
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure: –
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
I was listening to National Public Radio yesterday and there was a report on the drug wars going on in Mexico right now. About 8,000 people have been killed in the last 15 months throughout Mexico, all related to the drug cartels.
The report then went on to talk about two villages outside of Durango, Mexico, where bandits have been attacking the villages, taking people hostage, and holding them for ransom. The Mexican army is apparently so powerless in the region that they recommended that the villagers build moats (!) around their village to keep out the bandits, which the villagers did.
Here’s where my storyteller’s eye comes in, although this is more of a remake than an original story. In fact, it’s plagiarism on a large scale, but it’s been done before. Transpose the story from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai to 21st century Mexico–or the cowboy-tale of The Magnificent Seven.
Villages are being attacked by bandits. The government and army are powerless. The villagers have to defend themselves, but are not up to the task. Enter a group of ex-Special Forces agents (modern Samurai), who agree to defend the village. There would of course be seven of them, one of whom would probably be nicknamed Gringo and would be analogous to Toshiro Mifune’s character in the Seven Samurai–young, sort of an outcast, little experience, but with all of the heart in the world.
These seven Special Forces guys would then lay out a defense of the village, and eventually do battle with and annihilate the bandits–but at terrible cost to themselves. Nevertheless, the villagers are saved and can carry on, as they always do.
The burrito in question
I ate about half of it.
This bad boy came from El Tepeyac in Los Angeles. It runs about $20 and is likely to be the biggest burrito you’ll ever come across. You can pick up your own at 812 N Evergreen Avenue, in Los Angeles. Good luck!
This isn’t likely to be the best political reporting you’ve ever seen. But I spent the morning today waiting out on Holt Avenue in Pomona to catch a glimpse of President Obama as his motorcade passed after leaving the Electric Vehicle Testing Center. I was surrounded by screaming, waving people, and caught up in the moment. I humbly present to you my YouTube clip.
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!
“Wherever the arts live from the festive contemplation of the world and its foundations, something like a liberation is achieved, a setting forth under the open sky — both for the creative artist himself as well as for the simplest onlooker. A man needs this liberation, this presentiment of the final and utmost stillness, almost more than he needs bread, which is indispensable and yet insufficient.”
-Josef Pieper
Another broken record with a new tune. All this time I thought we were fighting to win, but it looks like we were just dying to lose.
While on the road to ruin I stopped at a drive-through Star Bucks, the kind they used to have when my grandfather was a kid. After the nice young woman handed me my drink, I asked her for directions.
“Which way to the end of the world sweetie?” I said. “Which way to ruin?”
“Just keep on heading down the road you’re on and you can’t miss it.” she told me.
I thanked her and left a piece of paper in her tip jar,
I fell asleep at the wheel once. Maybe twice. But that’s not how we got in this mess. Too much backseat driving and flashing lights on the road. How does anyone expect to get where they’re going with so many distractions?
I spent my last thirty dollars on two lines of cocaine and a blowjob from a prostitute I met on the corner while I was stopped at a traffic light. She also sold me the lines of cocaine, which she let me snort off her breasts. I had never done that before, snort cocaine off a prostitute’s breast. She then gave me the afore mentioned blow job. I dropped her off at the next corner and thanked her for her time. I almost asked her if she wanted to come with me but changed my mind at the last minute. She seemed happy just the way she was.
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.