He’s Kind of a Big Deal . . .

Look_Ma_I'm_Writing

Sam writes like a champ and looks good doing it.

Forgive us the not-so-humblebrag, but Samuel Snoek-Brown, JDP’s stalwart Production Editor, has not one but *two* Items of Literary Awesomeness happening right now, and you should check ’em out.

First, his story “Lightning My Pilot” is a storySouth Million Writers Award Finalist. Vote for it here!

Second, Sam’s new chapbook of short fiction, Box Cutters, is available from Sunnyoutside press. Buy it, read it, love it. (Don’t worry; it’s sharp in the sense of being smart and having a stylish design, not sharp like a tool Gus Fring would use to teach you a lesson.)

And you don’t have to take my word for it—here’s what Ethel Rohan, author of Goodnight Nobody, has to say: “The familiar-made-wonderfully-strange image of a ventriloquist’s dummy is just one of the many moments that has stayed with me from Sam Snoek-Brown’s Box Cutters. So too has the image of multicolored bruises, those of the body, ego, and heart. Bruises make us tender, make us hurt. Bruises simultaneously resist and seek out contact, just like the wounded and wandering spirits from these stories.”

Congratulations, Sam!

Pushcart Prize Nominees

pushcart_cyclopsWe’re tremendously excited to announce our Pushcart nominees for this year, which are currently on their way to the prize committee in the capable claws of our Mail Delivery Tauntaun.

Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Nicola Belte, “Dippin’ and Dustin’,” issue 41 (April 2013)

Amanda Chiado, The Birth of Houdini,” issue 45 (August 2013)

Kelsie Hahn, “The Hermitage,” issue 46 (September 2013)

Christopher Lettera, “Together, We Can Save a Life,” issue 38 (January 2013)

Gary Moshimer, “Saving Jesus,” issue 48 (November 2013)

y.t. sumner, “Bazaar,” issue 42 (May 2013)

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, and a round of hearty applause for all the writers whose stories (and poems) have appeared in our pages; we’re honored you chose to share your work with us.

It’s a ritual sacrifice. With pie.

new-yorker-turkey

Of course, if we’d gone this route, we might have found ourselves stuffing soggy bread into defrosted bald eagles every November.

Thanksgiving is arguably more American than Independence Day. What were we fighting for, if not our right to blast a wild turkey with a shotgun (or, you know, buy a frozen one at Kroger), deep-fry that sonofabitch, then consume it with a variety of butter-logged, marshmallow-oozing side dishes before passing out in the living room with football playing quietly on the TV?

In case you are the first one to wake up from your tryptophan coma, or if you’re just holed up in the guest bathroom, taking a break from the family togetherness in the only place where you can get some peace and qui—FOR ODIN’S SAKE, STOP JIGGLING THE HANDLE; THERE’S CLEARLY SOMEONE IN HERE.

As we were saying, we have some recommended Turkey Day reading for you. First up is Eirik Gumeny’s “Almost Every November,” in which the Thanksgiving tables are turned when a few genetically modified birds take matters into their own artificially-prehensile feathers. Then there’s Stephen Schwegler’s “Chinese Take-Out,” in which a group of humans holed up in a shopping center after a massive wild turkey uprising find a way to celebrate the holidays. And you can’t go wrong with any of our Pushcart Prize Nominees for this year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.