Longbrief Vacation from the Cheese. I'm back.

It's been a long time since I've posted. Last time I posted I wrote about a cop-family killer and now he's dead.

There's your update.

I've been hard at work on a new project called The Slagdrop. If you click that name, it'll take you to our site.

Basically what we're trying to do is marry many art forms into a website designed to get short stories heard. It's a "collective" more than a traditional magazine where many people can submit (although we are going to be quickly transitioning into that).

Why are we doing this?

The whole world has changed. Means of distribution have been diluted so much that artists rarely get paid for their work unless they're getting published in the New Yorker. The short story, a form that Americans love but a form that writers can't generally make a living off of (except for George Saunders), is extremely hard to place and most small presses don't pay a damn thing for the honor of showcasing them.

While we can't pay much, the plan is to have a site run on donations. Writers will get pretty token payments as an appreciation for allowing us to have their story. All stories, with few exceptions, will be recorded as an mp3 so readers can become listeners and engage with the story anywhere they want. Download it, listen to it while you exercise or run, sit in your car in traffic; you will not be limited to sitting in front of your computer and staring at a screen to enjoy the story.

We're planning big things. We have a live show coming on May 25th. We want to publish an anthology with a download code for the mp3 album of every story in the book. We want to take the show on the road.

All of this can be done by sharing our page and encouraging people to donate.

To make things really easy, here are individual links to every story published so far:

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/10/kim-jong-il/ - The Miraculous Life of Kim Jong-il

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/04/two-cowboys-settle-a-dispute/ - Two Cowboys Settle a Dispute

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/03/01/ticket-to-nowhere/ - Ticket to Nowhere

http://slagdrop.com/home/2013/04/05/fecal-matter-in-the-water-cortin-a-zelaznog/ - Fecal Matter in the Water