In my recent trip to South Dakota, my buddy Joe gave me a copy of Spokane Shorties, an 80 page collection of short stories and poems by writers in Spokane, Washington. Even for someone like me who has never been to Spokane and doesn’t get all of the references, it’s a great window into a local literary scene and it does my heart good to see people still finding ways to put out small print editions of something they care about. I grew up in the Chicagoland punk scene during the late 90s/early 00s when everything was still black and white photocopied zines and those will always mean more to me than some glossy publication, let alone a digital only publication. (That is not to say there’s no great stuff online, there’s TONS of it, but it’ll never be the same as holding something in your hand that was lovingly photocopied on some kid’s father’s photocopier in the basement.)
Spokane Shorties consists of 38 pieces by 31 writers, a good mix of short fiction and poetry. A few have been published elsewhere but the majority have never been published. Personally I’m more of a fiction than a poetry guy, and my favorite pieces were those by Leah Sottile, Kris Dinnison, Chris Cook, Kevin Taylor, and Joseph Aloysius.
For a full list of contributors, check out this and here’s an article about it in The Spokesman-Review.
Like Spokane Shorty on Facebook and in you’re in Spokane pick up a copy (I didn’t see it available anywhere online but I assume if you contact them through FB they’d sell you a copy.)
Great stuff writers of Spokane, keep it coming!
Words will keep us together 