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Defenestration: December 2024

Well, well, well. If it isn’t another December sneaking up on us like three Christmas ghosts in a rich old man’s bedroom. Good morning, everyone. Happy holidays. And welcome to the December 2024 issue of Defenestration!

This year has been one of frantic, busy madness, so it’s no wonder that I don’t know where the time’s gone and run off to.

Defenestration: August 2024

It’s still technically summer, and while I know you’re impatiently waiting for the onset of sweater weather, never fear: the August 2024 issue of Defenestration is here, so at the very least you won’t be bored. (At least for now. I don’t know how long it will take you to read six short stories and six poems. Probably not very long. So maybe you won’t be bored for the next 45 minutes. If we’re lucky, the weather will get cooler in that short time and you’ll be able to break out that sweater in your closet that’s been tempting you with is scandalous softness all summer.)

Defenestration: April 2024

Welcome, one and all, to the April 2024 issue of Defenestration, which marks our 21st volume. Yes, Defenestration is now old enough to drink alcoholic beverages in the United States, obtain a concealed weapons permit, adopt a child, and gamble at casinos. So if you don’t hear from Defenestration for the next week or so,

[continue reading…]

Nonfiction

“A Recipe in Eleven Easy Steps,” by Linda Sanchez

When making a curry dish, I usually start with red curry paste and a can of coconut milk and build the flavors from there. The other day at Trader Joe’s, I saw a mob gathered around a display of yellow curry simmer sauce. People were grabbing jars like they were puppies during a pandemic. So, I said to myself, don’t be such a snob, just try it.

Here’s the recipe I came up with. I think you’ll like this dish; it’s as tasty as its name is alliterative.

Fake Nonfiction

“Bringing the Hells Angels into a New Era,” by Max Kesselheim

Hello, Hells Angels. I know it must be a surprise to see me up here—after all, most of you know me as Demon’s Claw, your New Initiate. But in reality, my name is Chet, and I’m a McKinsey Associate. Your president hired me last month to conduct a full review of the club and identify strategies for modernizing it, so I went undercover. I imagine some of you questioned why the new guy who couldn’t shoot a gun—or even ride a motorcycle—was trying to join Hells Angels, but I hope I won you over with my deep knowledge of the history of this organization and a seemingly endless supply of vulgar T-shirts.

Fiction

“No Conspiracy,” by Bronwen Everill

I once had a friend who didn’t believe in pirates.

She said, “They’re a conspiracy.”

I said, “why?”

“I’ve never seen one.”

I nodded. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Poetry

“Lament of a Fourth Grade Goth,” by Stacie Herrington

The classroom wall is a journal
that spurns me day after day.
These editors, I swear to God—

Please stop writing about death.
Is everything okay at home?

(How could anything be okay anywhere?)

Visuals

“Why I Attached an ICBM to My Knockoff Roomba,” by Dan Dellechiaie and Hameed Mourani

As a renter, you can either surrender to the vermin that eat all your Chips Ahoy but don’t pay their fair share of rent or you can blow them off the face of the fucking earth. When the sticky traps suck ass and the snap traps don’t clap, I opt for the war criminal’s favorite initialism: ICBM.

Ben & Winslow

Live Out Your Filthy, Goblin-Filled Dreams

Winslow has been involved in the fast-paced world of goblin erotica since at least 2012, when he hired a slightly defective Japanese robot to help him illustrate comics. Looking back at that older comic, it certainly seems… prescient.