At the end of the day all literature is about desire – the good old formula of somebody wants something, so (add in and, but for added excitement *). It seems that the work collected in this issue – from smurf jokes to historical fiction to gritty sex – all have that common thread. Somebody wants something, and either gets exactly what he wanted (leading to a happy ending, or turns the joke onto himself), or somebody wants something and doesn’t get it or isn’t quite sure how to go about getting it.
Ahh, the basis of angst.
Desire – the things we want, but cannot achieve right now.
Some of our desires are pretty basic. Food. Sex. Love.
And then things get more complex.
Sometimes we desire escape. Sometimes we desire comradery. Sometimes we desire saving someone. And sometimes we desire the very thing that frightens us most.
Here at Twisted Sister, we’ve got a great line up for you – historical fiction from Joshua Scully, a smurftastically short piece from Caleb Echterling, zombielicious fiction by Tabitha Sterling, a not-so-bad cop story from Liz McAdams, gritty sex from Michael Marrotti, a heart wrenching poem from Meg Baird, and a lovely story about, well, let’s leave it at the desire for escape from Jazmine Ellington.
For those keeping score, we’ve got some late additions. A killer poem by Carly Zee based on the Eldritch Tales blends fear and desire beautifully, and advice on writing from Rayne Hall about using your fears to feed your fiction. Fears are, after all, the opposite of desire — or, maybe they’re the same thing. It’s up to you to figure it out.
So we’ll leave it to you, readers, and encourage you to explore your desires.
XO
Twisted Sister
*
For more on desire, be sure to check out our VD — Valentine’s Day issue. You’ll be glad you did.
* Not sure what I mean by the somebody wants something, so formula?
Think classic literature. Romeo and Juliet both wanted something (each other), so they tried to do something about it, and / but their families got in the way.
Fairy tales work on same premise.
Princess Whoever (or Princess Wannabe) wants to live happily ever after/ marry the prince of her dreams, so she must act sweet and good and virtuous to earn her reward that is handed to her as a result of external factors (magical fairy godmothers or sheer luck in meeting the prince of her dreams, and then Mr. Prince deciding to marry said Princess because exactly because she is so sweet and charming and good.).
A modern take is Princess Whoever wants something, so she goes out to lay siege to the land, storms the castle herself, and take whatever the hell she wants / deserves. You can tell which one we’d be leaning towards.
And, speaking of desires, dear reader, we always want you – so drop us a line and send us your best flash, fiction, poetry or reviews. Give us our deepest desires.
Twisted Sister lit mag 