Issue 201

1. Michael H. Rand wrote a piece I could relate to. I found it funny and sad, and real. A beginning well begun- when you visualize the blank notebook at the closing.

2. Bonnie Stanard’s flash fiction piece, “Cicadas,” is quirky, fresh and fun.I recommend this quick read.

3. I loved Bonnie Stanard’s “Cicadas” piece. It was a feast for the reader’s imagination. The fast pace of finding out the driver hit a kid, ran away and then to find out about his/her religious upbringing and how it’s related to the cicadas was superb. And to top it off with good old dishonest capitalism…Loved it!

4. Wow! I Am Not an Entrepreneur by M.H. Rand really moved me. Very raw. “I am a bruise on an elbow.” Yes, this.

5. Part of the pleasure in reading Bonnie Stanard’s ‘Cicadas’ is connecting all the dots arising from the inner workings of her subject’s disordered, loopy mind. Cicada lady — I’m betting it’s a lady — starts with the idea of the noise-making capacity of the male cicada, then moves on to reference the insects in biblical prophecy, immigrant hygiene (or lack thereof) and the thought God’s playing the blame-game again on account of that kid she might have rear-ended when her car windows were covered with the little buggers. What a riff! At one point, she’s horrified by the idea they’ll zoom uninvited into her mouth; the next thing we know, she’s googling up recipes for cicada quiche and tacos, thinking that if you can eat ’em, you can sell ’em and there might be something in it for her. Tis the season of the witch and Stanard’s got this fright-filled, interior monologue thing down pat.

6. I enjoyed your flash fiction, but in particular “Cicadas” by Bonnie Stanard. This is dark comedy at its best. It’s as if the cicadas sent the driver right over an already precarious edge. Well done.

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