New Cork Animal Issue!

The new issue of CORK ANIMAL is finally completed! This issue, "Sense of Smell", features stories that tackle olfactory memories and experiences-- as well as some pretty odoriferous photography as well. Overall, this round is a great mix of old and new talent and I hope you enjoy it!

Here's an excerpt of my contribution, a story that does much to explain How I Turned Out This Way. With some trepidation, I decided to entitle it "King of Shit":

"I've never thought shit was funny, not even from a young age when everything is supposed to be funny and poo is one of the few artistic mediums at hand. It was impressed upon me at a very early age that bathroom time was personal, and that no good could come of attempting to share it with others. I remember prowling around my mother as she weeded the backyard, taking it upon my three-year-old self to gather up all of the fresh, clean rabbit droppings that odorlessly littered the ground. I became obsessed, like Godzilla at an Easter-egg hunt. When my pockets were full to overflowing, I began to fill my little toy wheelbarrow industriously. When it too was filled to the brim, I presented this harvest to my mother. "Look, mom! Rabbit turds!" I proclaimed, as if I was the king of them. The look on my mom's face was unforgettable, and left me no illusions about the real worth of my kingdom. Personal, I reminded myself, even for rabbits, and I went inside and washed my hands. Twice.

Shit is the one inescapable indignity, but humor is supposed to save you. Unfortunately I lost my humor at an early age when I found myself unduly shit upon—once at first, then over and over again. Even with a keen sense of smell to warn me, it managed to slip past my detection and assault me from all directions, no matter how content I was to leave it lay. I was still King of Shit, only now I sat begrudgingly on the throne..." [Click here to continue]