We’ll jump and dig and build and fly
There’s nothing that we cannot try.
We can do all these things, you see,
Whether we are he or she!

What a start! Ali Smith’s Hotel World explodes with the buzz of language and never relents.

Ten: George C. Thomas, randyman, life in mono, DMB Photoblog, toby’s pics, netzkuessen.de, Haphazardous, (bea), and londonrubbish.

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

According to Jack, who usually selects this one, the best part is the dinosaur playing hide-and-seek. He tries to hide behind a gas tank and a billboard, but he’s far too big and easily spotted. Luckily, Danny and the other kids decide to pretend they can’t see him, and the game is a success.

This is an odd story, if it’s a story at all. Its subtitle is “Seven Studies in the Efficacy of Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’”; and if poetry were a drug, the FDA would hardly approve it for long-term use based on this research project.

Photo challenges big and small, and why I like the small ones best.

Five: Smallest Photo, beneath the blue ocean, Big Empty, intransient, and Rooks.

If you find yourself in Minneapolis after March 1, and are in need of a haircut, get yourself to Sassy Lu, 1304 University Ave. NE, Suite 104, 612-623-1196.

Million Writers: Recap

Though I’ve been lucky this year to have eight stories published on line, and two in print, “Pieces” is the one that I feel came together the best. Take a look at it and see what you think. And if that one doesn’t quite do it for you, browse the rest of Small Spiral Notebook, without a doubt one of the best literary sites around.

This was actually the source of my first bad review (and second review ever); but while it doesn’t rise to the level of Cheever and Updike, it’s really not a bad story. In fact, I still kind of like it.

Certainly, no one can fault storySouth for limiting the pool of eligible stories to 1,000 words or more. As a challege to the collections like “Best American Short Stories” and “The O. Henry Prize”, which implicitly limit themselves not only to print publications (and, apparently, “The New Yorker”) but to longer stories, the Million Writers Award certainly looks more credible the more like the “old guard” it appears. Still, there’s a wealth of wonderful little stories being overlooked; and because shorter is harder to write, these inelgibles may be the best of the lot.

Seven: A Walk Through Durham Township, Moments, Noushin, the_gatadd_photos, Kristin Giordann, Rocky Arroyo, and SMLGPhotos.

The story came to me before the “dirty” aspects, but the “dirty” aspects were so integral to the story that it really didn’t belong in a general literary journal. But Clean Sheets is different from the “dirty story” sites that are all over the internet; it’s a thoughtfully-edited, well-written journal that happens to be about sex.

This is a somewhat experimental story, about points of view and parallel universes and disconnections. I hope you like it.

It’s a strange little story–it owes much to the Kafka and Link and Borges I’ve been reading lately–about gills and ponds and cleaning fish.

Million-Writers-Award-Worthy: Respectful Beatings for Very Good Help

Story Time Hits: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Million-Writers-Award-Worthy: Her Babies

Some Stories I’ve Liked volume 1: Freeze by Becky Hagenston

Million-Writers-Award-Worthy: Thief

Eight: random thoughts, Michael Kenna (x3), Big Happy Funhouse, Big Happy Funhouse, phtoRok, and Noushin.

Million-Writers-Award-Worthy: A Happy Dream

Million-Writers-Award-Worthy: The Tyranny of the Middle-Aged Short Story Writers

These simple black and white photographs are not at all as simple as they seem; indeed, having spent hours trying to emulate this style, first in the field with my Lubitel and later in Photoshop, I can attest that there’s far more to them than meets the eye.

The storySouth 2006 Million Writers Award, for short stories published on-line in 2005, will begin taking nominations on February 15. Watch this space for updates; I’ll be listing stories that I’ve read that I think should get a nod in the voting, and also a few stories of mine that meet the requirements.