New story in F(r)iction: “Thank You”

I have a short story in the new issue of F(r)iction, published by Tethered by Letters. I’m really proud of “Thank You” (not something I say about all of my work) and think it might be one of the strongest things I’ve written since Fobbit. It’s a very short story, but it expresses a lot of my conflicted feelings about the Iraq War and the ways Americans have reacted to it. It can also be challenging to read, style-wise, as you can see by this punctuation-less excerpt:

Thank you Thank you for your service Thank you for going Thank you for coming back Thank you for not dying Thank you for taking the bullet, the mortar round, the shrapnel that is making its way to your heart by micromillimeters every year Thank you for eating that god-awful food gritted with sand so we don’t have to Thank you for eating Thanksgiving dinner on a paper plate

I send my own “Thank you”s out to editor D. M. Hedlund for taking on this admittedly tough story and for giving it a beautiful showcase in the magazine, and to artist Travis Mercer who brought the story to life with such pen-and-ink razzle dazzle (that’s just a small detail from the page you see at the start of this blog post); you need to buy a copy of the magazine to fully appreciate his talents.

Speaking of which, you should all buy a copy of F(r)iction, and not just for my little pissant story. The new issue of the literary journal is bursting with words and colorful artwork. There are stories by Justin Hocking, Eric Lundgren, Marie Helene-Bertino, Josie Sigler and many others. The whole issue is a thing of beauty, starting with the cover art.