Contemporary and Cool

I'm not in college and I'm not really a literary expert, let alone a pretentious writer type who judges a poem by how ugly it is. But I thought I should get an idea of what people are writing nowadays, just because it's cool, and also for inspiration and to share with anyone who wants to know. So here are some contemporary online literary magazines and examples of their writing!

100 Word Stories
This title is pretty self explanatory. This magazine only accepts stories and essays of 100 words or less because this "forces the writer to question each word.'' 

Here is the coolest story I saw while I was browsing. It was the second place winner in the magazine's National Flash Fiction Day contest:

Night-time Knitting

By Roz Mascall

A gorilla is living in my cupboard. Every night, he swaggers onto my bed and waits for me to wake-up. I pretend to be asleep but hear his knitting needles clicking together. He is making a very long scarf for me. Squinting at him from under my blanket, I see his huge hairy hands scratch his scalp in disappointment. He looks sad. A pang of guilt hits me. I sit up and he hands me a ball of pink wool. His watery eyes meet my gaze. He is lonely. We lean against each other and knit until sunrise.

I don't know why this story struck me as much as it did. It's simple, and while it has elements of the impossible, the tone is so matter-of-fact that it just seems sad rather than strange. And there is something beautiful about comforting a sad gorilla who is kind enough to knit you a scarf. Other good titles from this magazine are That's Not Love? by Jon Sindell and Thicker Than Water by Jean-Luc Bouchard.

1966
1966 is a journal that focuses on creative nonfiction, or, in their words, "prose that turns information into story and facts into art.'' I personally love creative non-fiction, but I didn't have enough time to read a lot of examples from this journal because they're a few pages long each. I did read one though, called These Orbits, Crossing by Miya Pleines. It was a beautiful, beautiful essay and I suggest you all read it!

I also read a few poems from the magazine 32 Poems but I'm not very good at judging poetry and sometimes get confused when it's abstract, so I'll just say that I liked the following poem, though I can't really say why:

Your Server for This Evening
By: Sarah Rose Nordgren

I slice a wedge of lime, slitting
the center so it holds to the glass.

I wipe the frost from the lip
of the plate with a cloth,

then touch it to my face, tenderly.
What you ordered was

specific, but you are patient
while I travel to the freezer,

searching out your favorite meal.
You are able to discern

between blue ice and blue-gray
ice with your eyes closed.

I know your habits better than
you know my name and your palate

is the bible from which I learn
my verses. How you cover

your lap with the napkin and
which bones you taste first

from the sugar skeleton,
show me that you are a gentle,

lonely person. No wonder
you pay so handsomely for

my company—you think I need
another reason to adore you.

So that's it for literature for today! Hopefully soon I will be performing at an open mic with a poem I wrote, and I'll write a little bit about what it's like to read poetry out loud to a bunch of random people you kind of know.

Thanks to the following websites for writing, info, and images:

http://www.32poems.com/

http://www.100wordstory.org/

1966journal.org

http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines