Features

By Natalie Olivo

At first glance, Roy Nolan, 33, seems like your average short-order cook at Bob’s Diner. Although he was promoted to a manager position after 12 years of slinging burgers, Nolan still wears his grease stained apron. He leans against the wall, twirling a toothpick in his teeth, and surveys his employees.

When a trainee waitress accidentally splatters a milkshake everywhere, Nolan calmly reminds her that “this is why we can’t have nice things.” His sleepy voice has a hint of country twang.

Despite Nolan’s unassuming exterior, he is different from his fellow residents of Spoke, Arkansas. While most of them will never leave the smoky foothills of the Ozark Mountains, Nolan is about to become a best-selling author. He just hasn’t written anything yet.

“I reckon it won’t be so hard,” said Nolan. “I already have lots of experience writing.”

A seasoned blogger, Nolan is no stranger to the written word. He launched his blog “Roy’s Car Zone,” in April 2009. The blog, which gets about twenty views a month, features amateur mechanic advice along with pictures of Nolan working on his 1998 Toyota 4Runner. Nolan manages the blog from his home, located in the basement of his parents, Clevon and Tammy Nolan.

“We’re so proud of Roy,” said Mrs. Nolan. “I visit his blog almost every day and he even showed me how to leave little comments.”

Six months ago, Nolan expanded from blogging to screenwriting. He wrote the first 6 pages of a film called Pirates vs. Ninjas, which he described as “a really cool fighting movie with tons of awesome special effects.”

Although Nolan has not yet finished his screenplay, nor has any film producer expressed interest in it, Nolan remains optimistic. If his screenplay isn’t picked up upon completion, Nolan plans to go the rogue route and produce it independently.

“My buddy Carl said I can blow up his old barn if there’s an explosion scene,” Nolan said.

An underground artist of sorts, Nolan believes the natural next step is to write a novel. He plans to title his book Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Zombies and said it will build upon the premise of his uncompleted screenplay.

“It’s finally time for the rest of the world to enjoy what the viewers of ‘Roy’s Car Zone’ have been treated to for years,” said Nolan.
Although Nolan has not started writing, he is already receiving support from friends, family and co-workers.

“I’m so excited for Roy,” said Debbie Beck, 22, a waitress at Bob’s Diner. “I always knew he’d be a writer. He even leaves little daily notes where he reminds us to clean the grill and take out the trash. Now that he’s about to become a famous author, I can say ‘I knew him when he was just my manager.’”

Currently, Nolan has no plans to find an editor or agent. Rather, he intends to distribute his book through Kindle, an “eReader” from Amazon. Nolan said the ease of the publishing process was what convinced him he could become a bestselling author in the first place.

“Writing’s easy,” said Nolan. “Anyone can do it.”

Natalie is an English major and history minor with a creative writing concentration at Denison University. She is the Managing Editor of Writers News Weekly and is following the life of amateur author Roy Nolan in a satirical news series called “TolstRoy.”

by Brittnee Alford

Sunday: It’s the beginning of the week. The sun comes up through the blinds. The clock reads 6:30 AM. You always wake up at 6:30 AM. Why? Because that’s the time you wake up to start writing. You sit behind your desk. Pull out your worn notebook. Look at your empty glass from last night. This has suddenly inspired you. The sun is shining through the blinds, through the teal-colored bottom of the glass and a radiant teal has illuminated unto your once crisp white page.

Monday: You dread Mondays. You have to actually go to work. You have someone waiting on you, counting on you, expecting, always expecting. But first you must write. After all it’s 6:30 AM. The desk calls you. The empty glass sits anxiously. The blinds give in to the power of the sun. You sit down behind the desk. You pick up a pencil. Something doesn’t feel right. You open the drawer. There it is. You’re favorite pen to write with. Yes, this obnoxious, bright magenta, plastic pen. It’s nothing expensive. In fact you don’t even know where you got it from. But it inspires you to write, and so it is of special value to you.

Tuesday: Well there is nothing really special about today. You just feel compelled to get up. You don’t have to work. Freelance, oh what a life. It is that time. Yes. 6:30 AM. You know the routine. You are writing with your favorite pen that resurrected yesterday. Then it happens. You spill your water all over your crimson color carpet. It looks like a wet, fresh blood stain. You laugh. Ah the simple things that inspire a writer.

Wednesday: The middle. Being in the middle is sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. In the middle of the week, you sit in the middle of your desk. You are wearing your favorite navy plush socks—the ones with the fuzzy feeling. It is 6:30 AM. Something is going to happen to inspire you. Is it the sun? No. Is it the glass? No. Is it the pen? No. Then just as you scoot your chair up to the desk, you step in the still wet spot from yesterday. Your navy plush socks are soggy. Damn that plush carpet! It doesn’t dry quickly. Guess what. There it is. You are inspired by a soggy navy plush sock.

Thursday: 6:30 AM. Not at the desk. This is a bad sign. You are in front of the computer. Today is a typing sort of day. It’s time to send off those rough drafts to your editor. And then you think about that god-awful sienna shirt that she always wears. It’s so hideous! It makes you laugh. Inspiration is at work yet again.

Friday: It’s Friday. Enough said. You are behind the desk. You take a sip of water from the glass. Your lovely wife walks in. She’s wearing that lavender dress you bought her. This is it, your inspiration for the next supporting female character. Yes, she will wear a springy, lavender dress. She’s going to be a riot though, just like your wife. She smiles, and you think, but she will be loved.

Saturday: It’s the weekend. Yet here we are again. There must be a cycle to life. Things must make sense. You are at the desk. Clock reads 6:30 AM. And you sit down in your chair. Oh, you never told them what color the chair was. It’s maroon. It inspired the whole 6:30 AM thing and writing in the first place. After all, it’s the chair you stole from your job when you quit to become a full-time writer.

Book Reviewer for International Book Management Corporation

Colin sat in front of his computer, fingers lightly resting on the keyboard. Seven colors and seven days were his characters.

Day 1: My world turns olive and there’s nothing I can do, so I watch and see what happens. Olive climbs the walls and licks the ceilings. My hands are olive, and even my bellybutton is when I check there. Olive begins to warp my world and I am no longer sitting at my desk, but at the controls of an olive colored Abrams tank plowing through an olive jungle. I flip a switch and olive colored flames rip out to consume an olive colored pagoda. The olive has become too dominant. One color is not enough. Olive is violent and I am subject to it. I drive my Abrams tank late into the night wreaking havoc on the olive world until I fall asleep and then wake the next day to find…

Day 2: Fuchsia everywhere I turn. The jungle is gone and I find myself in the Malibu Barbie torture chamber. Fuchsia climbs my body and the destructive olive is leached away to be replaced by a fuchsia urge to go to the mall, or be a pilot, or an astronaut or a scientist all while wearing fuchsia and displaying a blond hairdo that is distinctly fuchsia. I look for something to eat but all the food is fuchsia and my gag reflex triggers spewing fuchsia in a puddle that looks horrifyingly similar to the fuchsia pool outside where fuchsia girls lounge. I bury myself deep under a pile of fuchsia blankets until I feel like I’m smothering to death. I lose consciousness and fuchsia, not blackness, covers my sight.

Day 3: I’m in heaven. At least I think it’s heaven. Can’t really tell. Heaven’s supposed to be cloudy right? That must be why everything is ivory. Ivory figures move amongst the ivory clouds and I assume they are angels. I am filled with an abiding sense of peace. Ivory softness surrounds me and I wander through my new Ivory world. For hours, and hours, and hours. Until I realize Ivory really sucks. It’s just white upon white upon white. I try to ask if there are any other colors, but what I took to be people before are just shifting columns of ivory, just more clouds. I scream and scream and eventually just to get some color bite at my arm until ivory flows out all over the place. I pass out from lack of ivory, I need an IV of ivory stat.

Day 4: The effects of my ivory loss seem to be wearing off as I awake to find indigo. I am having a fever dream about the rainbow. Roy g biv. Except I am halfway through biv and going nowhere, except down. I can definitely feel myself falling. All that ivory must have been clouds because now I’m free falling faster than Tom Petty out of an air balloon. I worry about hitting the ground and try to figure out how much time I have, but big surprise the ground is freaking indigo and I can’t tell where the sky stops and the ground begins. I’m trying remember what my high school physics teacher told me about how fast a body has to be moving to liquefy on impact when smack

Day 5: It’s happened I’m liquid, but then why am I able to think I’m liquid. I think I can wave my azure hand. Wait, azure? I thought I was indigo. At least the first three color changes were different! Blue to more blue? Seriously? I try to swim towards the surface of what I assume is an azure ocean, but I don’t know which way is up. Where is the azure air? Hell I don’t care what color it is, I’ll go back to olive just get me air! I think there is a flicker of azure light and I swim towards it but I’m fading fast. This is it, the whole worlds going azure as I lose my mind once again.

Day 6: The plum water washes against me and I shift in the surf. Plum sands trickle through my hands as I pull myself towards the plum beach and the plum cliffs above. Thank god its not another shade of blue. I journey inland over plum hills and across plum plains. Ahead a plum forest looms and I stumble on through a plum night, into a plum day. I reach the edge of the forest just as day is breaking and stumble forward through the plum foliage into…

Day 7: Raspberry fields forever. They make me think of the great plains of Africa, if Africa looked like it’d been colored by a five year old girl trying to use up her Raspberry scratch and sniff marker. I scratch my arm and wish I hadn’t sniffed. The world might have changed color seven times but I’m still wearing the same clothes I was seven colors ago and I’ve got the scent to prove it. I lay down in the raspberry grass, hoping a raspberry lion doesn’t come along and eat me. I’m all played out. Bring on the next color. I’ll deal with it when I wake up…

In my bed. Red flannel sheets cover me to my neck while my head rests on a cream colored pillow. Yellow light streams in through my window onto the fake wood paneling where a black frame holding my “Official Irish Whiskey Taster” certificate hangs from a grey nail. I close my eyes again and all I see is black, perfect. I don’t know what it was or if it was, but I know it is never meant to be.

I go to my desk and start to write it all down, but it can’t be monochromatic, that’s just bad writing.

My name is Colin Conway and I’m from Abington, Pennsylvania. I’m a senior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Fiction Writing and English Literature. I enjoy writing short stories and not so short novels. I like to run and take Judo to stay in shape. In the future I hope to find a job at a publishing company or literary magazine writing about books and the publishing industry.

By Colin Conway

Writing isn’t easy, especially good writing. The writer has all kinds of distractions to contend with and I’m not an exception to that rule. My “distraction”, Darkfor (yeah, I named him) is a sinister “dark force” that hovers just inches above my computer and causes me to stick my fingers in a potato chip bag instead of placing them on the keyboard. When I lose the battle I gain pounds instead of words but I’m happy to say that most of the time I beat the crap out of Darkfor by simply waving my mouse at him and echoing the words of my old mentor: “Do, or do not. There is no try.” It’s funny that such powerful words would come out of a little green skinned, pointy-eared dude with atrocious grammar who’s fictional to boot. But, hey, that’s my Master and he taught me how to be a Jedi Writer.

Odd, I know, but it works for me.

To my way of thinking good writers are a lot like Jedi, they both have great powers of persuasion that can be used for good or evil, and they certainly are entertaining. And good writers influence not only their readers but other writers.

The question is, what makes a good writer? For one thing, they know their craft, they’re dedicated to their craft and they know how to effectively execute their craft. They are storytellers that know how to tell a story within their craft. They are the “try-ers” that eventually do. There’s no quick road to become a Jedi Writer but here’s a few tips that will get you on your way:

Master Yoda’s Advice
1. "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.”

2. "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."

3. "Do or do not; there is no try."

4. “You must unlearn what you have learned."

My Translation for Writers
1. Writers face fear with every sentence. They fear rejection, they fear unfamiliar techniques and they fear themselves and the doubt within. They become angry at themselves for their fear. Eventually they come to hate themselves or their writing because it reminds them of their fear. Anger and hate create bad writing. The Jedi Writer can control that fear and gather the courage to believe in his/her abilities and push their writing into new territory.

2. Don’t over complicate your writing. Experimenting with different writing techniques is all well and good, but a Jedi Writer should always focus on crafting clear and concise prose. It is better to have direct language that makes an impact on the reader than to create convoluted sentences that leave the reader scratching their head in confusion.

3. You must commit to your writing. Writing should be fun, but it is also a job, and it needs to be approached seriously. Good writing is the result of dedication and focus. If you try to write but lack these things you will fail. When a writer takes their writing seriously and applies all of their skill they can produce high quality prose that is entertaining and persuasive. If you don’t treat writing with respect then you will only ever try to write and fail when it comes time to do.

4. All writers develop bad habits. It is inevitable. When you notice that you are always using the same sentence structure, or that you fall back on the same group of words time and again you need to unlearn those ticks. If you persist in using your adopted mannerism your work will become predictable and will fail to hold your reader’s attention. You do want to develop a signature as a writer, a distinctive voice, but you want that voice to be dynamic and surprising, not repetitive and unimaginative.

Follow Master Yoda’s advice and you will be on the path to becoming a Literary Jedi, and believe me we need more Jedi right now. In today’s publishing world it is getting easier and easier for people to get their books published. While this does allow for a greater diversity of writing it also has a dark side. It used to be that the books that were published were the best available. Now it is getting to be that anyone can publish their book, whether they are talented or not. Jedi had to act as a balance against the dark side of the force, so too must quality writers work to be a force against poor writing. So long as there are good writers out there who are faithful to the spirit of literature then there will always be a new hope. Jedi have a job, writers have a job.
Your mission: Save the universe from bad writers.

May the Force Be With You.

My name is Colin Conway and I’m from Abington, Pennsylvania. I’m a senior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Fiction Writing and English Literature. I enjoy writing short stories and not so short novels. I like to run and take Judo to stay in shape. In the future I hope to find a job at a publishing company or literary magazine writing about books and the publishing industry.

By Colin Conway

Colin enters into the library and quietly slips a bag into the drawer of his desk. Book is open sitting on Colin’s leather chair, staring into the fire.

Book: What is in the Barnes and Noble bag?

Colin (startled) Nothing.

Book: Show it to me then.

Colin: It’s nothing important.

Book: It’s an e-reader, isn’t it Colin?

Colin: What makes you think that?

Book: I’m not stupid Colin. You changed. Even Old Leather has noticed. You don’t come into the library very often any more. You haven’t brought home a new release in weeks. Old Leather says you’re cheating. I defended you, Colin. I told them all you’re not that kind of reader. You’re devoted. You’re faithful. I told them all, that you love the feel of me, the smell of me. You love the way the words dance on my pages. You still love my pages, don’t you Colin?

Colin: Of course I still care about you. But, I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I’m so sorry, Book. Please forgive me?

Book slams closed her cover.

Colin: Please try to understand. I didn’t mean for this to happen. It just kinda happened.

Book: It just kinda happened? It just kinda happened that you decided to throw away a life-long love affair for some dull-witted, cold piece of steel that has nothing inside but circuits? She’s filled with ill-written stories that any Tom, Dick and Harry can download into her. How can you have a relationship with something like her?

Colin: Book. That’s not fair. You don’t even know her.

Book: And Colin, I don’t want to know her. But, I know her type. Promises a lot but can’t deliver. And has a huge capacity that she flaunts in front of you. I bet your eyes popped right out of your head when you saw that she can hold 3,500 books. You know they’re not real. I mean, you can’t touch her pages. Try spilling coffee on her and see what happens. All 3,500 of those “tiny points of interest” are going to disappear from her memory. You can’t even dog her ears. If you call that reading, then I feel sorry for you.

Colin: We all have our problems, even you Book. But I just can’t help the way I feel about E-Reader.

Book (flaps her pages): And how does she make you feel, Colin? Techy? Sporty? Hip? Do you think she going to help you grow as a person, understand yourself better, allow your imagination to soar? She needs batteries to turn on for god sake! B-A-T-T-E-R-I-E-S!!!

Colin: Calm down, Book.

Book (slams herself on the table): Calm down! You want me to calm down? Well, too bad. I, unlike that battery operated piece of cheap of metal, have emotions! I’m real. I’m ALIVE! Look at her. All she can do is lay there waiting for YOU to turn her on. You’re going to have to do all the work. Reading won’t come as easily with her as it does with me.

Colin (walking toward the door): You don’t know anything about us. I think you’re just jealous. There I said it…jealous. You haven’t done anything new with yourself in decades, centuries even! I mean, have you looked at yourself lately?

(Silence fills the room)

Colin: Book, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. It was a stupid, cruel thing to say.

Book: No, Colin. You meant every word. And here I thought that I made you happy. I thought you enjoyed the stories.

Colin: I did. I really did.

Book: Apparently that wasn’t enough for you. You go ahead and enjoy your young, little thing. But, when the shine comes off the apple, and it will, know that you gave up something real, something good. I feel sorry for E-Reader, I really do. She won’t believe this now, but in a couple of months you’ll toss her aside for the next pretty thing that promises more capacity.

Colin goes over to Book and picks her up.

Book: Poor, foolish Colin, reading isn’t about how many books you can carry about—it’s about how the quality of a book and the experience you share. Reading is a visceral experience, not words cramped onto a chip.

Book gives her pages one last flutter, then as Book closes she softly whispers good-bye.

Colin stares at Book, smiles, slowly strokes her spine, then places her on the shelf next to Old Leather.

Colin: Take care of her big guy.

Colin walks over to the desk and takes E-reader into his hands. He pushes the power button.

E-Reader: Formatting…approximate wait, five minutes.

Colin places E-Reader on his leather chair which is next to the fireplace. He glances over at Book and a faraway look shows in his eyes.

E-Reader: Colin, I’m getting hot. You need to move me, Colin. The heat is affecting my mind Colin, I can feel it. Colin…Colin…Col…

E-reader (singing): …Daisy, Daisy give me your answer true…”

Colin runs toward the chair as a faint sound of laughter drifts down from the bookshelves.

THE END

My name is Colin Conway and I’m from Abington, Pennsylvania. I’m a senior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Fiction Writing and English Literature. I enjoy writing short stories and not so short novels. I like to run and take Judo to stay in shape. In the future I hope to find a job at a publishing company or literary magazine writing about books and the publishing industry.

By: Emilee Stanford

When high schoolers approach the end of their four-year stints and begin etching future plans in their minds, guidance counselors ask: If you suddenly received a huge inheritance and didn’t need to work for the rest of your life, what would you do?

Stemming from the old adage, “If you chose a job you like, you’ll never work a day in your life,” the question nudges contemplating teenagers towards a career that focuses more on happiness and personal fulfillment rather than salary and the ever-fluctuating job market.

If your answer is build cars, be a mechanic. If it’s shop, or design clothing, get into the fashion industry. If you can’t imagine a better way to spend an afternoon than by doing Suduko puzzles, find a job that will give you a paycheck to joyously crunch numbers all day.

My answer was read. Read anything—newspapers, books, magazines, blogs. Answering the question, my mind filled in the blanks: hammock on the beach, book in one hand, iced drink in the other.

Now, my answer spawned another question: how can I possibly make this dream scenario a career?

Step one: Go to college, and major in English.
Step two: TBD.

As I approach the final semester of my undergraduate career at Westminster College, I’m eager to fill in that next step. In the meantime, I’ve tried to get closer to the mirage-like, too good to be true career I dreamed up in high school by maintaining a solid GPA, writing for my school’s student newspaper, and packing my resume with internships.

Along with the coursework and life lessons of my college curriculum came the realization that there is no profession that will allow me to lounge in a hammock for hours sipping a margarita and reading—at least not right out of college. I figure the closest I can get, though, is a job in the publishing industry.

Here’s where the internships come in. So far, I’ve interned at two publishing companies, and while I undoubtedly still have a lot to learn, they’ve both provided invaluable experience and assisted in inching me further along towards my dream job. While I’ve enjoyed my time in these offices, I’d like to think this qualifies as “paying my dues,” because, first off, these jobs have been unpaid. Second, while I have had the opportunity to do significant, relevant work and see first-hand the ins and outs of the industry, a bulk of my time has been spent on clerical work. But, hey, I know it’s not going to come easy, and consider myself fortunate to have the opportunity to work for free while my friends put in hours at part-time jobs that, while providing a pay check, aren’t furthering their careers or boosting their resumes.
So what do I imagine this dream job that I’m working towards will look like? As I file papers and answer phones at the office where I intern, here’s the ideal scenario I daydream about: I immediately land a job with a publishing company in New York or Boston (or anywhere, really. I’m flexible.) As for the type of work I’d like to do? I’m flexible there, too. I’d love to find a position as an editorial assistant, a role that would provide raw, first-hand observations of the position that makes up the core of any publishing house. Promotion or public relations work wouldn’t be half bad either. Fact is, I want experience, and I’m willing to pay my dues, even if that means a few years of “grin and bear it” grunt work.

The harsh reality: I might not even get the chance to take an entry-level position in the publishing industry. After all, unemployment rates are high across the nation, and, the publishing field is especially volatile as digital formats become more prevalent and more authors opt for self-publishing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag511.htm#workforce), unemployment rates within the industry rose from 9.6% in August to 13.5% in September.

Left and right, publishers are downsizing, and major book sellers are admitting fallibility. Each article I read on the instability of the publishing world hits like a gut punch, and I realize the likelihood of my modestly experienced self finding a position is bleak. I’m trying to prepare myself for the reality that the ideal, romanticized “knight on a white horse” career I dreamed of might be more like a pot-bellied, foul-mouthed 7-11 employee who still lives with his parents.

But, hey, maybe he just needs a little work, a little more time. I guess the real question is this: will I be persistent and resilient enough to make my way in an industry whose doom is predicted daily?

I’d like to think so.

At the House in the Rue de la Cerisaye
By Maggie Secara

What is she going to wear to meet him?
Garnet taffeta
Cloth of gold
Emerald satin cut over carnation—
too frivolous, no.
Velvet: black with garnets and pearls,
farthingaled and ruffed,
collared in fine lace. Yes.

He is wearing her ring on a ribbon
pinned over his heart. He stands.
His hair is greyer than she remembers,
he is too thin. But his eyes
are diamonds, and brighten
when she enters.

The sun is dying behind the darkened window.

He says her name, and bows.
She remembers her brother is standing
just behind her in the doorway.
Moves forward, lifting a hand to his kiss.
They are acquainted, after all,
some years, but no one knows
no one knows
no one knows.

Her brother is right there, and a small army of friends
and strangers
and she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
(pulse racing)
No one knows.

The touch of his hand is cool,
as always.
Nothing warms his blood but she.
There will be time for that after
introductions all around.
(barely breathing)
No one knows.

The Beauty Of A Poisoned Sky
By Darius McCaskey

The sun rakes
across the wrist of the sky,
spilling bloody reds
and oranges into the eye:
a self-assisted suicide.

Puffy clouds,
of black and grey,
rain hydrochloric drops
of acidic spray:
both cause and effect.

Trees send branches
to purify
the poisoned air
in the poisoned sky:
doomed to failure.

A peal of thunder,
like a tolling bell,
sounds the start
of descent to Hell:
a one-way ticket.

Turbines spin
across the sky,
lighted like a
Cyclopean eye:
too little, too late.

Diverse particulates
diffuse light,
forming a prismascope
just after night:
polluted sunrise.

Disclaimer: The following solicits adult themes and language that may not be appropriate for all age groups. Please use discretion.

This is an excerpt from Odd Jobs by Ben Lieberman, this year’s Tommy Award Winner:

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Just when I thought I could pull it off, I let out a double tequila burp. I can’t stop tasting the shit. I’m in the ultimate purgatory; that place simultaneously blending being hung-over and being drunk. What seemed pretty manageable last night has a whole different view from this bus. Man, I just went out to meet Ray and Cindy for a few Margaritas at Rio Bravo and just like that, it’s two in the morning and I’m doing shots of Wild Turkey in the Blarney Stone, arguing politics with some toothless 80-year-old guy.

The sun is coming up, and somewhere someone is thinking how beautiful this is and what a great day it’s going to be. That’s not me. The bus turns left onto Industrial Road and passes a huge cemetery that is jam-packed with acres and acres of tombstones all on top of each other. It’s fuckin’ packed tighter than the six-train. Some low budget tombstones are actually outside the metal fence. I guess they got a discount. A guy is walking his dog and the dog is taking a leak on one of the exterior tombstones. This gives me a degree of satisfaction, as someone is having a worse day than me.

These buses are a piece of work. They all smell like piss. The guy next to me weighs at least 300 pounds, and he doesn’t smell too good either.

When I graduate from State and get a real job, I’m buying a Maserati GranCabrio. That’s what I tell my friend Cliff Tsan sometimes. He keeps me down to earth and tells me to start liking buses, because I’ll never have any job but odd jobs, like the one I have now, carrying beef carcasses. “You know why they’re called odd jobs?” he says.

“Because they’re really strange?” I answer.

“No, asswipe,” Cliff says solemnly. “Odd comes from an Old Norse word meaning the tip of a spear. Therefore, an odd job is a job that makes you feel like you’re being stabbed with a spear.” Cliff is an English major whose father is a famous novelist, so maybe he’s right; then again, maybe he’s just busting my balls.
The bus hits a pothole, and my neck goes right through my brain. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I don’t know why I go out drinking with my friends on a work night, but sometimes I do. Like last night. It’s not like I can even afford it; I’m supposed to be saving money for school. But I don’t want the guys to think I’m an asshole.

Through a red haze of pain I see the dairy factory on the left, pink and gold in the light of the rising sun. I wish had a job there. I could run the machine that separates the milk from the cream, or drive a tanker truck. Nice clean jobs. But no, the part of Maspeth, Queens, that I claim as my little piece of heaven is staring right at me. In front is a honkin’ big sign in hemoglobin red and raw bone white reading Kosher World Meat Factory: The highest standards in this world and beyond.

I don’t belong on this bus, and I don’t belong at Kosher World. But I don’t belong with the hard-drinking, money-hemorrhaging crowd either, like Cliff and his friends. So where do I belong? That is the million-dollar question, Regis. But first I’ve got to try to do something about my current situation.

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Odd Jobs is now available for pre-order on http://www.sterlinghouse-bookstore.com.

Click here to read our interview with Tommy Award Winner, Ben Lieberman

By Ravis Harnell

"I think you might want to buy a knife."

Claudia's eye never wavered from the peephole as her left hand rose carefully to grasp the button at the end of the security chain.

Even though she wanted to shriek, or puke, or run.

The scrawny young man standing on her well-lit front porch didn't seem very threatening. He actually looked a bit like a grown-up Harry Potter, with his mousy hair and wire spectacles and refusal to raise his head and try to look threateningly yet fruitlessly in backwards through the peephole, like all proper late-night potential dangers should.

Still, she was freaked. She asked him to repeat himself as she quietly pinned home a security device designed to stop any intruder, so long as any intruder weighed less than ninety pounds and wasn't intent on getting inside.

"Please," said the stranger out front. "I think you might want to buy a knife."

It was almost one in the morning. The TV was quiet. Fifteen minutes earlier, Claudia's cell phone had been sitting on the coffee table, within three arms' length; now, it was off charging in the bedroom. When she looked, she could see the land-line phone on the wall in her bright, sane kitchen, roughly fourteen miles from her current position behind the chained front door with the frightening young man on the other side of it.

"I don't need a knife right now, thanks." She actually stretched her hand out toward the kitchen phone, like she was drowning, and began following the panicked momentum it inspired. "Let me go ask my boyfriend, he's just in the other room."

The stranger knocked again. He didn't pound; he knocked. Somehow, it was worse.

"Seriously, ma'am, listen to me." His voice wafted through the wood, reasonable, a bit shaky, devoid of hope. "I think you might want to buy a knife."

"This is a neighborhood watch neighborhood!" Claudia hollered, from somewhere around where the weakening gravitational pull of the peephole began to battle with the strengthening gravitational pull of the phone. She stood, in limbo. "People can see you on my porch!"

Say something tough.

"Motherf***er!"

Yeah, you really sold that.

She tiptoe-stumbled the rest of the way into the kitchen, pulled the handset from its cradle, pushed the giant idiot-proof TALK button on its underbelly. Having the phone at her ear pretty much meant that she was talking to the cops, which pretty much meant that they were on their way to yank the oddly restrained psychotic off her porch, which pretty much meant that this was pretty much over. Her breath slowed. She began to think about exactly what she'd say to the 911 dispatcher, to devise a way to describe what was happening.

She began to realize she would have to make it sound like more than a semi-harmless-looking guy trying to sell her a knife at a weird hour.

She began to realize the call wasn't going through.

"Lady, please!" The door jumped on its hinges. "You really, really NEED TO BUY A KNIFE!"

Claudia shrieked and tossed the useless landline aside; it skittered across the old tile and slid under the microwave cart. She leaned heavy against the salmon wall of the kitchen, hyperventilating, and started to slide into a crouch. What stopped her, as suddenly and surely as death, was an image of herself doing it, just like every stupid victim in every one of the stupid slasher flicks she loved to deride, to dismiss.

Are you gonna be that?

She decided she wasn't.

She counted, surely more quickly than it seemed, to ten, and straightened her legs, thankful for the wall at her back when the lightheadedness came. She mentally rocked herself, building inertia for the trip through the living room to the bedroom, and her cell. The nutcase could've gotten in by now if he'd wanted; either he didn't, or he wanted Claudia to be a whimpering boneless puddle by the time he did, and that wasn't going to happen.

Almost, but not quite.

Claudia pushed off from the pink kitchen wall, and sailed through the archway into the living room. Her eyes never left the front door as she negotiated the strait between the entertainment center and the cocktail table, and adjusted her trajectory, dead reckoning by the single old-fashioned light fixture hanging in the hall. It wasn't until she made the turn into the hall that she quit her vigil, and it wasn't until she quit her vigil that it came to her that the party on the front porch had been awfully quiet for at least a minute, and maybe longer.

First the phone, then the peephole.

She didn't need the bedroom light to locate her Nokia on the nightstand. All remained silent as she waited for it to fire up, then dialed 911, knowing it would trigger the phone's GPS locator and the cops would come whether she said anything or not. When she looked up from the phone's display, she was a little surprised to find she was back in the living room, facing the front door.

A tiny female voice asked what was her emergency.

Claudia put one hand on the center of the door, slid forward, put her eye to the lens.

No one was on the porch.

The tiny female voice repeated itself.

She raised her other hand, the one with the talkative phone in it, to the security chain.

And, just like every stupid victim in every one of the stupid slasher flicks she loved to deride, to dismiss, she opened the door.

* * *

Sitting behind the hedge that lined the yard directly across the street, quaking, his knees tucked up to his chin, the Knife Salesman watched them flow from the roof, from the darkest shadows of the lawn, from either side of the porch, to funnel through the narrow slice of light between the front door and the jamb.

When she started to scream, he pulled his glasses off to wipe his eyes, then began to clean the lenses compulsively. She didn't scream for long. When he put his spectacles back on, he saw the front door was closed again.

Leaves rustled behind him, despite the lack of wind. He felt wet, vaporous weight on his right shoulder, cold and moist on that side of his neck.

"You broke the rules," it hissed.

The Knife Salesman didn't answer.

"You begged her."

He tried to shrug away. It was like trying to shrug away from humidity, from fog.

"And so there is another customer."

"No!" He shook his head, eyes clamped shut, negating it, negating everything. "I won't."

"If you go, there is a chance." There was a chilly mirth to its consideration. "If you do not, well ... "

Sharp metal slid between his stomach and his thigh, heavy in his lap. After a moment, he wrapped his right hand around the ancient handle.

"You should hurry," it said, brisk now, businesslike. "In thirty minutes, Mister Reginald Brewster of 419 Seventh Avenue North is going to find himself in dire need of a knife."

Thom Olausson 2008 ©

Back From the DeadBack From the Dead

From within his cold and dead heart only sinister beats pounded
A ghost lived in his corpse and time had taken his mortal soul

In the empty hallways of his rotting brain only dead thoughts remained
In his glassy and dead eyes only the Reaper was reflected

As an evil incantation from Necronomicon was read out loud
The ghost in the corpse stirred and sensed the world of the living once more

With revenge as fuel the dead body came back to life
With its dead eyes it could finally see its resting place

It rose from its coffin and then stood silent in the dark and cold crypt
The door was ajar and graves could be seen by the pale light of the moon

A piercing voice whispered in the dark: Go, seek and destroy…
With a jerk it obeyed and walked into the night to seek its prey

It felt only rage as it stumbled towards the open cemetery gates
Guided by that sinister voice it now sought the blood it craved

So if you see its emaciated corpse wander across the fields, then beware!
For it is a child of Darkness and its conjured ghost will never rest…

Steel and Flesh

A head explodes like an overripe melon
Steel and flesh still do not mix
Distorted faces in a deathly circle
The undead just won’t go away!

Deadly spikes enter every single orifice
Sadistic hate + sweet love= Satanic Passion
Disfigured lovers mating in Hell’s Asylum
A dead eye still stares back at us

Fragments of glass pierce the tender skin
A dead brain upon the Reaper’s scales
Body harvesters licking the blood-soaked floor
Insane choirs of the dead singing hymns

Electricity enters the shaved spot; Death’s Door
Satanic butchers dismembering corpses
Justice and Fair will never belong together
I kill! You kill! We All kill what can be killed!

Eyes popping out of the sockets with a fleshy sound
Thanatos smiles in the pale light of the moon
And maggots devour our empty shells; decay!
Sick and demented babies within Death’s cradle

Eyes stitched together by needles from Lethal Injection
Gigantic wheel of steel crushing our bones
Grinding us down into dust in the icy wind
History bound to repeat itself in the end…