I've reviewed latest Carolina Quarterly

Families in various stages of self-destruction or survival are a connecting thread for most of the prose in this issue of Carolina Quarterly. Read my New Pages review of the magazine at http://www.newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/2012-12-17/#Carolina-Quarterly-V62-N2-Fall-2012

Cameo role for Harry Truman

A clothing store owner in small-town Missouri discovers a robbery and turns to his former boss Harry Truman for help. Set in the early 1930s, my short story "The Shady Side" appears in today's on-line issue of Every Day Fiction. Read it at http://www.everydayfiction.com/the-shady-side-by-john-palen/

BioStories publishes my flash memoir

'Artisanal Journalism,' my memoir-essay about running an alternative newspaper, went online Wednesday at BioStories, http://www.biostories.com/Essays.php