Million Writers Award

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It’s officially March now, so let us remind you that our March issue is online and begging to be read.

Speaking of March and things you need to read, it’s storySouth Million Writers Award nomination time. This year, we split up the nominations, each of us picking one story, instead of communally choosing. Don’t know that it made a difference, though. I think these three stories would have been at the top of everyone’s list. In any event, here we go:

Monica’s nomination: “That Was Called Love” by Chloe Caldwell
Steve’s nomination: “The Pragmatist” by Hilary Gan
Eirik’s nomination: “Captain Neptunium and Lady U-boat” by Mike Sweeney

And, as always, individual readers can nominate their own favorites that the editors might have missed. Because three is just too damn small a number.

Issue Eighteen now online!

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What up.  Welcome to Issue Eighteen of Jersey Devil Press.  It being March – the month where winter and spring collide in an onslaught of runny noses and terrible weather – we thought we’d take a look at some other unusual combinations.

First on the docket is Lorna D. Keach’s tale of murder and knitting, “Night of the Garter.”  Next up is “Bubble Wrap” by Hall Jameson, artfully combining sentient soap bubbles and emotional redemption.  We follow this with “Chimp,” by Ann Capozzoli, the quintessential story of little girls and their monkeys.  Then it’s Brenna Watry’s “The Zombie Wish,” examining what happens to fairies after the zombies rise up.  And, finally, we close with “Laika Wins the Race,” by Bryan Hinojosa, a story that combines two of our favorite things: puppies and the apocalypse.

So there you go, five amalgamations you never saw coming.  Feel free to read them on your phone.

The online version of the issue is here, and the .pdf can be found by clicking here.

Adam Raised a Ryan Werner

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It is our pleasure to present the second installment of Brilliant Disguise: the story “Carbon,” as written by none other than Ryan Werner.

We looked fairly similar. That was my first thought. Our hair was identical in both color and cut. We were the same height, our fingers the same length. It was as if one of us had been photocopied directly from the other. When my wife, Mary, came home I was fixing drinks in the kitchen, and after a brief glance toward Rick on the couch, she asked him how his day had been. When I walked back into the living room, she did a double-take, like a cartoon.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Ryan claims to hate Bruce Springsteen, but that’s physically impossible, so he’s probably lying. In any event, he took a stab at some lyrics from “Adam Raised a Cain” and came up with a pretty spectacular story. And like Ryan said himself, “it has some marital woes and a girl named Mary, so that’s Springsteen enough, right?” And he says he’s not a fan.

Be sure to check out Ryan’s Our Band Could Be Your Lit, where he does this kind of thing on a weekly basis. And feel free to send us your own attempt at spinning fiction out of Springsteen lyrics for future Brilliant Disguise installments.