Welcome to December 2012, travelers!

I’ll jump right into this editorial biz: I love it when a submission stick with me.

After the initial read, the hold request, the dozens of other submissions that come and go… it’s nice to reach the end of the reading period and vividly remember the stuff I held onto. Take, for example, Addison Clift’s “The Passenger.” That was one of the first stories we added to the pending pile, way back in early September. But when the reading period closed, I knew I wanted it in this issue. I remembered it. More than that–every time I stepped into a subway car, I though about it, as if any moment a fellow commuter would shed his skin and devour the other passengers. (This was especially true when a crazy guy boarded the train and started talking about how he was President Obama’s brother and how Dr. King “never took shit from no one,” and then had a long discourse with an invisible friend that involved the Kennedy assassination and several unkind comments about women. “Phara Koltana I am your vessel!” wasn’t far off.)

Hello there, friends (and probably relatives), welcome to the August 2012 issue of Defenestration!

You’ll no doubt notice that this issue is short. Not short on content: we have five short stories and seven poems for you to enjoy this month. However, each of the short stories are flash fiction pieces. We didn’t really plan it out that way, but I don’t think you’ll mind. Characters included this month include a lovesick pharmacist, a digital daughter, a naked revolutionary, and a disillusioned science fiction writer. See for yourself! All the stories and poems can be found in the links below, or read together in the downloadable PDF copy.

I should add that this month’s issue contains strong language and sexual themes. That will probably just make you want to read it more, but I figured I should warn you all the same, so you’re not shocked and embarrassed. I can see you blushing already. Good. Get it out of your system now.

Good morning or afternoon or evening or whatever. Welcome to the April 2012 issue of Defenestration, by far the greatest issue of Defenestration I’ve had the pleasure to publish in April 2012!

Since Defenestration isn’t a particularly large operation, Eileen and I act as both editors and slush readers. It’s an interesting experience. We get to see everything, absolutely everything, that pops into the in-box, without anyone filtering the content. We get to see the great, and the not-so-great, and the downright bizarre.

“Bizarre?” I hear you cry. “But you’re a humor magazine!”

Well, sirs and madams, when I say bizarre, I mean bizarre. And if you’ve ever read slush for a magazine, you know exactly what I mean.

So. Here we are at last. You, me, maybe some snow, and this: the December 2011 issue of Defenestration. It smells like pine needles and pinecones and pine-scented floor cleaners. Very piney. Pinish? That sounds awful. But the smell? Ridiculishious.

You might be thinking, “This is a winter issue,” which is true if you don’t live in like, Australia, where everyone is wearing bathing suits and taking photos of themselves in bathing suits and them uploading them to [insert social networking site here] so all their American friends (they don’t have any other friends) can feel sad about everything. That’s a very Australian thing to do, I’ve heard. Anyway. You might be thinking “This is a winter issue,” which is true, only not really. In fact that’s wrong. Totally wrong. Nothing in this issue has anything to do with winter. In fact, if we were going to choose a theme for this issue, it would be poop.

Welcome to the April 2011 issue of Defenestration!

You could call this the “Five by Five” issue. That’s not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, but it could be, because back then vampires were cool. No, it refers to the layout for this issue. This time around, we’ve published the work of five short story writers and five poets. If symmetry delights you, then the table of contents alone will be enough to entertain you for hours.

Of course, there’s more to this issue than its table of contents (which is pretty great). We have monkeys and sex and Andy Garcia. We also have a story about a ham sandwich—I daresay it’s the greatest story about a ham sandwich that’s ever been published. And that’s only scratching the surface. This issue features a lot of new faces and a couple of familiar ones. I hope you like it as much as Bigfoot does.