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About

Fall 2012 Edition

We are pleased to bring you the Fall 2012 edition of Menacing Hedge. The edition features many fresh voices and is graced with the artwork of Alexander Jansson. We are also thrilled to announce that Craig Wallwork has joined us as our new editor of all things fiction.

This edition's line-up of unfettered awesome includes poems and stories by Lucile Barker, Kathy Burkett, Scott Butterfield, Robert Campbell, Mary Stone Dockery, Michael Fontana, Shannon Hozinec, Josh Karaczewski, Andrew Kaufman, Lloyd Luke, Adam Marek, Christiana Spens, Caitlin Elizabeth Thomson, Matthew Vasiliauskas, Laura Madeline Wiseman, Russ Woods, and Susan Yount.

A big thanks to all of our wonderful contributors!

An introduction from the new fiction editor, Craig Wallwork

Many frown at the short story. They find its brusque manner and amorphous form frustrating. The short story writer is a malingering distracted fool who lacks commitment and is as loyal to the narrative as honesty is loyal to politics. I would disagree with these people, as would Melville, Poe, Chekhov, Carver, Fitzgerald, Bradbury, Hemingway and Ballard to name but a few authors who took a pair of scissors to the fabric of literature and sliced it into pieces. Read any of the above and you'll discover what you can do with a constricted word count. They offer worlds beyond the scope of any normal person's imagination; they abandon the conventions of beginning-middle-and-end, they do not judge their characters, nor offer a climax or resolution. Instead they give us life, and death, in its purist and undiluted form. The stories of Israeli writer Etgar Keret have it in abundance; Nick Cave's songs wreak of it; Richard Brautigan gave it effortlessly. And whatever "it" is, in just a few pages, they achieve more than most established authors do in a novel. And as an editor, this is what I'm looking for.

Before writing any short fiction, I always ask myself the question, What would I want from a short story? Invariably, I want to be entertained, transported into another person or world; I want a sentence that will make me laugh aloud in public and force people to look at me with furrowed brow; I want a story that makes me appreciate what I have, and at times, covet what I have yet to achieve; I like characters that burrow under the skin, causing me to scratch at them until I'm bleeding and light-headed as a result; but more than anything, I want great story telling. This is what I try to do with my own fiction, and seek to find in other short stories. In this Fall edition, I have found those writers. Each story has given me a visceral reaction that at times has left me breathless, perturbed, elated, hopeful, wistful, but above all, absorbed. These writers prove to the world that ephemeral is not a dirty word, that the short story can just be as far reaching and meaningful as any novel. These writers offer stories that resonant.


This edition was produced by:

Kelly Boyker: Poetry editor

Craig Wallwork: Fiction editor

Martha Vallely: Technical editor and proofreader

Gio Guillemette: Technical director and paperwork dealer-wither

Dickens: Chief of paperwork interference and specialist in rendering all untethered small objects to the Taking Things Place, wherever that is.

Menacing Hedge

Menacing Hedge is a quarterly journal of poetry, fiction and artwork, which is committed to fostering access to emerging and experimental poetry and prose. Ongoing publication is scheduled for the first weeks of July, October, January, and April. Menacing Hedge will carefully archive all its editions to ensure that an author's/artist's work will remain on the web for many, many years to come. Regrettably, Menacing Hedge cannot pay its contributors at this time.

Menacing Hedge accepts only original unpublished literary work; however, it will consider literary work on a case-by-case basis if it has appeared only in print but never on the web. In the case of art and photography, it is acceptable if the piece has appeared on the artist's website or elsewhere.

Upon acceptance of a literary piece, Menacing Hedge obtains first publishing rights and then all rights revert to the author. Menacing Hedge requests that if a published piece is later published elsewhere, that Menacing Hedge will be credited with first publication. Also, Menacing Hedge reserves the right to publish the piece in print.

Scary Bush

If we decide to accept your work, we will also invite you to submit one of your most cringeworthy efforts from the misty past to Menacing Hedge's evil twin, Scary Bush. Please see the Scary Bush page for examples.