There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, so when we needed them, they could fight the battles that we never could. – Nick Fury
There was another idea, to put together a special issue of some of our favorite writers to give you something to read while waiting in line for The Avengers. – Jersey Devil Press
Welcome to our Second All-Star Issue, with fiction by Kimberly Lojewski, Ryan Werner, yt sumner, and Hilary Gan.
Spring! When a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of love and the rest of us…well, we mainly sit around wondering what the hell the cream filling in Cadbury Eggs is really made out of.
And because introspection shouldn’t just be for Easter candy, our new issue has a definite metacognitive vibe as we turn our thematic focus on, well, us. We’ve gathered together five stories about literature, writers, writing, and words, plus, one short tale about art. It’s a veritable feast of creative self-examination.
Also, there’s a seventh story about a woman with a gun in her mouth. (That one’s probably a metaphor for something, but sometimes it’s best not to overanalyze these things.)
Pass the Peeps. Issue 29 has hatched.
Just the other day you were saying to your best friend or partner or spouse or veterinarian, “When in the hell is JDP going to do an issue focused on ambiguity?”
Okay, no one in their right goram mind has ever asked that, but, well, sometimes it’s the literary magazine’s role in society to give its audience not what it wants, but what it needs.
Or, maybe we just got some really cool stories that are a bit amorphous in terms of what exactly happens and decided to throw them together into a single issue to better mess with you.
Because you loved the end of Inception when you weren’t sure if the top tipped over or not. Or the way The Thing ends without telling you definitively if the monster is in Childs or MacReady.
Yeah, I hated that too.
But I do really like the stories we’ve assembled here.
And we haven’t gone completely crazy.
There’s one with cat entrails.
Plus, a few ghosts show up toward the end.
At least, I think they do.