Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
(an occasional outburst)

 

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volume 3, number 1

Poetry, Fictions, Essays, Art and so on and so forth, the usual mix of eclectica.

Introduction from this issue:

 

Welcome. This is the fourth in an occasional issuance from our palace here in the underworld. As you are,we seem to be having a series of computer problems. We have consulted with the appropriate icons and are switching from our mainframe system to a loose system that will float behind the speaker--if not the dictator. The switch over has been a little painful. We are almost 'live' with our new system but as yet our mlcrwedics are unsure when the heart will actually start beating.

In the eternal summer of our secret world under your stairs we have little reason for war. We do not have a convention such as was issued from Geneva on the rights of prisoners--are we not all prisoners of the flesh? We have a United Nations where children copy your games. We had a World Trade Organization but we found you were unaware of us and eventually we gave up our attempts at trading with you. We do have a GATT; a General Agreement on Tea Time. After many discussions and much consideration 4 o'clock was decided on, with a clause for those who prefer three. Further discussion was postponed when tea was served on the patio.

We hope that you never run out of oil. If you do you may begin using solar power. Then you might notice how much energy goes unutilized every day (after all, does it matter if the rocks are heated? Ask a meteorologist--or anyone who has been struck by a meteor) and someone up there might wonder where the difference was going.

Enough. We appreciate the trade imbalance your purchase will give us. If you like to support lost worlds and causes please consider subscribing. Every twelfth subscriber wins a secret visit from the monster under your bed.

 

Contents

Fiction
The Marraige Doll - Sten Westgard
Tan-Tan and Dry Bone - Nalo Hopkinson
The Second One - Rachel Roberts
Miss Kansas on Judgement Day - Kelly Link
One Forbidden Thing - Dora Knez

Poetry
Lethe - Ian McDowell
mehitobel was queen of the night
An Old Woman Remembers - Margaret Muirhead
Tourists
I am glad
Ride this one with me - Stuart Davies
Italy in the Morning - Georgia Ewing
Untitled - Cassandra Silvia
At Night

Essays, Letters, Diaries &c.
Three Essays - Naoko Takahashi
The Death Penalty
Japan Diary - George Fruechtenicht
Assumptions on the Readership
Travel Diary
The Lifeblood of Free Thought
An Open Letter - Margaret Muirhead
Zine Reviews
From the SFAC Campaign - David Findlay

Assumptions on the Readership of this 'Luxury Product':

You read.(1)

You read English.

You have a home.(2)

You are not chronically hungry.(2)

You will not Disappear. (2)(3)

You regard some part of your income as 'disposable.' (1)(2)(3)(4)

  1. And, oddly enough, you occasionally go beyond mass media products and read tiny magazines with great fiction, poetry and odd little ideas.
  2. Unless you found this in the trash.
  3. You need not fear for your life by reading or possessing this or any other text or idea, samizdat or other.
  4. You sometimes consider where the money you work for goes. You sometimes try economic support of ideas and ideologies. You don't always fall for the hype. You shop as a pastime. You don't always buy 'brand' names. This may be time-consuming and wear you out. In 5 years you will be going to the mall thinking of all the time this is saving you.
Dangling Participants - Contributors

Hillaire Belloc's acerbic comments would have gotten us sued.

Jack Cheng is working on a novel, a screenplay, a thesis, an album and a multi-media project of unknown dimensions. He sleeps on a desk-bed and would like to meet a woman who knpws how to play bridge.

Stuart Davies' poem from the last issue was read on Welsh radio. He was at the game where Wales beat England and gave Scotland the last Five Nations Championship of the century. Cheers.

Georgia Ewing: Lives in california. She has two daughters and two grandchildren. A surprising number of them are vegetarian.

David Findlay is politicized. he can be found designing at the Blissful Itch website if he is not writing, making music or videos. SFAC is real.

Gavin J. Grant drinks tea.

Nalo Hopkinson's second novel, Midnight Robber will be out in March 2000 from Warner. Her first novel Brown Girl in the Ring won the Warner Aspect First Novel Award. Her short fiction can he found in Northern Suns and Silver Birch, Blood Moon. She is the solo performer in "Indigo," Sudharshan Duraiyappah's work in the Toronto dance series, Waterworks.

Dora Knez attended the Clarion Workshop in 1995. Her poetry has also appeared in Tesseracts.

Kelly Link's stories can be read on Event Horizon and Dark Planet. Her book of stories will appear in the next thousand years. She produced the cats, keys, lizzards and other such decorations.

Ian McDowell is the author of Mordred's Curse and Merlin's Gift (Avon Books, 1997 and 1998). His short fiction has been much anthologized (Love in Vein, The Year's Best Horror Stories, Borderlands 2 and the upcoming Mondo Zombie). He lives in colorful Bohemain squalor in Greensboro, NC. His work has been banned in Canada and at K-Mart, but he is still welcome in most major hotels and restaurants.

Margaret Muirhead wore a tiara to our Oscar party. She has a husband, Peter, and two cats, Lucy and Zelda.

Rachel Roberts is a Melbourne gal who gets a thrill out of watching her garden grow, learning sexy new jazz chords on her ancient guitar and writing wacky prose about life as she knows it.

Cassandra Silvia's work appeared in our first issue. She once had a pet turkey, named Lurkey.

Sten Westgard's fiction has appeared in Tomorrow and The Third Alternative, a UK magazine. His story "The Dog Rose" appeared in the anthology Black Swan, White Raven.

 

Errata

p.36 www.avenuevictorhugobooks.com no longer hosts this page. Obvious non, mais oui?

p.41 I'm not winking at you - I developed a permanent facial tic from the psychiatric medications...

p.44 Dora Knez is well-versedly multilingual.

 

What else is there to say on a web page? The magazine keeps hitting high standards of quality, style, art, but sometimes lacks a decent recipe. I'll try and correct that next time. Or you could.

 

Contents are © the authors, please do not reprint without permission. All rights reserved. Probably. Submissions of material and/or cash, chocolate, pizza (I suggest Bluestone Bistro here in Brighton, books, music, zines etc.) can be made to the above address, with an SAE if you want a reply. Remembering, of course, this isn't known an an Occasional Outburst for nothing. Su-ure, we're sticking to the May/November schedule (shed-ul).

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