Reading Log: ‘Thrice Fiction No. 9’, Free Literature, and the Pleasures and Irritations of Finding the Cutting Edge

http://www.thricefiction.com/

Thrice Fiction is a free lit mag. They publish some damn good stories, most of which can be defined as short-shorts (…not those kind of short-shorts) or longer flash fiction. Since Thrice is a normal-sized journal and the entirety of it is taken up by these short stories, there are a hell of a lot of authors in here. This is no complaint -the likelihood of finding someone really good or personally resonant goes up when you have six or seven times as many fiction authors as The Paris Review between the covers. Of course, there are always going to be a handful of writers who either irritate me or do nothing for me, but, hey, these stories are pretty short. No skin off my back.

Thrice is pretty aggressive. They give out the work for free (so you really have no excuse for not checking them out) and they even offer the journal neatly formatted as a PDF, or in EPUB or MOBI for your digital readers/e-readers (I read No. 9 on my old Kindle). They get authors out there and the stories they select tend to fit in with the experimental and cutting edge aesthetic of the mag itself. Like most emerging stuff, this means an interesting blend of being out there and seeing what comes next before the culture at large -or even the cultural gatekeepers- but it also means you’ll slog through some forgettable failed experiments. I was pleased to find thatThrice keeps that ratio firmly on the side of emerging quality.

Recommendation: Download either this or the latest issue of Thrice right now. For fuck’s sake, man. It’s free. Just download it. It’s really damn good -at least read it on your phone the next time you’re stuck on the john.

http://www.thricefiction.com/