This has been a brutal summer with fires, floods and hellish temperatures. What I always notice in the sweltering heat
of the desert is the dead quiet that falls over everything. Not even a dust devil swirls across the terrain. Tumbleweed sticks to the sides of the roads, waiting for some kind of breeze to blast through and send it rolling again.
In the city you hear rantings and rakings of anonymous voices over the heinous weather, but the groaning melts into the background like any ice cream cone you haven’t sucked in immediately. So, get ready! We’ve decided to make some noise for this mid-July issue of Connotation Press! Check out the outstanding audio readings that accompany the stories from each of these superlative writers. DJ Berndt is the featured fiction writer in this issue. Read, listen and stay cool!
DJ Berndt blasts us with four of his DJ Berndt, Dj Berndt... micro-flash, “The Ocean,” “Accepting Seconds,” “Lenscrafters is the Most Magical Place on Earth,” and “Shitting and Eating and Fucking.” Not possible to forget these. And I hope you enjoy his interview as much as I did.
Kamala Puligandla throws out an interesting dilemma in her exceptional story, “Bunchlow.” What do you do when you are offered a gift by the bastard that wronged you?
Timothy Gager delivers three distinct and memorable pieces, “Girl With a Gun,” “What You Dream About,” and “Continuum.”
Harley May takes us back to the moments when love was wild, all-encompassing and new in her two flashback flash pieces, “Saturday Morning,” and “A Contender Lost.”
Dennis Mahagin drowns us in his mesmerizing prose in “Serious as a Hot Flash in an Iowa City Minute.” The dialogue is Vonnegut on acid. DAMN!
Lisa Marie Basile uncoils her melodious prose poems, “With Marosa,” “My Rooftop Father,” and “The Spindle.”
Get out the ice cubes, the beverage of choice and relish getting lost in these stories!