My response to last week’s “Restrained Impulse” exercise is below. I have to say, I’m not sure I hewed as close to the exercise as I could have. I wanted to present the story of a gang flunky who couldn’t keep from laughing as a way of replicating Robert Hill Long’s dynamic of a small girl who couldn’t keep from dancing. A flaw in the story, I think, is that my main character doesn’t have a strong relationship with a single person, as Long’s girl does with her father. He also feels a little generic to me. I’m hoping these are problems I can address through revision, but since it’s already Wednesday, and in the spirit of making my process transparent, here’s what I came up with:

The Neighborhood

Even when the boy was young, he knew that laughter meant survival. He lived in the projects with his mom and his little sister, and they used to laugh together in front of the television, or watching the neighbors out the window, mocking their outfits from nine floors above. They laughed about the broken elevators in their building, or poor Ms. Fernandez on the first floor, who came up to their apartment with her daughters... more »

Here’s my response to last week’s Meta Exercise. Since Julio Cortázar used a narrative piece of art, a novel, to construct his excellent short short. I thought I’d give myself a challenge and try to do the same thing with a less experiential sort of art, in this case, sculpture. Points to anyone who can identify the sculptor.

Daphne

Inside the museum, she allowed herself to be politely interested in the art, the pale statues he loved so much, David twisting back his arm, a grim set to his mouth, Poseidon’s hand against Persephone’s thigh, hands sunk into the cool marble as if it were a marshmallow. He had arranged for this private trip to the museum; he had paid for their first class plane tickets to Rome, but that was to be expected.

At first, she’d found his attentions in the bar where she worked flattering but overwhelming. His lavish words and gifts masked a paucity of spirit, a blindness, an inability to admire things for anything more than the surface.

At his request, their guide left them in a small room at one corner of the museum. He had wanted to look at a particular sculpture, by themselves, in the quiet. Her... more »

Apparently, some fiction does not enjoy first amendment protection.

Consider the case of Dwight Whorley. This Virginia man authored an icky pornographic story that included pedophilia, then emailed his fantasy to likeminded internet friends, Wired reports. Whorley was convicted for possessing obscene Japanese manga and for possession of a filthy piece of print — his pedophiliac fantasy.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to hear his case, setting the stage for a Supreme Court Appeal.

On the one hand, the production of written kiddie porn probably does hurt children by helping to create an atmosphere that suggests that it’s ok, or by helping condition a person’s orgasm to an illegal act that threatens the safety children. On the other hand, Whorley’s being prosecuted for writing down a private fantasy and sharing it with others, an act that any writer will be familiar with.

The whole situation makes me uncomfortable. I generally think of writing as a safe space to experiment with concepts, situations, and characters that might make me uncomfortable in real life. This case pushes that conception to its limit.

I find Whorley’s fantasies reprehensible, but the idea that the law could punish someone for expressing their feelings, no matter how deviant... more »

A big Fringe shout out to bad-a** mother-feminist Zahra Rahnavard, wife to Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s main competition in Friday’s Iranian election.

After Ahmadinejad questioned Dr. Rahnavard’s credentials during a televised debate with her husband, the spunky academe called a 90-minute press conference where she proceeded to excoriate Ahmadinejad for lying, humiliating women, and debasing the revolution.

“Those who made up this case against me wanted to say it is a crime for women to study, to get two graduate degrees, to become an intellectual or an artist,” she said.

In addition, she threatened to sue Ahmadinejad for slandering her academic qualifications if he did not publicly apologize to her within 24 hours.

Dr. Rahnavard put on her feminist hat to woo young and female voters promising that, if elected, her husband will do away with the morality police, end discrimination, ensure that women are treated like humans, not second class citizens, and appoint women to cabinet posts.

For a woman in Iran (or anyone in Iran), this is ballsy busty styff, but because she’s a woman, Rahnavard’s been able to indict Ahmadinejad more strongly than any of his male competitors.

You can read more about her at the London Times, the AP, The New... more »

Check out this interview with Fringe editor-in-chief Lizzie Stark over at Chamber Four. Later on, we’ll be posting an interview with the minds behind Chamber Four in this space, so stay tuned.

Here’s the third of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. Today we look at the loads of poetry that our former contributors have tossed onto the internet

• Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere poet BRAD JOHNSON has work up in Pank, Insolent Rudder, Clapboard House, the Kennesaw Review and Facets.
• COREY MESLER has a funky new chapbook out that’s available on Etsy and at his own bookstore.
• HESTER MURMAN was our second featured artist, but now she’s publishing poetry under her real name — Gindy Elizabeth Houston, over at The Smoking Poet
• Artist PETER SCHWARTZ has also turned poet with pieces in Diagram, Cella’s Round Trip, Frostwriting and Poetry Super Highway.

And please remember: Fringe is still in the midst of a fundraising campaign for our web redesign. We’re so close — only $299 away from success. We need to raise the funds in the next 30, so please consider a $5 or $10 donation. It’d make a big difference to a small literary journal.

Fringe Magazine (www.FringeMagazine.org) wants your help with our first ever Round Robin! We think you and your friends will make fabulous flash fiction writers, so give us your best shot at 26 sentences. Instructions are below. We’ll be posting the results on our blog after June 15th.

1. Copy and paste the instructions and story into a fresh email/Facebook note.

2. Write the next sentence of the story below. Add your name to the byline at the bottom of the story. If you want to be emailed when your story gets posted, add your email address.

3. Tag one or more friends in the note, or forward the email to one or more buddies.

4. When the story comes to a natural end or reaches 26 sentences, email the finished product to FringeTheBlog@gmail.com by JUNE 15. We’ll give the pieces a light edit and post them, including author names, to the Fringe blog (www.thenounthatverbsyourworld.blogspot.com) under the tag “Round Robin.”

A few caveats: If a group of however many wants to tackle this, that’s fine – we don’t mind if people write more than one sentence, but do try to let the authorship to change with every sentence. You can try for something conventional, with a beginning, middle or end,... more »

Here’s the second of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. Here’s what the Fringe’s prose writers have been up to:

• Feminism issue writerKIRSTIN CHEN has fiction up at Hobart and two pieces over at Juked.
• Issue 2 short short writer NATHAN LONG has a short story, “The Devil” up over at Failbetter.com.
• Enviro issue critic MOLLY GAUDRY has a whole passel of work up, available through links on her blog.
• Environment issue essayist ELIZABETH ENSLIN, has work up at In The Mist, the Oregon Literary Review, Fishtrap and on her dreamy blog.
• Nonfiction writer KELLY CALVERT will be driving her car around the US this summer in search of stories and vegetable oil to fuel her car. And she’ll be blogging about it too.

Like Shakespeare? Feeling too high on yourself? Let the Shakespearean insult generator cut you down to size.

Here’s the first of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. We’ll start out with the supa-fly visual art by some of Fringe’s former artists:

I woke up about a month ago and realized something shocking: I hadn’t read any literary fiction in more than a month.  

After checking out Nellie’s excellent Barbie video post, I chanced across this gem and couldn’t resist sharing.

The Fringe editors have been busy, not just selecting, editing and polishing the new issue, but also getting published ourselves:

Eco-Libris and the Fringe Environment Issue go together like recycling and paper.  

What prompted the founding of Eco-Libris? And why address your environmental concerns toward books and not, say, dishwashers?

For me it all started when I learned more about the environmental impacts of paper while doing some research for articles I wrote for an Israeli newspaper. I realized that it might take a while to get to the point where eco-friendly alternatives will replace virgin paper. Then, I talked with some friends about the idea of giving people the opportunity to balance out their paper consumption by planting trees and received good feedback about the idea.

The decision to focus on books was made after learning that only less than 10% of the paper used for printing books is made of recycled paper... more »

Today the Eco-Libris blog gave the environment issue of Fringe a really nice shout out, including an interview with Editor-in-Chief Lizzie Stark.

I knew Fringe had to run a tribute to Updike when I broke the news to the editors and received this email in response:

“Damn! No more girl-at-the-supermarket-has-nice-legs i’m-a-bastard-but-i-said-so-so-i’m-immune-from-criticism stories! Wait . . . . that’s probably not true at all.”

I was surprised that when I heard the news about Updike, I felt a little sad. I only read his work when my MFA workshops forced me to. During our discussion of “Pigeon Feathers” I’m sure I used phrases like “hetero-patriarchal order,” which is one of my favorites to say aloud because it has so... more »

In three short weeks I’ll be getting married to a physicist. Needless to say, our tastes in books are wildly different.

As an MFA, I’m required to at least say that I prefer experimental literature, the less comprehensible, the better, with added points going to literature that references french existentialists, incorporates snatches of Urdu poetry or contains sentences which require footnotes.

The fiance prefers genre fiction — anything with aliens, gadgets, supernatural phenomena or Nero Wolfe.

Lately, we’ve found a peculiar middle ground: the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, which stars Sookie Stackhouse, a young cocktail waitress cum telepath who has grit, brains and beauty. Recently, the series was made into an HBO show called True Blood. The books combine vampires, mystery and a little romance novel sensibility.

Rather than watch TV after dinner, we’ve been reading these novels aloud to each other, and it’s proven a wonderful way to spend time together. I find it soothing to listen to his voice, or to talk myself. The act recalls many dinners of my childhood — my mother used to read to me all the time. We talk all the time about whether Sookie will end up with Bill or Eric (both vampires) and who... more »

Be a “real” American. Get out to the polls today.

Fringe is looking for a few good people who have a dorkily intense love of the English language as expressed through grammar.

We’re in need of:

• a chief copyeditor to coordinate collection, correction and return of lit work to editors, and to be an extra set of eyes on all copy.
• 3 to 4 copyeditors to read specific genres, including poetry, and to make sure our issues are grammatical and make sense.

It’s a great way to get involved with Fringe, learn the inner workings of a lit mag and be a part of the literary community.

Want to join the team? Email fringeeditors@gmail.com and let us know which position you’re interested in.

You gotta love Sarah Haskins. Watch her decode the messages behind marketing aimed at women.