TCR Story of the Month for July: "Readers and Writers" by Ryan Boudinot

Ryan Boudinot

The Committee Room proudly offers "Readers and Writers" by Ryan Boudinot as TCR Story of the Month for July. In this superb work of magic realism, a man reading on his daily bus commute strikes up a conversation with another man, a stranger, who happens to be reading the same book. Ensuing events raise fascinating questions of identity and life's purpose.

TCR Story of the Month highlights an outstanding work of short fiction published online within the preceding twelve months.

Ryan Boudinot is Executive Director of Seattle City of Literature. He's the author of the novels Blueprints of the Afterlife and Misconception and the story collection The Littlest Hitler.

Short Fiction Thrives in Magazines That Aren't Literary Journals: Hothouse Magazine, Queen's Quarterly, and Tikkun

"Oral story telling is a deeply human tradition, but it was only with the blitzkrieg of  nineteenth century mass publishing that the written short story became a specific art form. Magazines served up stories as snacks for readers, and did so with relish," wrote Paul Vidich, co-founder of Storyville, in The Millions.

Fiction was an essential part of American general interest magazines such as McClure's, Liberty, Collier's, and the Saturday Evening Post. These popular magazines published fiction (by writers from Mark Twain and Edith Wharton to J.D. Salinger and Ray Bradbury) alongside articles on social issues, politics, fashion, and sports.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the introduction of movies, radio, and, television, led to a decline in magazine reading as a form of entertainment. By the 1960s, general interest magazines had mostly disappeared and short fiction publishing shifted into the domain of small circulation literary journals most of which are based in academia.

Queen's Quarterly, Tikkun, and Hothouse are contemporary publications that break with the prevailing model. None of these publications is primarily a literary journal yet they all consider publishing short fiction an important part of their mission.

Founded in 1893 and based at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Queen's Quarterly, is Canada's oldest scholarly publication. In the 1930s, in order to expand its cultural influence and readership, Queen's Quarterly began publishing fiction. The work of top Canadian writers including Mavis Gallant, W.P. Kinsella, and Carol Shields has appeared in its pages.

TCR Story of the Month for June: "The Fortunate" by C. Dale Young

C. Dale Young

The Committee Room Story of the Month for June is "The Fortunate" by C. Dale Young.

TCR Story of the Month highlights an outstanding work of short fiction published online within the preceding twelve months.

"The Fortunate," an intense, suspenseful story of woman who lives in dread of learning all of a fortune teller's prophecy, was published in Blackbird (Spring 2014).

C. Dale Young practices medicine full-time, edits poetry for New England Review, and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, he is the author of four books of poetry. He recently completed the collection of stories The Affliction, which includes "The Fortunate." He lives in San Francisco.

"Some are good at digging up the past, and some are gifted with the ability to divine the future. Most people live squarely in the present without even the slightest knowledge that all of time coexists, that each era is simply a thin rind circling the current moment. Rosa Blanco was one of those people who lived in the present, but she was always obsessing about the past. In her small kitchen, she would, sometimes for hours, replay a moment in the past ten, maybe fifteen, times. Each time, she checked and rechecked what she had said, how she had said it, what she had done. But the old woman who lived a few doors away was a different type of woman. She lived in the present, but she lived for the future..."  

TCR Story of the Month for April: "History" by Cezarija Abartis

Cezarija Abartis

The Committee Room is happy to offer "History" by Cezarija Abartis as TCR Story of the Month for April. In this brief yet complex story written with honesty and precision, an American woman carries her troubled personal history to an Old World city that assiduously preserves the glories of its past.

Cezarija Abartis’ Nice Girls and Other Stories was published by New Rivers Press. Her stories have appeared in Per Contra, r.kv.r.y., Waccamaw, and New York Tyrant, among others. Her flash, “The Writer,” was selected by Dan Chaon for Wigleaf’s Top 50 online Fictions of 2012. Recently she completed a novel, a thriller. She teaches at St. Cloud State University.

TCR Story of the Month for March: "Stereograms" by Jen Julian

Author Jen Julian

The Committee Room is especially proud to present "Stereograms" by Jen Julian as TCR Story of the Month for March. In this chilling and powerful story written in the Southern Gothic tradition, a young widow employed at a North Carolina mental institution is haunted by ghosts both literal and figurative.

Jen Julian is from Goldsboro, North Carolina. She received her MFA in Fiction from UNC-Greensboro and is currently an English PhD candidate at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Press 53’s 2010 and 2013 Open Awards Anthologies, Four Way Review, Toasted Cheese, and an up-and-coming issue of The North Carolina Literary Review Online. She is winner of the University of Missouri's 2013 Margery McKinney Award for Fiction and was a finalist for North Carolina State University's 2009 Brenda L. Smart Fiction Prize.

"Stereograms" was published in New Delta Review and won New Delta Review's 2013 Matt Clark Fiction Prize.

TCR Story of the Month for February: "Arab Spring" by Joseph Giordano

Joseph Giordano

The Committee Room is pleased to offer "Arab Spring" by Joseph Giordano as TCR Story of the Month for February. Using evocative detail and a firm sense of history, "Arab Spring" tells the story of an honest man doing business in a culture where political corruption is a centuries old practice.  

Joseph Giordano is a Texas-based writer whose work has appeared in more than thirty magazines including Bartleby Snopes, The Foliate Oak, and The Summerset Review.

"Arab Spring" was published in Newfound (Fall 2013).

To read "Arab Spring" click here

TCR Story of the Month highlights an outstanding work of short fiction published online within the preceding twelve months.

Update on TCR Story of the Month Author: Jean Ryan's story "Greyhound" included in Ashland Creek Press anthology Among Animals

Among Animals (cover shows red fox
photographed at San Juan Island, Washington).

The Committee Room is pleased to share the news that the short story "Greyhound" by Jean Ryan is included in the anthology Among Animals: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction, to be published this month by Ashland Creek Press.

Ryan's story "Paradise," published in Blue Lake Review, was TCR Story of the Month for March 2012.

Among Animals is a varied collection of stories by writers from around the world exploring the ways in which animals and humans both understand and challenge one another.

In "Greyhound," a woman brings home a rescued racing dog for her troubled partner in the hope that they might help each other heal.

Publisher's Weekly has called Jean Ryan a writer who "controls devastating psychological material with tight prose, quick scene changes, and a scientist’s observant eye."

The Los Angeles Review says "Ryan’s stories praise the transformative power of compassion, and reveal how the rescued can become the rescuer."

TCR Story of the Month for January -- "Translating Kun" by Inderjeet Mani

Inderjeet Mani

The Committee Room is pleased to offer "Translating Kun" by Inderjeet Mani as TCR Story of the Month for January.

"Translating Kun" is set in Thailand, which Mani calls a "land of bars and Buddhism" and nights "full of heady tropical scents with the chatter of humans and insects riding on the breeze." Employing a dreamlike mood, the story looks at the very different realities of a pleasure seeking expatriate writer and a hardworking Thai woman with whom he is involved.
 
Inderjeet Mani studied creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, at Bread Loaf, and at Harvard. He has been published in Eclectica, BLIP Magazine (now New World Writing), 3:AM Magazine, Drunken Boat (Finalist for the Pan Literary Award, also one of storySouth’s Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2007), Nimrod (Finalist for Katherine Anne Porter Prize), WIND (2003 Short Fiction Award), Word Riot, Asia Writes, The Deccan Herald, and various other venues. His books include The Imagined Moment, which analyzes time in fiction. Mani is also one of the people behind the Solpix lit-film web portal.

TCR Story of the Month for October: "Blue Cotton" by Lindsey Thordarson

Lindsey Thordarson

The Committee Room is excited about presenting "Blue Cotton" by Lindsey Thordarson as TCR Story of the Month for October.

An absorbing, novelistic story exploring the rough lives and strong emotions of textile workers in nineteenth century New England, "Blue Cotton" takes readers on a journey to another time and place and, perhaps most importantly, into the complex mind of its troubled protagonist.  

Lindsey Thordarson received her MFA from St. Mary’s College of California. Her work has appeared in many print and online journals, including ZYZZYVA and California Northern Magazine, and received the 2010 Doug Fir Fiction Award. She lives in Petaluma, California.

TCR Story of the Month for September: "Senator Max Baucus Leaves Five Tips" by Kelly Ramsey

Author Kelly Ramsey

The Committee Room is proud to present "Senator Max Baucus Leaves Five Tips" by Kelly Ramsey as TCR Story of the Month for September.

A highly original work of fiction using real life characters and skillfully manipulated visuals, "Senator Max Baucus Leaves Five Tips" grabs the attention with its brief but incisive look at politics, power, and personal relationships.

Kelly Ramsey's prose has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, Orion, and The Material. This October she will be a fellow at the MacDowell Colony.

TCR Story of the Month for July: "On a Foggy Night in Paris, A Bullet Shot Randomly Into the Air is Bound to be Intercepted by Human Flesh" by Josepha Gutelius

Josepha Gutelius

The Committee Room is pleased to offer "On a Foggy Night in Paris, A Bullet Shot Randomly into the Air is Bound to Be Intercepted by Human Flesh" by Josepha Gutelius as TCR Story of the Month for July.

"On a Foggy Night in Paris, a Bullet Shot Randomly into the Air is Bound to Be Intercepted by Human Flesh," a witty and carefully observed tale of a young American bureaucrat in the beautiful but impenetrable City of Light, was published in Northwind (Spring 2013).

Josepha Gutelius writes plays, short stories, and poetry. Her story “Penny” was chosen for the anthology Best New Writing 2013. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an Eric Hoffer Award finalist.

TCR Story of the Month for June: "Ordinary Life" by Jay Duret

Illustration by Jay Duret

The Committee Room proudly presents "Ordinary Life" by Jay Duret as TCR Story of the Month for June.

In "Ordinary Life," a brief story full of wry wit, an older man attempts to impart wisdom to a younger man.

Jay Duret is a San Francisco based writer who blogs at www.jayduret.com. His writing has been published in many online and print journals.

TCR Story of the Month for May: "Homunculus" by Adam McOmber

Adam McOmber

The Committee Room is pleased to present "Homunculus" by Adam McOmber as TCR Story of the Month for May. A meticulously rendered and highly unusual story, "Homunculus" deals with matters of science, history, and extreme personal creativity.  

McOmber is the author of the novel The White Forest (Touchstone, 2012) and the short story collection This New & Poisonous Air (BOA Editions, 2011). His work has appeared recently in Conjunctions and Fairy Tale Review. He is the Associate Editor of Hotel Amerika at Columbia College Chicago
where he teaches literature and creative writing.

TCR Story of the Month for March: "Mentos" by Holly Thompson

Holly Thompson

The Committee Room is very happy to offer "Mentos" by Holly Thompson as TCR Story of the Month for March.

"Mentos" is a superbly crafted work of flash fiction. Employing masterful focus and a light touch, Thompson packs this very short story with insight into addiction, life in a global culture, and family relationships.

Holly Thompson is the author of two young adult novels in verse: Orchards, winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and The Language Inside, both published by Delacorte/Random House. She is also author of the novel Ash and the picture book The Wakame Gatherers. Her stories and essays have been published in magazines in Japan and the United States. She co-writes the column “Double Take” in ANA Wingspan magazine.

TCR Story of the Month for January: Always the Same by Phillippe Diederich

Phillippe Diederich

The Committee Room is proud to present "Always the Same" by Phillippe Diederich as TCR Story of the Month for January.

"Always the Same" is a short, simply told and powerful story of a boy's childhood moving on despite great loss.

Phillippe Diederich was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Mexico City and Miami. His non-fiction has been published in Traveler’s Tales Anthology, Cuba, Cigar Aficionado, Miami New Times and The Dallas Morning News.

His short fiction has been published in Quarterly West, High Desert Journal, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The manuscript to his novel, Sofrito, was recently under option by Fox International. He is the author of Communism and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (2011), an eBook that includes forty black and white photographs of Cuban Harley-Davidson bikers in Havana.

TCR Story of the Month for November: An Intrusion by Tim Wirkus

Tim Wirkus

The Committee Room is proud to present "An Intrusion" by Tim Wirkus as TCR Story of the Month for November. In this brief, intense, and precisely rendered story a young couple find their marriage unraveling after discovering mysterious photographs.



Tim Wirkus's short fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Cream City Review, Sou’wester and Ruminate Magazine. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, been recognized on the list of Other Distinguished Stories in Best American Mystery Stories 2011, and been selected as a finalist in Narrative’s 30 Below contest. He’s currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California.

Update on TCR Story of the Month Author Edward McWhinney

Edward McWhinney

Edward McWhinney, the talented Irish writer whose story "To Ipswich" was TCR Story of the Month for June, has three new stories published --

"On a Barge," a brief and searing portrait of man in an existential crisis, in Contrary (Summer 2012)

"After Mass," a work of creative non-fiction exploring an individual's place in the scheme of things, in Word Riot (August 2012)

"Adrift in the Ghetto," a mesmerizing tale of a stranger trying to find his bearings in an alien city, in Juked (8 November 2012)

TCR Story of the Month series locates and links to some of the best new fiction published online.

The Committee Room.  Interesting Articles for Interested Readers.  Since 2011.

TCR Story of the Month (Classic) for October: Paul's Case by Willa Cather

Willa Cather, 1905 (courtesy of U. of Nebraska)

The Committee Room departs from its presentation of the best in contemporary fiction to offer a classic story, Willa Cather's "Paul's Case," as TCR Story of the Month for October.

"Paul's Case" has been called "a small masterpiece of sustained tone" and a story "justly admired for its narrative skill and its psychological portraiture."

The story of an opera and theater loving Pittsburgh youth who makes a desperate escape from the reality of his ordinary lower middle class life, "Paul's Case" was the seventh and last story in Cather's first collection of stories, The Troll Garden, published in 1905. All of the stories in The Troll Garden deal with art and artists. Soon after the collection's publication, "Paul's Case" reached a wider audience when it was reprinted in McClure's Magazine, a leading general interest magazine.

TCR Story of the Month for September: How to Adopt a Cat by Dave K.

Dave K. 

The Committee Room is pleased to present "How to Adopt a Cat" by Dave K. as TCR Story of the Month for September.

Set in a steampunk world, "How to Adopt a Cat" follows a friendless man on his release from an insane asylum. With superbly rendered detail, this intense, offbeat story delves into the mind of a desperate character on the margins of life.

Dave K. is a writer and artist who lives in Baltimore. His work has been published in Front Porch Journal, Battered Suitcase, LOOP, Artichoke Haircut, and Welter, and he self-publishes through Banners of Death Press. A collection of his stories is Stone a Pig (2012). When he’s not writing, Dave K. is a valley on the southern side of Windwhistle Peak, in the Allan Hills.

Update on TCR Story of the Month Writer Jean Ryan

Jean Ryan

Jean Ryan, whose story "Paradise" was TCR Story of the Month for March 2012, has a new story, "Waiting for Annie" -- the emotional journey of a woman and a teenage boy brought together by a loved one's medical crisis -- in the Blue Lake Review (June 2012).

To read "Waiting for Annie" click here.


The Committee Room offers links to some of the best new fiction published online.

The Committee Room.  Interesting articles for interested people.