Monthly Archives: October 2009

The Heart Is a Slow Learner, by Mary Larkin

2009 SFWP Awards Program finalist Mary Larkin presents The Heart Is a Slow Learner. This story has since been published in The Red Mountain Review.

What About This One? by John Kenneth Jensvold, conclusion

What About This One? by John Kenneth Jensvold, part two

What About This One? by John Kenneth Jensvold, part one

John Jensvold is a 2009 Literary Awards Program Finalist. His entry, What About This One?, will appear in three parts this week.

The Gustav Evacuation, Part 4: Our Return

By: Ryan Sparks

All bad things must come to an end.

The Gustav Evactuation, Part 3: The Wait, by Ryan Sparks

We know what we smell like, okay?  Hours and hours under the sun or smothered by night heat have us sweating coffee, sweating Red Bull.  The clench of old cigarette smoke.  Fast food and soda breath.  We are covered in pet hair or the sticky evidence of children’s fingerprints.  We ceased to smell like travelers [...]

The Gustav Evacuation, Part 2: The Drive, by Ryan Sparks

Cue the music. We’re going for a ride.
It’s hot as Labor Day weekend should be, summer’s last holiday, last chance to boil. We have our windows down and the music is passing between cars and mixing in the space between, pidgin notes and lyrics. The few radio stations not on a constant [...]

The Gustav Evacuation, Part 1: Preparations, by Ryan Sparks

As Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf states in August of 2008, memories of the Katrina disaster triggered the largest evacuation in US history. Three million fled the oncoming hurricane. Most of the refugees were from the Louisiana south coast. Author, New Orleans resident, and Katrina veteran Ryan Sparks was among [...]

James Ellroy’s Blood’s A Rover, a review by Ryan Sparks

Ryan Sparks tackles Ellroy’s latest, Blood’s A Rover
A shorter version of this review originally appeared on the Writer’s Center blog, First Person Plural.