SMFS Member Publishing News: The Domino Room by Richie Narvaez

SMFS list member Richie Narvaez’s short story, The Domino Room, was published earlier this week at Vautrin. The story is online and free to read at the website.

SMFS Members Published in Vautrin - Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2022

Several SMFS list members are published in the new issue, Vautrin - Volume 4, Issue 1, Summer 2022. Edited by Tod Robins, the print issue is available at Watermark Books and Café. The SMFS list members in the issue are:

 

Michael Bracken with “Sparks.” (Cover image comes from Mr. Bracken's recent Facebook post regarding his story.)

 

Jacqueline Freimor with “Foreword.”

 

Curtis Ippolito with “The Estate Sale.”

 

Saira Viola with “The Future’s A Fraud.”

  

Website Synopsis:

 

Gritty urban fiction. Crime Fiction. Or gritty urban fiction with crime fiction elements. A touch of mythology, the supernatural. While laughing at the absurdity of it all. That’s the Vautrin mojo.

 

In this issue:

Fiction

 

C. R. Resetarits, Quem Quaeritis?

Eli Cranor, Mussel

Dennis Tafoya, Last Night At Jack’s

Saira Viola, The Future’s A Fraud

Hector Acosta, El Diablero

Zach Vasquez, Panama

M. E. Proctor, Bathing Beauty

Thomas Pluck, Blue Canaries

Jacqueline Freimor, Foreword

Michael Bracken, Sparks

Curtis Ippolito, The Estate Sale

 

You can also read more about the issue with details about the content and other information  here.

SMFS Member Publication News: Sylvia Warsh

SMFS list member Sylvia Warsh reports that her short story, “The Comeback” appears in the premier issue of Vautrin. Edited and published by Todd Robins, the issue is only available in print at Watermark Books.

Synopsis:

Vautrin - Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2019

SKU: 94224022

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief: Todd Robins

It’s widely believed that Balzac’s literary activities wound down when he died in the 19^thcentury, but his ghost visited Todd Robins’s College Hill lair one morning in the fall of 2018.  Balzac's message was clear: (A) found a literary magazine, and (B) name it after his criminal mastermind character, Vautrin.  The great Frenchman then prevailed upon an intriguing mix of writers to contribute to the inaugural issue.  Robins typed the submissions on his Smith Corona Silent from the 50s, resulting in Volume 1, Issue 1 of Wichita’s new print-only literary magazine.  Le voila !

Among the highlights:

·         Fiction from native Wichitan Scott Phillips, titled Labio-Dental Fricative and featuring the return of the wily rogue Bill Ogden of Cottonwood and Hop Alley fame.

·         Poetry from the great Albert Goldbarth, sublimely cast in the Vautrin-esque trickster sweet spot.

·         Mystery fiction from award-winning Canadian writer Sylvia Maultash Warsh.

·         Raucous mafioso crime fiction from New Jersey writer Thomas Pluck, author of the forthcoming novel Riff Raff.

·         An essay about Juan Gabriel Vasquez’s novel The Shape of the Ruins, by former Watermarker, Susan Gusho.

·         An essay about literary movements by former Watermarker Jason Quinn Malott, author of The Evolution of Shadows.

·         Fictional intrigue from the pseudonymous Kerry Page.

·         Debut poetry from the extraordinary Suzannah Guthrie.

·         An astrology-infused crime story from a 1920 issue of The Black Mask (released to the public domain).

·         Essayist Paul Dee Fecteau ponders the Tarot as applicable to the Coen brother’s film The Big Lebowski.

·         An essay about Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book Six, by Chicagoan Andrew Larson.

·         Poetry from Marysville's Scott Richard that sneaks up on us, a la Ezra Pound.   

·         Trump Tower: The First Omen, by Carlos Herrera, in which the political consultant Nigel Strode ponders the reelection run of the GOP's finest.

·         Cover art by former Watermarker, Beth Golay