best short stories 2020

Carnival Fiction

Pop Lit Fiction

A MARDI GRAS STORY

Great 19th century novelists such as Victor Hugo, Charlotte Bronte, and Alexandre Dumas would often put a big scene of a carnival parade into their books. The feeling of uninhibited revelry, chaos, even madness was a way of heightening emotion and consolidating plot threads– as if the true hidden nature of their characters came out– came alive– amid the colors, music, drinking and shouting. 

WE HAVE today in time for Mardi Gras 2020 a short story centered around carnival time in New Orleans, and it’s a good one: “Cracks” by Wilson Koewing. The story of course is about more than a parade. It’s about a relationship– more, it’s about life, about love, about being human and filled with the kind of chaotic mad emotions we flawed creatures are prone to. Put on your Mardi Gras mask and plunge in.

As we close in on St. Charles, the din of the crowd materializes. Carnival food smells ride on the breeze. You sense the impending madness. It rushes slowly, not towards you. You enter. It surrounds you. And you’re inside. There is a wall, and when it envelops you, there is no escape.

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(ART: “The Peacock” by Natalia Goncharova.)

Who Is the Bayside Blonde?

Pop Lit Fiction

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WE’RE EXCITED to present our first feature of the new decade– a subtly hilarious tale by GD Dess, “The Bayside Blonde,” about a blonde and a telephone. A telephone and a blonde. A dangerous combination! Presented as a puzzle of personality. An investigation.

I’ve never been married, but I came this close. Charlie. He was my man. He was the one. He was a bit like my father. Gallant. Sophisticated. He said he had waited all his life for me. He wanted to marry me. Have kids with me. We got engaged. Then he woke up with a back ache one morning, and three weeks later he was dead. I was devastated. I buried him. He’s with the lord now. We’re only here as a guest, G. When our time is up, it’s up. It’s not my fault.

THE BLONDE!-page-001 - Edited

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(ART: “Girl Before a Mirror” by Pablo Picasso.)

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Read and follow NEW POP LIT. . . .

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ANOTHER blonde with a telephone: