Posts Tagged ‘ XVI.I ’

Defenestration: April 2019

Apr 20th, 2019 | By

Welcome, welcome, to the April 2019 issue of Defenestration, an issue that promises more literary references than any other issue this year, unless everyone tries to prove us wrong during our next reading period.



“Galactic Fair,” by Stephen Parrish

Apr 20th, 2019 | By

Dear Dr. Brinkman:

Thank you for your submission of
2357.3 to the Galactic Art Fair, which I have reviewed with great diligence. Before we can proceed I must share a few observations.



“Catching Knives,” by Bailey Holtz

Apr 20th, 2019 | By

Blaise Frick-Durant was a nineteenth century French author, whose defining personal and professional attribute was that he only had half a nose. The other half had been severed off by the rogue boning knife he had launched into the air during an ill-advised knife trick demonstration in the company of the young female he had invited to his chambers and whom he, as written in his diary, hoped to “keep warm in the folds of my culottes.”



“Pastiche,” by Trash Clapton

Apr 20th, 2019 | By

I was a doctor. One day I was visiting a friend’s lab to pick up some medicine when this guy wearing a deerstalker just abruptly walked up to me, magnifying glass tucked in his pocket. “Ah, so you’re the very fellow who’s looking for a roommate, eh? Obviously your name is Jack Duflack and you clearly fought in the Caribbean before turning into a professional sun tanner on the beach—am I wrong?” he said with a knowing wink.



“The Writers Conference,” by Kathleen Naureckas

Apr 20th, 2019 | By

The bearded man bent embarrassingly close to read the nametag pinned to the bosom of her dress. It went against her nature to tell her name to the world—how public, like a frog—but she had learned on the first day of the Connecticut Valley Writers Conference, when she didn’t wear it, that the nametag answered at least one unwanted question. When people asked “Who are you?” and she said “Nobody,” they took up a lot of time explaining that she really was somebody and shouldn’t be so lacking in confidence. A writer needs confidence above all, they said.