This week in Vintage Fringe we republish Mark Brinker’s “Notes From a Man Trapped in a Giant Bottle,” which originally ran in Issue 17, back in December of 2008.

Mark was kind enough to answer a few questions about taking a look back at “Notes.”

How do you feel about “Notes” in reading it 2.5 years after publication?

I’m still pretty happy with it. It’s one of the few things I’ve written where I don’t start to get annoyed at myself the more I read it – when I assess each sentence I still feel satisfied with it.

Would you change anything about the piece?

I played around with changing the section numbers, like either have them dated, or have them skipping around indicating there are notes missing from the sequence, but in the end I worried it would get too confusing and just kept the numbers consecutive.

Also I’d change the main character’s name to David, because I have another story where the character’s name has to be Robert, and I don’t want to give the impression that all my characters have the same name.

How has publication in Fringe aided your writing career?

I actually got solicited for a story after someone read my story in Fringe,... more »

Hello. If you are reading this, please come help me. I am stuck inside of a giant bottle in the middle of a grassy field. more »