"The Storm" by Jennifer Flynn - © 2008

<- FROM THE EDITOR ->John Bowers: A versatile writer through the decades
  by Derek Alger

"Yes, Bowers was a country boy, but he developed into quite a versatile writer, publishing non-fiction books, celebrity profiles, novels, a Civil War book, Chickamauga and Chattanooga: The Battles that Doomed the Confederacy, and even a highly readable biography of General Stonewall Jackson. Still going strong at the age of 81, Bowers has a novel, Love in Tennessee, which was released this month to come out from Red Hen Press."

<- ONE ON ONE ->Julie Kane
  interviewed by Derek Alger

"...Diane Ackerman took two of my poems for Epoch when she was the poetry editor -- I was an undergrad and she was in the PhD program, so I was thrilled beyond belief that she considered me a "real poet." T. Coraghessen Boyle, Marilyn Hacker, and Sandra Gilbert all had work in that Winter 1974 issue of Epoch. Maybe I'll be able to sell my copy on eBay to fund my retirement."

Charles Salzberg
  interviewed by Derek Alger

"...I'd written an article about street gambling, 3-card monte, and an agent asked me to write a novel based on it. I didn't really want to, but when she said I could make several thousand dollars, which was a lot of money then, I said yes. I think I wrote it in a month...It was called Street Gambler, and fortunately, I probably have the only copies left."

<- ESSAY ->Honeymooners Marathon
  by Steve Heller

“Can you hear me, Mom?”
She stares straight back into my eyes, but I can tell her gaze has turned inward now. She might be dreaming once again, as her chest rises with the effort of another shallow breath.
As I wait for her head to nod or simply tilt forward beneath the blue bandana, enclosed in the merciful respite of sleep, words well up inside me...

<- POETRY ->The Kill
  by Karen Carissimo

Benito Mussolini
  by Tony Barnstone

SNOW WHITE REDUX
  by Grace Bauer

<- MACRO-FICTION ->The Way It Isn't
  by Walter Cummins

...He remembered his silences...unable to stop thinking of Valerie...He hadn’t encouraged Valerie to leave Les but did nothing to change her mind, wanting her free even though he wasn’t. And when she was, Lydia was the one who asked him to go, telling him she couldn’t live with a man who ignored her.

The Tea Party
  by Carolyn Foster Segal

I really did believe that I loved the boy with the cheekbones, although looking back, it's clear how much lust played a part.

"Do you have a husband?" Mel asks. He doesn't say, as anyone else would, "Are you married?" He makes having a husband sound like owning a pet.

<- MICRO-FICTION ->Talking Houses
  by James Miranda

"When I’m in a conspiracy theory mood I argue ducts. I deconstruct the entire house. I blame landlords, realtors, architects, HVAC people, town planners, and mice. There is no telling how high up this thing goes. These are long days."

<- BOOK LOVERS ->The Death of Bunny Munro
By Nick Cave
  reviewed by Mark Mordue

"The Death of Bunny Munro should carry an EXPLICIT warning too, but the provocative cover art may similarly protect readers from being too surprised. Ironically, it’s the depth – not the in-your-face shallowness – of the book that is the real jack in the box."

The Other
  Poetry by Robert Dana
  reviewed by Richard Holinger

"The present volume celebrates Dana’s age—in all its meanings—with simple reminiscences delivered with gravity and grace, the poems’ speakers conversationally guiding us through recollections when on the beach, in the mountains, abroad in Europe and, his favorite setting, around his Iowa home...."

<- GUEST COLUMN ->Jayne Anne Phillips Rocks: A Reader’s Retrospective
  by Debra Monroe

The daughters Jayne Anne Phillips described were raised by unhappy housewives, but the mass media, and legions of women a few years older who’d marched in the streets, told these daughters they didn’t have to be unhappy housewives. This was my generation. Yet finding our own way, postponing marriage and children as we set our sights on personal goals, was a new plan;...