A Ponderance Upon Writing (which the author realizes he has been doing little of, of late)

I've been doing my neobohemian thing lately. Occupying a corner of the kitchen, within arms length of the coffee pot, and curling into a literary magazine and my laptop. Writing as the moment strikes me, and reading more often than that. The current fascination is The Pinch, the literary journal of the University of Memphis. Their Spring '07 issue is a tour de force, as I have read it nearly cover to cover now, and rather linearly, without any desire to skip around or go find something else entirely. This is unusual for me and lit journals, as usually I find something I cant help but ask "Why did they waste paper on this shit" about, which lends itself to putting the journal down and going back to a good book. I will be looking at the Fall issue of The Pinch with high hopes when it comes out this fall.
If you decide to go find the Spring issue, I heartily recommend "It's Rough Out Here For Dogs" by Patrick Thomas Casey, on Pg. 19.

I was pleased to discover, in a random web-search the other day, that my favorite piece of short fiction, "Ralph the Duck" by Frederick Busch, is available online. It is the main body of the first chapter of his 1997 novel, "Girls". Said chapter was excerpted by the New York Times, and can be found here: "Girls"
The segment that has been published separately as "Ralph the Duck" begins with the subheader of Ralph, and ends with the chapter.
(If it asks you to log in, use "fuqueewe", minus the quotes, for both login and pass, courtesy of BugMeNot).

On another short story note, I gained a new piece of short short, or flash, fiction tonight. It is the original short short, written by Hemingway who bet his cooperators and cohorts ten dollars that he could write an entire short story in six words. What he wrote was untitled, and is this: "For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn."