The Fiction Issue 2008
I’ll Give You Some Threats
I texted some pretty mean shit from someone else’s phone to author Amelia Gray and she punched me in the face.
Gaudifingers
The Gaudifingers contagion is no longer contained. It results in rapid aging and painful terrifying death within minutes. Anyone you know could at any time be Gaudifingers.
Three Kinds of People on the Crosstown Bus
Mostly it’s no-accounts and old ladies that ride the bus in this city. Most are fat. You never see these kinds of people on television.
The Number
“What it is, is that I want to have sex with you. I think it would be really good for me to have sex with you.”
Hunger Pangs on Paper
Everyone knows (especially your dad) that if you aspire to be a writer, you’re going to go through life hungry.
On the Illness
William was a puker. His expulsions—the color, consistency, and volume of a baby's—occurred after every sentence he spoke.
The Poet
The less the poet wrote, the more books he bought. He was building a library for the person he wished he was. Or so he told himself.
Literary Titans Are Super Freaks
I have taken the liberty of rounding up the dirtiest exploits of some of the most revered (and perverted) authors in the Western canon.
My Father at the End
I did not talk to my father for most of the last year he was alive. It was a form of self-preservation.
A Misbegotten Traipsing
Sherlock Holmes was really a trigger-happy neighborhood watch member, kind of like George Zimmerman with an obnoxious accent.
Jawbreaker’s Major-Label Album
The story of a writer writing a live-narrative of his Bolt Bus experience that involves writing about writing and writing about reading a story that might have been written about him.