The week’s best online fiction, with recommendations from FictionDaily’s editors.
Propelled by Nothing by xTx
Posted on: KillAuthor
If you’re not yet familiar with highly original, nymphomaniacal, sometimes concerning and very possibly pseudonymous wordsmith xTx, or with KillAuthor, the “literary journal for the mostly alive,” here you have a hot serving of each. She calls this piece a poem, and it is, but it’s also a story of sorts, and everything xTx spits has a poetic flavor, so such distinctions are of little importance. What is of huge importance, in a shock-art and clinical sense, is xTx’s relationship with dogs. There is also talk of obsession, and I do believe writing is this for xTx, every line of hers thoughtfully crafted, loved, slept on and finally released to the world like a hostage. As an added bonus, you can listen to her read the piece aloud…-Ryan Nelson
Singing for Dixie by Airin Miller
Posted on: Blackbird Vol. 9 No. 1
For many stories, a title is just a summary or a catch phrase, but for a story like “Singing for Dixie,” it is the complete soul of the work. Airin Miller manages to make every line vibrate with the music of the Deep South, sweeping you into its song and letting you dance through a spicy plot all the way to the crescendo of the climax. Imagery, diction, syntax – every element manages to have a daub of Dixieland in it, and Miller weaves them together into lilting sequence that is characteristically Southern.–-Matt Funk
Smart Bar by Judith Ossello
Posted on: Corium Magazine
The tone is of this is incredible. It’s like being at a bar is war. The voice seems to make life compelling. I mean I know life is compelling, but so much fiction trivializes this intangible quality of experience because it’s removed and reflective. There’s something lost in the alphabet. Somehow Ossello captures life’s compulsion in her words. The story becomes just as compelling as the real thing, except it’s not real. Which makes the whole enterprise of being compelling compelling. –David Backer
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