Twisted Sister – The F Word – Family Issue

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

— the opening lines of Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy. Yep, that dude.

Lest you think we’ve gone all high and mighty on you, rest assured Twisted Sister is still rocking along and swilling cheap plonk, kicking up the dregs of the literary world. And the focus of this issue is on family – not quite from the parenting perspective (we’ve done that here and here) but form the view of the inhabitants themselves – the children.

And man, we’ve got some messed up families out there, and like all good fiction they contain an element of truth within them. Most of the work featured here is based in the ugly times of adolescence, where family relations become ‘strained’ to say the least. So, kick back and spend some quality time with, er, interesting families.

To kick things off start with The Year of Loathing, by Matthew Lyons, and be sure to drop by Seben Sanders’ The Song of Spring, and A Happy Meal Ending by L.L. Madrid. Teresa Frazee’s poem Petals and Spikes follows a night out for teenaged girls. And to round things out we have two stories about adolescent angst – Chess by Neil James is about the quest for romantic love amid board games, and Justin Hunter’s One Thousand Hours Free is about freedom of a different sort.

In case you missed it the first time ’round, for some really messed up families, be sure to check out Something from the Garden by Catherine McKenzie, The Christmas that Cracked by Cindy Rosmus of Yellow Mama and a double hitter of family fun by Liz McAdams – Softball and Boom, Bust.

By now you’re thinking to yourself – Twisted Sister and Anna Karenina – seriously? Yep, you got it. Tolstoy all the way, baby. Wondering what a realist novel written over a hundred years ago by a dead white guy has to do with modern feminist lit mag? Give it a read, and check out some ideas on plot. structure, pacing, interpersonal relationships, and the places and roles of women. You’ll be glad you did. For a FREE copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, check out Project Gutenberg.

XO,

Twisted Sister

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Think you’re twisted enough to submit to Twisted Sister? Dear readers and writers, we always want YOU! Feminist dark fantasy, horror and just plain weird — flash, fiction, poems and various ramblings are always welcome.