a collection of short stories by a new young southern writer . . .
The Data Yodeler is a twisting tale of five mid-career uber-geeks exploring the potential of a voyeuristic existence, and making that dream into a reality. It is a story about the meaning and purpose of art, a story about the value identity, and a story of coming to terms with an uncontrollable maelstrom of information. “Meet Russ.” “Russ . . .
Vignettes which blur the distinction between what is most definitely fiction and what is less convincingly false. . . .
Short Slice of life fiction and some serial short fiction. Strange and weird. The site also includes video and some occasional video also by the author. All is written as it falls out and published immediately thereafter. . . .
What is genius . . . and to what extent does it define the lives of those who have it—or don’t? Twenty-year-old Shane Fetters doesn’t just live on the edge. He hangs precariously in the chasm where he’s certain there ought to be some middle ground, struggling to assert himself as a middle person—not quite male or female, neither pure genius nor utter . . .
It started as a simple experiment: How would two characters survive being homeless in the Sims 3? This is their story. Alice is a young woman struggling to cope with homelessness and an abusive father. Kev barely knows he has a daughter and yearns for love he can’t reciprocate. . . .
Servicing the Pole is the portrait of a New York stripper—a battle-worn misfit slogging her way through the city’s roughest clubs, watching as the job replaces her personal life, and secretly harbouring rock star ambitions. As the fast-paced night life’s deceptive promises of easy money gradually give way to the harsher realities of addiction and prostitution, Emily must decide—is . . .
A novella about Ty, Furball, Bourbon, and their friends in Java, Missouri, and their very busy week before Thanksgiving. Bourbon risks losing his boyfriend over a bad choice at a party, Ty struggles against the tide of rumors at school, and Furball’s friends try to pull him out of his own potentially destructive slump. . . .
Dirty Red Kiss‘s Caulfield-esque narrator opens a window through which we can see humanity in a way that is beyond the capabilities of a more articulate, self-aware narrator. . . .
It’s hard to write a long descent review about a collection of vignettes (each different in their own way), so let me just say this:
Ljones writes short stories which may be true or false, but it doesn’t really matter. Every word, every action, encapsulates a certain emotion or feeling that [more . . .]
The writing reflects the characters. Most of them are common, everyday people who are not writers, and it shows in the prose. But this doesn’t mean there’s not beautiful paragraph here and there that is astounding. No, the prose never gives way to being writerly. It is mostly written in the character’s voices and at their skill level, yet the [more . . .]