In the fall of Helga Vierksen’s death, I was seven years old.

1) Technically, everything remains but the stereo, circa 1998, a sound system so old it couldn't play CD's for more than an hour without overheating into unbearable skips...

Of course, I think that Mark Twain is true.   I think that Samuel Clemens is the lie.  Only a dishonest person wants you to know that a story they are telling "really happened."

Perks of Being a Wallflower is the very beautiful, slightly tragic, endearing story of diffident, introverted Charlie (Logan Lerman) and his first year of high school as he’s taken under the wings

Kathy Acker was sick of shaving her legs.  Every time she shaved them she cut herself.  It didn’t matter if the blade was dull or sharp.  Inevitably the blade would steal pieces of her knee. 

You were a horse yesterday; what happened? I rode you places under the hot sun. You fought off flies with your tail and we galloped knee deep through rivers. When apples fell off the tree and we

Can I speak to you for a moment?

It’s your son’s teacher and so this can’t be good.  Now not good, doesn’t have to mean bad, but it means something, and you are too tired for something. You

Hello, Sarah, your skin’s perspiring. Nervous? Your heart rate just jumped to 153 beats per minute and your eyes dilated by two millimeters. By the way, I like what you’ve done with your hair: the

An interview with Mark Jude Poirier
Thrift stores are full of possibility and sadness, which makes them perfect settings for fiction, in my opinion.

I still remember how he'd pour, like a ritual, like he still does to this day when he mixes himself a Beam & Pepsi at the end of the day.

I literally can’t even warn you about what it feels like to see Sinister, other than that it makes you feel like you’re watching a real murder. At the beginning of the film it had the makings of a

DREAM

Our legs are stilts. Beyond our ankles
are the blunt ends of crutches. Our feet
are missing. But our hands are fine,
Boy says. There’s a rope suspended
between our bodies. Our

He had a broad scar that ran over the back of his kneecap. The skin was all shiny and soft, like white bread packaged in Saran Wrap.

Here’s a story. One night in the tedious plains of Colorado, Abraham Lincoln drove his Model T into an embankment...

a short comic 

A massive plaster moon rotates above the rooftop bar, casting a milky glow over my fellow patrons. One by one their orders are placed. A vanilla bean porter with toasted nut highlights. A

This was the movie that I had been most excited for this summer. I’m most likely Zach Galifianakis’ biggest fan, and I’m not that far off from being Will Ferrell’s either. But, as many hilarious

a split bowl of suns dissolving a table

One girl watches the boys make a bomb of birds

An excited murmur came to life when the audience was informed of the PhD in Biogenetics, the B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and then the sweet icing: the minor in English.
 

For this edition of the Non-Reader Spotlight, I’m thrilled to be talking about reading and not reading with Mary Hamilton.

Spend enough time on Twitter and you will eventually discover there is within it an odd, alternate world of very funny, 140-character prankster surrealists. A shortcut to discovering them: Go to

FUTURE 45

There was a pile of sticks on the edge of the world. In it, numerous things of interest were living. One was a lawyer who enjoyed eating fried chicken at unusually early times

There was a thunderstorm
but nobody wanted it. It just sat there...

When found in this situation we realize that it is customary to provide a list of demands or a ransom note. We have discussed amongst ourselves what we would like. We even included the hostages in

A short interview about punk rock and aging with NoMeansNo drummer John Wright & guitarist Tom Holliston