My Totally Aweome Funeral: A Response Curtis Smith
			The Decathlon: The Course Jessica Hollander
			Ambient Plumbing (a prequel) J. Ryan Stradal
			Aquaria Anne Elliott
			Belleville, IL: Liner Notes Chris Orlet
			Lane 12: Behind the Story Shellie Zacharia
			Fireworks: Audio Commentary J. Chris Rock
			Pregnant: Sketches Catherine Zeidler
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			Shellie Zacharia's fiction has appeared in Swivel, Washington Square, Dos Passos Review, Small Spiral Notebook, Vestal Review, and other journals. She teaches in Gainesville, Florida.

Photo by Sean Carman

“Lane 12” was a story written while I was away at a writer’s retreat in North Carolina. After one of those days of solitude, holed up in a room singing old rock songs and staring at walls and doing all those things we do when suddenly faced with “writing time,” I kicked back one night and yammered with some poets and fiction writers and a guy with a guitar. The subject that popped up was bowling – a response to a fellow writer’s recently shared flash fiction bowling piece. Someone else mentioned having once owned a bowling alley. Someone talked about cosmic bowling night, and another writer mentioned buying a bowling ball at a thrift shop with the monogram JTH. I remembered my own bowling league days, back when I was ten and had a patch sewn on my shirt for Girl High Average.

Give some writers some drinks, a topic, and the world opens up. At some point I said, “Be back in fifteen,” and ran to my room and started my story. I came back to the group with an opening paragraph, a description of Juney Teresa Hart, and after I read it aloud, I got hoots and cheers. Every writer needs a story to receive such a grand welcome.

Read "Lane 12" by Shellie Zacharia in Hobart 6.