EDITORIAL REMARKS by M.R. Branwen
PROSTITUTION, DRUG-ADDICTION, troubled marriage; tea parties: welcome to Issue Fourteen. It has the usual assortment of uplifting content that we love over here at Slush Pile Magazine.
In fiction this issue Jerry Whitus takes us into the death rattle of a failing marriage, Jackie Thomas-Kennedy has written a lovely rumination on unrequited love and power outages, and M. Elias Keller does a fantastic job of humanizing a prostitute as his neurotic protagonist falls for one, against his better judgment. Wally Rudolph, meanwhile, has contributed a drug-riddled escape narrative through Colorado; it’s still dark, but it kind of reads like an action movie. In non-fiction, Slush Pile alum Tove Danovich takes us on a trip through Norway.... (read more)
THE SWIMMER by Jerry Whitus
HE NEVER IMAGINED, NOT for one second, Joy would run out there into that freezing water and begin swimming. He was trying to figure out how to help the old woman, and Joy was holding his coat sleeve, tugging, and then she yelled in his ear, “Let’s do something, my god, Ron”... (read more)
LOOTERS
by Jackie Thomas-Kennedy
AT THE CAFE, I MADE a show of counting the months, but I knew it had been three years since we’d stood face to face. His hair was as red as sequoia bark, thick as my favorite blanket. I wondered why he’d bothered to say hello. He might have done it in the interest of pleasantries: say hello to someone if you know her. Let your expression.... (read more)
COLORADO by Wally Rudolph
WE HAD BEEN DRIVING FOR two hours. The snow was still light and didn’t seem to be getting any worse. We were behind Ben in the right lane. Four semis with pictures of McDonald’s breakfast food passed us. The trucks put eddies in the falling snow. The salt and slush kicked up from their back tires and left wide tracks in the left lane. (read more)
100% by M. Elias Keller
SHE WAS GONE. EIGHTY percent, and she had left him. He had not been quite ready for the relationship to end – he was only at 80% – but ended it was, and definitively, all possibility of reconciliation incinerated. So be it. The initial sting was long gone; even the dull ache had faded... (read more)
ADVICE ON A FOREIGN COUNTRY by Tove K. Danovich
I WAS TWELVE-YEARS-OLD when my mother drove me from Whidbey Island to Gig Harbor to have a bunad made for me. In the two years since we’d moved to Washington, she’d joined the local chapter of The Daughters of Norway and enlisted me in Norwegian folk dancing class at a nearby Lutheran church. (read more)
TWO POEMS by Matthew Hotham
IF I HAD KNOWN I would find you here
in this empty house
on the floor of a room
breathing out words like heavy sighs
in a language only
for the flowered wallpaper... (read more)
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A HIPSTER by Jeffrey Gross
AMONG TWENTY TWEETS and podcasts,
The only indie thing
Was the blog of the hipster... (read more)
NOW HEAR THIS
Moviestars, Lykke Li, Tame Impala, Slumber Party, Hot As Sun, Autolux, The Pierces, Warpaint, Hell Beach, Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot.
FEATURED ARTIST
David Curcio
“THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE boldness and the subtleties is intrinsic to the work. I want it to call to you from across the room and drag you over, closer, closer, and then present a whole new set of visuals to be experienced up close.”