Watch out, girls, for Octo is on the prowl...




smeddley, let me say again that you are awesome for making him for me. 

Okay, back to work on the short story now. 

The fifth issue of the Wainscot Exhibition, Dietrologia, is now live. It includes my piece "Praise and Criticism for M. Rekling's The Bottle", a collection of review-snippets of a fictional book. You can also find fiction from Toiya Kristen Finley, Paul Jessup, Matthew Kressel and Jonathan Wood, poetry from JoSelle Vanderhooft and Nanetta Rayman Rivera, an interview, and the beginning of a new serial by Douglas Lain.

A snippet of mine:

Where the book fails, however, is in its explanation of the bottle's origins. Rekling's dedication to her work took her to the streets, to gather evidence from those who had seen the bottle's victims in the short time between holding the bottle and passing into the grave. Such evidence, coming often from fellow drunks only a step or two further from crossing the river, is flimsy at best, yet Rekling takes it as fact, and from it draws what she sees as a common link between many of the deaths: the hearing, by those soon to die, of a “quite distinctive” singing. “Like wind passing through pipes, but womanly too,” were the words of a more eloquent Riverside denizen, passed on by a friend, and Rekling draws a comparison between this description and the similar words often used in reviews of the opera singer Melanie R. Her conclusion that the bottle belonged to Melanie R., being based on such unreliable evidence, does not quite satisfy.

If that intrigues, take a wander on over to Dietrologia. I hope you enjoy the creations that you find there.

Tags: free online fiction