Summer is finally here, and for many students and 20-somethings this means one thing only: it's time to party! These are the magic days of one's youth, that amorphous period of transition from the recklessness of our teenage years to the responsibility of adulthood. But sometimes, both in life and in social gatherings, it can feel as though you've been tossed right in the deep end and left to figure things out on your own. Swimming Lessons, our first chapbook-length short story of 2015, is more than just the tale of one such party - it's Bridgeman's ingenious metaphor for the tides of life rising up around you.
Featured Poetry - Chewing Around the Rind by Kaitlyn Perrin
The first of several new titles in our spring chapbook lineup, Chewing Around the Rind as a collection is both funny and thoughtful, concise and casual. These are poems rescued from an ivory tower and restored to their proper home, scrawled across a cocktail napkin. Reminiscent of a conversation over drinks, or perhaps around a campfire, Kaitlyn Perrin proves that the best kind of verse is often the most accessible. The collection can be read online using the link below and is now available for purchase from The Blasted Tree Store.
READ CHEWING AROUND THE RIND
Featured Story - Oranges by Bea Keeler
What is it about shopping for groceries which makes the process so damn stressful? Picking the perfect fruit can be quite a chore, especially with another shopper breathing down your neck as you rummage through the produce. Oranges, Keeler's first addition to our Short(er) Fiction series, is a glimpse into one of those explosive conflicts with a stranger which is over before you know it.
READ ORANGES
And don't forget, from now until the end of March you will receive 20% off Short(er) Fiction Volumes 1 and 2 by entering the code SpringFiction during checkout at The Blasted Tree Store!
Spring Short(er) Fiction Sale!
From now until the end of March, receive 20% off our Short(er) Fiction series chapbooks, collecting the best in brief and bizarre Canadian short fiction! Featuring work by Alexander, Anger, Brown, Flemmer, Muir, and Smith across two volumes. Simply enter coupon code SpringFiction during checkout to activate your discount!
GO TO THE STORE
Our complete Short(er) Fiction catalog can be read online HERE.
Featured Poetry - Earwig / Worms by Olivia Alexander
Gritty and terse, both Earwig and Worms by Olivia Alexander experiment in the style of Charles Bukowski, poet-king of creepy crawlies. What is it about insect life that we find so repugnant? Is it too alien, too invasive, too low; or is it too like our own condition, too much a reminder of our own worth, our futility and viciousness? Burrow with us into those dark, private spaces where the bugs live.
READ EARWIG
READ WORMS
Featured Poetry - Everything All At Once by Laura Rojas
A collection universal in scope, yet deeply personal in execution, Everything All At Once by Laura Rojas traces the connection between all things, like "pieces of red yarn / woven through molecular spaces" linking all times and all places. Her recurring symbolic imagery unfolds into layered significance, building an energetic and heartfelt worldview at once uniquely her own while accessible to everyone. You can find your connection with Everything All At Once online, then get a high quality chapbook of your own from The Blasted Tree Store.
READ EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE
Featured Story - Dialogues with Chatbot by Kyle Flemmer
The Turing test evaluates machines' ability to exhibit behavior equal to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human being. Believe it or not, we have computer programs (i.e. chatbots) advanced enough to fool human users into thinking they are talking with another person. If you've ever used one, you know their reactions are occasionally profound, though usually absurd. This is a simulated account of a simulated account.
READ DIALOGUES WITH CHATBOT
Dialogues with Chatbot is part of Short(er) Fiction Vol. 2, our newest installment in the Short(er) Fiction series, showcasing great Canadian fiction less than 2500 words. Short(er) Fiction Vol. 2 is now available from The Blasted Tree Store.
Featured Story - Foxish by Mitch Findlay
Fox"ish\, a. Foxlike - like a fox. As in clever. But how clever is the fox who's been hit by a car? Perhaps more clever than you would expect! Meet a silver-tongued creature from a realm of magic realism in Mitch Findlay's first Blasted Tree short story, at once funny, endearing, dark, and touching. Findlay's exuberant use of language tugs disarmingly at the veil between here and the hereafter, playing foxlike with your expectations about death and the nature of communication.
READ FOXISH
Foxish is part of our Short(er) Fiction catalog, showcasing great Canadian fiction less than 2500 words. Our first published collection in the series, Short(er) Fiction Vol. 1, is now available from The Blasted Tree Store. Foxish is soon to follow in our forthcoming Volume 2.
Featured Poetry - These Are Fragments by Laura Dyer
The various pieces brought together in this Featured Poetry collection form a vision of love for people, places, and cultures. Laura Dyer breaks romantic content into modern, exploratory forms, playing with ideas of alteration over time as someone or something becomes a memory. What we remember in matters of the heart is often half-honest, yet somewhere in these memories lie fragments of truth. These poems are Dyer's fragments. These Are Fragments is available online and in print from The Blasted Tree Store.
READ THESE ARE FRAGMENTS
Advance Copy Winner!
Congratulation to Natalie Smith, winner of an advance copy of These Are Fragments by Laura Dyer! Thanks for pre-ordering your Blasted Tree t-shirts, they will be available some time next week. Meanwhile, you can read These Are Fragments online, it's one of three new titles available from The Blasted Tree Store.