The Furious Gazelle

Literary as hell.

Category: Writing (Page 29 of 50)

“My Boyfriend, Tom,” by Doug Patrick

June 10, 2016 /

Aidan bangs on my door, yelling at me to “get up already, faggot.” This is usual. What isn’t usual, though, is the fact he keeps saying he needs to show me something. Against my better judgment, I get up and unlock the door. Aidan barges in and I shriek, throwing my hands up out of instinct. Aidan is pointing at me with a handgun.

“I’m not gonna shoot you, Parker. I’m not an asshole.” Aidan laughs and lowers the weapon. “Pretty sweet, though, huh?”

I ask where the hell he got the thing. He says he found it in Dad’s gun cabinet in the basement – the combination is on a notecard in his nightstand. Then, he hands it to me and calls me a wimp. The thing is heavier than I thought it’d be. Continue reading

Pattie Boyd’s Greatest Hits by Matt Russell

June 7, 2016 /
Pattie Boyd’s Greatest Hits
by Matt Russell

He buys you a drink and says his name is Hutch and you think there are worse things to be named after than a song. Like a seventies TV character or piece of furniture.

“Layla,” you say, and shake his clammy hand.

“Layla, Layla,” he says, rolling your name around his mouth like a toothpick.  And he’s still squeezing your hand when he says, “Like the song, right?”

You roll your eyes and slide your hand from his grip.

“Right,” you say.  “Like the song.”

“Stones, right?”

“Clapton.”

“Right, right.  Clapton.  It’s about banging George Harrison’s wife or something, right?” Continue reading

Poetry by Rich Ives

June 3, 2016 /

Yesterday

 

The end of a century flipping like a calendar number,

and here I am kissing a short squat building where

everyone says hello, and no one recognizes me.

 

Upstairs there are families I once lived in, but

pawnshops have moved in like stray cats. In the garden,

 

rhizome dreams borrow the curiosity from a stare,

sending up tomorrow as a stalk and teaching it to listen.


 Continue reading

Franny Ornstein, Secret Agent/Sous Chef by Brian Leahy Doyle

May 31, 2016 /

Franny Ornstein, Secret Agent/Sous Chef

by Brian Leahy Doyle

Cast of Characters

FRANCES RACHEL ORNSTEIN (FRANNY): Mid-late 20s, pretty enough, yet slightly insecure. A sous chef.

JENKS HEDGEPATH: Mid-late 20s, Franny’s fiancé. Well-built, gym-sculpted physique on a slender frame, classic good looks with a good head of hair. Knows how to pronounce words like “coif.” Venture capitalist.

VERA: Mid-late 20s, Franny’s assistant, attractive, great sense of humor, buoyant, the sort of person overlooked in high school who everyone cannot get over how great she looks at a high school reunion.

CHUCK (or DAVE): Mid-late 20s, rugged lumberjack physique. White ethnic. Also knows how to pronounce “coif,” but wouldn’t be caught dead saying it. Has perpetual two days’ growth of beard. Should look good in a flannel shirt. Ponytail optional. Plumber or furniture restorer.

R.S.: Acerbic sense of humor. Small of physical stature but with commanding sense of self.

PHELPS: WASP with a basic no-nonsense integrity. Dry sense of humor.

Setting: A bedroom. Diffused morning light through window blinds shines upon a queen-sized bed that is adorned with attractive blankets, pillows, and a duvet cover. To the right of the bed on a nightstand is a digital alarm clock, its digits frozen in time.

 

Continue reading

Poetry by Rich Ives

May 27, 2016 /
Yesterday
By Rich Ives

The end of a century flipping like a calendar number,

and here I am kissing a short squat building where

everyone says hello, and no one recognizes me.

 

Upstairs there are families I once lived in, but

pawnshops have moved in like stray cats. In the garden,

 

rhizome dreams borrow the curiosity from a stare,

sending up tomorrow as a stalk and teaching it to listen.

  Continue reading

How to Write a YA Novel by Elena Ender

May 20, 2016 /

YA: young adult, teen, tween, advanced child, less-advanced adult, emotional human

 

Novel: story, book, doorstop


I know a lot about books, I’ve even read a few. One genre of book that sells well is “Young Adult” (or YA) “literature.” I have read at least one YA novel and I have seen trailers for The Fault in Our Stars, so I’m going to let you in on the secret of how to write a YA novel and make more money than JK Running.

What you’ll need: 

  • Mac computer
  • leather notebook
  • fountain pen
  • loose papers
  • coffee shop
  • beanie

 

Getting started:

There are three types of YA novels you can choose to write about.

1) post-apocalyptic dystopian romance novel

2) magical/fantasy/vampire romance novel

3) 21st century American teen coming-of-age, cancer romance novel


 Continue reading

Goodbye Joy, fiction by Kitty Shields

April 26, 2016 /

Goodbye, Joy.

I’m moving next month so we won’t run into each other. I blocked your number today too. It’s a relief not to have to press the ignore button anymore.

<Press> Ignore?

<Press> Accept?

I (don’t) say that to hurt you.

I want you to understand why I’m writing you. I want you to understand because when I’m done writing, I’m shredding you in my memory.
I kept all the silly love notes, the mall pictures, the ticket stubs. I couldn’t shred you before when you broke up with me. I tried. I scraped and pulled, nails clawing at the memories. Chunks out of my skin are missing trying to find and dig you out.

Continue reading

The Jeweler, a poem by Gonzalinho da Costa

April 22, 2016 /

The Jeweler

by Gonzalinho da Costa

 

Afternoon is a jeweler

Setting hours in gold,

As silver glinting waves

Slap the garnet shore.

 

Gonzalinho da Costa—a pen name—teaches at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Makati City, Philippines. He is a management research and communication consultant. A lover of world literature, he has completed three humanities degrees and writes poetry as a hobby.

Is It Okay If I Write This Article About Female Authority?

April 19, 2016 /

by Meg Thompson

 

During the lead up to the 2008 presidential election, when I was an English Instructor in western Missouri, a student said to me, shaking his head, “A woman and a black man. Can’t we just have a normal person run for office?”

I don’t remember how I responded, perhaps because I fainted. Back then, barely a semester out of graduate school, my approach to handling the delicate issues of race and gender veered toward melodrama. Today, when met with similar rhetorical questions, it is not uncommon to find me crouching in front of the student’s desk like I am taking an order at Chili’s, nodding, probing with my little questions: Why do you think that? After class, we would go to the university coffeeshop so we could chat one-on-one, more in-depth.

Now, in 2016, that black man is getting ready to finish his second term and that woman has the democratic nomination in her grasp. My female students come to my office, which is now in rural Oklahoma where I teach, and tell me in hushed tones that they aren’t feminists, but they believe women should be given equal treatment. Continue reading

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