finding the lit: vol. 5

reviews

Welcome to finding the lit, where I share the fiction I’ve been reading and enjoying on Substack.

It feels like Substack has come alive since summer ended and the days have grown darker and colder. As it turns out, fiction nerds do like to spend some time getting outside the books and outside Substack and into the real world, weather permitting. But now everyone is all cozied up with warm beverages against windowed backdrops of yellow, orange, and brown; cats and dogs are rested comfortably in laps; and we have all let our minds flit toward the immaterial and the speculative, lost in fiction-induced dreamland.

I presume there will be another slowdown come the holidays as we have to be social again, but the level of engagement and writing out there on the ‘stack right now bodes well for the release of my novel, the big T, which I plan on dropping hopefully this coming weekend or the next (don’t worry, there will be some advance notice.) It’s been drafted into Substack posts and the writing is complete. Just need to apply the playlist to the chapters and a small image for each.

Enough about me, though. As I said recently, it’s become even more important (in my view) to play the role of literary prognosticator in these divisive, political times, to discover the lit worth reading and sharing it to the masses. Remember to do your part as well and re-stack the stories, serials, and flash fiction and poetry that you like. Together, we can cut through the election noise and hopefully get some people to hit pause on the doom scrolling and—for at least a few minutes—train their attention on something that isn’t inciting rage or animosity.

Really love the diverse crop of writers I’ve selected here for this edition’s autumnal harvest.

Without further ado—here’s vol. 5—

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I notice now that there was a gap in

Shifra Steinberg

’s posting history from August 2023 to July 2024, which explains why I hadn’t discovered them yet. But I’m glad they’ve been posting again, because I really enjoyed this story about a man who, despite his use of a pseudonym, is publicly recognized and ridiculed for some writings that allegorically compare his frustrated sexuality with the metamorphosis of a caterpillar.

(Uh-oh. Why does this story hit close to home?)

Shifra’s Short Stories section of their Substack describes itself as Old people’s search for meaning. I totally read this story in the voice of an old person (indeed, they were young in 1929) and that was, I think, the charm of the voice I found so alluring. I also checked out another by her recently which I enjoyed just as much, about a food reviewer who discovers the secret ingredient in his favorite dish is its secret-ness. Here’s to their continued posting!

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Okay, so here I delve more into the horror that becomes unavoidable come October-time. I did feature one from

Sean Thomas McDonnell

and

EJ Trask

last finding the lit, I think, but I know

NJ

is also one of the finest horror writers on here.

This got me thinking about why it is I generally have an aversion to horror. I think it ‘stresses’ me out. When I finish reading a horror piece, whatever beast was in it suddenly feels like it is physically around the corner.

But with this piece, I think I figured out some of the allure to horror—it made me grateful. The story is about a demonic switcheroo that leaves a family to bring home a child who is…not their child. I made the mistake of reading this on Halloween, when innumerable unknown children were coming to my own door. Once I remembered, though, that it wasn’t real, this weird relief settled in and I was able to better enjoy my non-horrific life.

NJ is known for, along with horror, introducing some spicy (and tasteful) eroticism into the Substack fiction-scape, which I enjoy a lot more. If your love-life is flagging, please check those out as well, like this recent one. You might need to take a cold shower afterwards though.

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Deirdre. Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre. What can any of us say about

Deirdre Lewis

that hasn’t already been said? I’ve got her collection of stories, Snaps, on my bookshelf. What I liked most about this story was how she was able to mix her short, staccato sentences into the voice of a character without losing its distinct nature, while at the same time feeling like a genuinely new tone. And the theme she so effortlessly presents—about the unknown and ephemeral in the face of an ocean of hard, modern knowledge—has never been more relevant.

Deirdre writes some non-fiction, memoir-type stuff as well, and is just an all-around great writer. She has inspired me to physically publish a collection of all my short stories someday. Here’s a link to Snaps that hopefully works and takes you to purchase her work.

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As the seasons change, so do our phases of life, and I loved the harmony of

Wes Mann

’s description of the weather in this piece with the aging of the narrator’s parents, a theme I and many others our age can relate all too well with. As I said in my Note about this one, I recently have read a couple posts about present-tense stories, one complaining about present-tense, and another complaining about people complaining about first-person present-tense in particular, and I am on the side of the latter post. Let people write whatever. If it’s good it’s good, and this one is good.

Wes seems to be pretty new here, but is a prolific poster at least according to my standards, so I hope you check them out and welcome them to the lit-fic community.

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K.C. Knouse

’s bio says: Writer of contemporary/literary fiction. That’s as simple and direct as it gets, and that genre is a sure-fire way to bring me in as a reader. But to get me to stay, you need follow up with some good stuff, and KC does so with this story about a truck that bursts into flames. I like stories with ‘dirty realism’ like this one, subject matter that seems inglorious but when told in a prose that is down-to-earth and minimalist in the best ways possible, it works so well. There’s a certain Raymond Carver-ness to it that I enjoyed.

There’s also a sort of American-ness to KC’s stories that I enjoy, including with this other one about a man who, in escaping one moment to return to an indelible other in his past, is able to reconcile the present with beautiful insight.

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That’s a wrap on vol. 5!

I’ll leave you with this:

And here’s my latest short story for your perusal: