Fringe 12 is Live

Issue 12 focuses on image and icons. We've got pieces on hair and teeth, AIDS, and myth. Read on, brave reader, and don't forget to vote as part of our 25 books project. A gloss of this month's issue:

• Brett Allen Smith's short story Needle! Now! Broken! takes what could be a horribly sentimental plot about AIDS and turns it into something subtly unsettling by fragmenting the short-story form. Is it any wonder that he likes David Lynch?

• Ponyboy, Brad Gayman's short short, negotiates the bizarre world of the Internet chat room, and the lies we've all told there.

• Tammy Ho and Reid Mitchell's collaborative dialogue, Perfect Teeth, explores a chance encounter in the dentist's waiting room, the ambiguities that lie behind judgements at face-value.

• Self Portrait in Three Hairstyles, a nonfiction essay by Carrie Jerell, shows how hairstyles, often dismissed as superficial, can change both self-perception and others' perception of oneself.

• Heather MacNeill's piece on Oulipos will surely introduce you to a new and avant-way of composing literature.

• Carol Dorf's poetry is playful, literally in Holiday Season: Playing Dictionary, and mythically in her other two poems, which play with the stories of Hansel and Gretel and Persephone.

• Craig McKenzie's work plays with image through photo collage, and the concentric circles superimposed over his figures brings to mind the halos of ancient religious icons.

• You've read about the 25 Books Project...now it's time to vote! Leave us your contact info in the poll, and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a copy of Fringe's top book.
  

Stay tuned Fringe fans, we'll be back with another new issue, featuring sleek fresh web design, in two more months!