Short Story Month
A couple of excellent journals out there that concentrate solely on short fiction and I just happened to catch up with them this week:
American Short Fiction which has been putting out some excellent material the 
past few years since coming back into print saw issue 41 (Spring/summer 2008) hit stands recently and has five very good stories including "The Perapatetic Coffin" by Ethan Rutherford that had me mesmerized from page 87 through 106. I think I may have even stopped breathing for a couple of those pages!
The other had caught me slacking a bit - the Avery Anthology issue 2. As I kept hearing that issue 3 was
coming out soon, I couldn't really remember discussing issue 2. So, I went and pulled it out of the drawer of journals and spent some time with it, really enjoying short stories from Ryan Call, Dan Chaon, Dory Adams, and Glen Pourciau. However, it was "The Zoo" by Rae Meadows that locked my attention to it from the second I started it. A tale from the point of view of a girlfriend (though seemingly hoping she's more solid in her relationship than she might be) as she takes her boyfriend's father (one fairly deep into Alzheimer's) to the zoo while the boyfriend is in a meeting. It's a fantastic story with great character development (subtly done) and an interesting plot she tosses at them. I need to go back and dig out her MacAdam/Cage novel from a year or two ago (Calling Out) as I recall getting it but never quite finding it at the top of the stack.
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