Some Online Things I Like

First, some stuff from the new JMWW.

Best opening line I've read in a long time award goes to Ryan Ridge: "When she opens her legs I listen." This dude is in all my favorite mags (Elimae, The Collagist, Diagram, etc.).

Honest thing: Kim Chinquee has always been a difficult read for me. I enjoy her pieces, but they take me sooooo long to read. They are so slick. Good example. This might be my favorite piece of hers.

An interesting discussion over at HTMLGIANT about a writing prof who made her students submit. My response: I think there is a difference between encouraging and assigning. If one, as an advocate and teacher of the creative writing world, think students should value the lit journal process, then by all means encourage it. But forcing them to submit for a grade, as several commenters pointed out, takes away the authenticity and integrity, it would seem, of the journal(s)/process/lit world. I've had several professors say that I should submit, explain publishing to me, and even suggest places that my work would be potentially suitable. However, never has a grade rested on this. I'm reminded of the way my parents treated sports. They let me be around it, gave me the gear to play the sports I tried out, and encouraged me to enjoy myself, but never did my dinner rest on whether or not I played. I want encouragement, but at twenty-one years old and a competent student, I don't want something as enjoyable as the literary process (especially publishing) to be brought down to an assignment level.

Ball State professor and Muncie disc golfer Sean Lovelace doing his nice things again. DIVE BARS TOO!

What's not to love about this story by Anthony Luebbert in the new issue of Quick Fiction? The flow (that first long sentence!), Robert Kennedy swimming with the sea lion, the story ending in RK cannonballing into the pool! I didn't "get" the family goose part: purpose?

NEW SUMMER FICTION ISSUE AT DIAGRAM! I CAN'T WAIT TO DEVOUR YOU!

Oh my goodness! David Peak rules in this poem at Dark Sky. The softness of this piece (laying in bed, the no caps, "we know" as its own line), the honest last line) just killed me. I'm dead now.

HEY LOOK! A NEW JOURNAL DEDICATED TO THE PROSE POEM! (Side note: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poems and David Shumate's books are on my to-buy list for my Von's trip tomorrow.)