* Online lit mags are publishing some of the most intriguing writing available today. Every Monday, I post a pointer to a site that offers fiction either as free content or as samples from subscriber issues. Today’s pointer is to BLIP.
Pointer #25 will be the last scheduled post here as I am shifting my efforts from a personal blog to a more lit specific one. Please check back for details and thanks so much for visiting!
BLIP began life in 1995 as Mississippireview.com, which was among the first and most popular literary magazines on the Web. As of 2010, the magazine has more than fifteen hundred stories and poems in its archive, work by such writers as Thom Jones, Ben Marcus, Francine Prose, Padgett Powell, Barry Hannah, Tom Drury, Elizabeth Gilbert, Rick Bass, Ben Neihart, and from newer writers like Brian Oberkirch, Michael Dermansky, Courtney Eldridge, David Ryan, Laurie O’Brien, Jaime Clarke, Stacey Richter, Susan Hubbard, Larry French. BLIP is the new, independent version of the magazine, with the same editorial staff, plus some new additions. We will be publishing a quarterly literary magazine, the first issue of which is the Summer 2010 issue, and we will be doing daily and weekly updates to add materials that seem interesting enough to warrant attention, rebroadcast, retaliation, etc. It’s bombs away time. We hope you make the magazine (which we fully intend to rename, perhaps repeatedly) a regular stop in your Web travels. We welcome you and encourage your participation.
Fiction excerpt:
Physics
Kim ChinqueeI sat there on the floor, reading about red cells for my thesis. My cat Patches was curled at my feet. My boyfriend William had come over, we were trying things again, and now I listened as he talked to my son Jamie about his job as a reporter. Jamie nodded, more interested in the TV, where some guy was smacking his guitar and double leaping.
My mother called. It was almost Christmas.
“Eileen,” my mother said. “Come and see your stepdad.”
“What should I say?”
“He loves you, you know.”
Patches rubbed my leg. She was calico. I petted her and she started purring. There was silence on my mom’s end.
“I’m saying maybe you should come now,” she said. “At least think about it.”
Akopos 