This month we welcome renowned banjoist Bela Fleck into the fog to discuss his life and craft; showcase the music of a very talented young San Diego songwriter; debut new poems from Stephen Cramer and Rachael Lyon; feature original fiction by Dylan James Brock and Alan Drew; take a long look at the paintings of Robin Eley, and much, much more. Benjamin Evans Executive Editor, Fogged Clarity July 2011 Table of Contents Fiction Alan...

Curious to know what you think about this list from The New York Times Magazine, Clarity readers. Agree? Disagree? Which of your favs made it? Which amazing game-changers were you shocked to see left off? Nabokov’s Lolita was named the clear winner, but apparently Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay wasn’t too far behind. Comments and thoughts below, if you please. The NYT article also mentions the...

Dylan James Brock While Sarah Witherspoon was still alive she was a mockingbird with a tin ear. Her attempts to recreate beauty never did justice to what she mimicked. When not insulting her outright, people called her Spoony. She was a plain brunette with thin hair and a thick brow that kept her from being pretty. The most remarkable aspect of her was how hard she tried and failed to be remarkable. Spoony wore different colored sneakers to...

Alan Drew PART 3 OF 4 Read Part 1 Here Read Part 2 Here She made the mistake of turning on the television–something to relieve the silence of the house–and there he was on the evening news, a headline, one of three bodies. On a radio talk show a psychologist discussed the state of our children and included David in an epidemic of childhood immorality that included the burning of a church, the beating of a woman in Golden Gate...

Work is slow. School is finished. The kiddos are away at camp. Across most of the country, it’s already too effing hot to go outside without immediately feeling that you will most definitely perish from heat exhaustion within 60 seconds. You’re mostly just bullshitting around until you take your vacation anyway. Need something to do? Stop drinking lemonade and fanning yourself with back issues of Maxim. Get your voice out there....

Alan Drew PART 2 OF 4 Read Part 1 Here She and Dominic had only been meeting for three weeks, but it had really started months before that with a journal entry she wasn’t supposed to read. Nothing about Seth’s appearance betrayed a bat wielding attacker, and Bryson, he was on his way to UCLA, a good student, one of her favorites. What the fuck happens to people? I mean, they get old and turn into fascist dictator nazis who’ve...

Daniel Frankenfield Rick and I sat in the living room, breath falling from our mouths. The television was on but no cable to watch. We needed money. We needed cigarettes, food, heat and all the other things, but mostly money. There was a Uni-Mart up the street. Rick toyed with a hand rolled cigarette until the thing fell apart in his hands. It was true. It was a solid looking piece and could have fooled anyone. Rick paced the...

The author of "Vinegar Hill" and "Good Things I Wish You" sits down to discuss her life and craft.

I should write short stories. I keep at this novel ambition while I have yet to produce anything other than pieces of one that please me.  Walk to run to fly. That kind of thing. I haven’t written one in some time. When I did, it was from the perspective of a young black man. I am not joking. It all started when a teacher at grad school, the estimable Colum McCann, gave me one of his savory, lilting maxims. He said something like,...

I am currently teaching Introduction to Creative Writing. Coming down the home stretch of the semester, we’re on nonfiction, and for it I am using, for the first time, David Starkey’s Four Genres in Brief. In it, Brian Doyle speaks of the challenge of wresting an essay free from “the stench of ego.” Philip Lopate says personal essays thrive on littleness, especially “self-belittlement.” From what I’ve found,...