The Mayor, after several days of grieving, emerged from his hacienda at the hour that was once called lunch. He passed his guards, then slowly—laboriously—carried his voluminous frame through the streets, stopping at the square's one remaining café and ordering a well-cooked steak. The sun glared down from the cloudless sky and illuminated the Mayor, capturing him in full as he spread himself across a stool and held his knife and fork in a rehearsed display of indefatigable hope. There was still meat, he wanted the people to see. There was still a mayor. There was still a town, present and alive in that square.

Dark Sky is a fine new publisher whose books are strange and stunning and uncommonly good. Their most recent release, Ryan Ridge’s kinetic collection of short stories, Hunters & Gamblers,

The epigraph to Alex Shakar’s Luminarium could be a request or a demand; “Lead me from the unreal to the real.” For Fred Brounian, it is a plea. Fred finds himself in the middle of “a spiritual

I arrive at the party and there are about four people there—wait, there are ten more in the back room. Now there are six more at the door! The radiators are hissing out champagne. Everyone is

It is Sunday when the dogs come. The church bells ring and ring and my mother says to my sister like she does every week “wake up wake up we’re going to be late for church” and this is a joke,

I know a lot about the way a body grows in bed. I know a lot about sleep, which takes place inside the bed. I know about the dreams that swim around and the sweat that slips out. I like to watch

People think we’re in love, like goo-goo eyes and fingering, because we’re always together, Katie Jean and I. We’re always together, Katie Jean and I, because she has her mouth wired shut and I’m

The women were exceedingly beautiful that night. It did not move me to see them, even with their hair tossed back and asses sticking out. It did not make me feel violated, the way I wanted and

Kevin Wilson is the author of a story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth(Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), and a novel, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011). He lives and teaches in Sewanee, TN.Kevin Wilson is the author of a story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth(Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), and a novel, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011). He lives and teaches in Sewanee, TN.

At one a.m. a man loads mannequin parts into the trunk of an orange hatchback.

“I signed up for a thing online,” he tells me. “You put your name into this big database, along with a bunch

What Daddy

Our departure is very alarming to me, still. I still feel caution tape around my heart. But also it has caused many pleasurable detriments to my existence. I have run out of

[The following text and pictures are taken from the personal website of my brother, Austin Hinderliter. It includes all posts made from April 25 — May 6, 2011. —Robert]

April 25,

The Vanishing Ball Player
Moses Cage (1960 - ?)

My hands, nets. My arms, windmills. My heart, a diamond.
-Moses Cage, 1989

Cage spent three seasons as a backup left

All Paige heard was her watch ticking. She peeled away the cement smell and damp that grew in the old basement where Buddy Cantrell had pitched her. You didn't grow up without running through a few

Her husband allows her all things but one — she cannot open the door in the tower.

He is a private man — coyly old fashioned.  His face is ageless and strong, his smile is more habit than joy. 

The holes in Dean's shoes let in the rain that streamed in rivers down the sleek asphalt of Ruby Lane. His feet squished miserably along the rows of dark Tudors built on spec. His pockets were

“Did you see what Suzy did when her father tossed her into the air?”

“No, I was looking at Jimmy.”

“She screamed. She screamed like a little piglet right until she hit the water.”

“My

I miss Lost. I want to go on Lost with you. Let’s be on Lost together. Let’s get on a plane that says: DESTINATION - CRASH. Let’s be a part of the brand new cast. I want to be a main character

How do you see yourself? the questioner at the other end of the table asks. Stumped, earlier questions more specific, handle on the context, now an expanse stretches out inside me, glance at the

It is raining and Jacob is a boy.

Jacob is a boy and once climbed a tree and once fell from a tree and once, when he was up in a tree and not falling from a tree, he pretended to have a gun in

Julia Wertz's first two books are called Fart Party, a great, attention-grabbing title. I remember grabbing the book off the shelf at the comic bookstore, poking my boyfriend and laughing

He was putting potatoes into my hands.

“What else you need. Salt?”

He stepped over a stack of plates. I moved around them.

“Here. This is good. You cook with this. No?”

The

Courtney Love’s mom lived in house three blocks away from mine when I was growing up. She was a therapist for married people and children of divorce, things like that.  Her husband (not Courtney

I.

A minimally invasive vaporization of the prostate, she says. Performed with high-energy light beams. Precise, she says. We're talking about the difference between a baseball and a