FICTION
Online Help
Robyn Weisman
08.26.08
The world of employment agencies and temp workers is a bizarre one, and when it intersects with a graveyard shift proofreading at a legal firm, things can can get downright maddening. Here, Robyn Weisman recounts the experience of working with the kind of woman that temp agencies just love - pleasant, chatty and eager to increase her words-per-minute - and watches her true identity emerge over the course of the night. Art by Danny Jock.
"Purple Dolphin"
Nick Sylvester
06.18.08
Well we had to get this joke out of the way from the git-go...that it's a true blast to finally read Nick Sylvester's "real" fiction (which is to say if the gonzo reporting tradition was never your cup of tea, then there are plenty of News Corp. outlets out there now to get your "facts" from...). Here's a chapter from Sylvester's debut novel, the forthcoming Ten Minute Wait about "a secret society of waiters on the brink of exposure, a mistranslation that triggers a city-wide kitchen staff revolt, and a desperate downtown poet-waiter type who accidentally becomes famous off a silly pomo gag." Art by Danny Jock.
Wilderness Year
Sean Dungan
05.05.08
Psychic messages from a military base bagboy. Sean Dungan just published his first collection of stories, Unwelcomeness, a book designed with class by Caryn Aono and beautifully illustrated by Gail Swanlund. Dungan, a west coast author, whose range and strangeness of vision harkens (to this blurber anyway, if I may take liberties) the work of George Saunders, Ben Weissman or Ben Marcus. Here's a taste, the story "Wilderness Year" - featured in Unwelcomeness that is very welcome here on Fanzine. Art by Danny Jock.
Sitter
Rachel Sherman
04.22.08
Like the teacher who thought you'd amount to nothing, or the boy in the third grade with the runny nose you couldn't help having a secret crush on, it isn't easy to forget your babysitters. Bet none of them were like this one. Fanzine first encountered Rachel Sherman, author of The First Hurt (a finalist for the 2006 Frank O'Connor prize), on Jaime Clarke's Talk Show column. Here she brings to the table a flash work of fiction. Art by Danny Jock.
Gatlinburg
Douglas Light
04.03.08
Here's a deft dab of a story by Douglas Light, author of the 2006 Benjamin Frankling Award winning novel, East Fifth Bliss. In it, a couple, soon to be 'Life-mate's, find themselves at an impasse of words.