ISSUE 8.1: THALIA ET ALIA
a Larry McMurtry incited issue
a Larry McMurtry incited issue
CJM's tribute to a literary hero
“It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.”
–Larry McMurtry, 1936-2021
Herein
Stories
5 New Hurley Shorts from Brian Beatty 7
Redfish by Shome Dasgupta 8
Plainsong by Carol Willis 15
in the A.M. by Allison Barnett 21
Angel by Travis Grant 23
The Flag by Francois Bereaud 29
Can’t Put It to Words by Alfred Stifsin 36
Never Better by Sheldon Birnie 38
Barnburner by Burke De Boer 40
Buster’s Bored by John Weagly 43
Subsidence by Tom Funk 45
Five-Dollar Bill by Julia Nunnally Duncan 50
Varieties of Religious Experience by Chris Daly 51
Treasure Hunter by Chris George 54
Pantalette Rose by Rob Maxwell 59
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi by Rob Maxwell 61
Claim to Fame by David Larsen 64
Retail Therapy by Alex McMillin 69
A Hunting Party by Mark Mellon 71
Verse
Charm City by J.M. Jordan 78
Creative Nonfiction
Some True Things About Top Surgery by Benjamin Rhodes 80
Cowboy’s Guide to Top Surgery by Benjamin Rhodes 81
Finding Thalia by Terri Lynn Coop 82
Contributors
Brian Beatty is the author of five poetry collections: Magpies and Crows; Borrowed Trouble; Dust and Stars: Miniatures; Brazil, Indiana: A Folk Poem; and Coyotes I Couldn’t See. Beatty’s writing has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Conduit, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, Monkeybicycle, The Quarterly, Rattle, Seventeen and Sycamore Review.In 2021 he released Hobo Radio, a spoken word album with original music by Charlie Parr. Beatty lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Shome Dasgupta is the author of eleven books, including The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, Spectacles (Word West Press) and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press). Forthcoming novels include Cirrus Stratus (Spuyten Duyvil), Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West), and The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books). His hybrid collection of prose, Histories Of Memories, will be published by Belle Point Press. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, X-R-A-Y, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the series editor of the Wigleaf Top 50. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.
Carol Willis received a medical doctorate from Texas A&M University College of Medicine and completed her pathology residency at Vanderbilt University. She obtained an MBA in Healthcare from George Washington University and is currently a candidate for an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her short story entitled “Laws of Attraction” was recently named the first-place winner for its category in the first round of the NYC Midnight short story contest. You can find her short stories in Crimeucopia: Tales from the Back Porch, Unlikely Stories.org, and elsewhere. She practiced medicine in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Chicago before moving to Virginia. She lives in Charlottesville with her husband and four uppity chickens.
Allison Barnett is a Los Angeles-raised quasi-Southerner. A creative writing student at the University of Mississippi, she has received multiple writing awards including the Evans-Harrington Scholarship, the ENVS Writing Scholarship, and the W. Alton Bryant English Award. In her spare time, she hopes to create world peace, or at least her own peace.
Travis Grant lives in northern Alberta, Canada. You can talk to him on Twitter: @travisjudegrant.
Francois Bereaud is a husband, dad, full time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, mountain biker, and mediocre hockey player. His stories and essays have been published online and in print. His work has earned Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. The Counter Pharma-Terrorist & The Rebound Queen is his published chapbook and the realization of a dream. You can find links to his writing at francoisbereaud.com. He tweets stuff @FBereaud.
Alfred Stifsim is a writer of fiction and the occasional poem. A graduate of History from IUPUI (Indianapolis, 2014), he is an electrician with IBEW Local Union 481. His debut novel is Wild Salvation (Feb. 2022) and he has words published with Cowboy Jamboree, Close to the Bone, and Bullshit Lit. You can find him on Twitter: @AStifsim, Instagram: @alfredstifsim_author, or at alfredstifsim.com
Sheldon Birnie is a writer, father, and beer league hockey player in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Where the Pavement Turns to Sand, a collection of his short fiction, is forthcoming from Malarkey Books in Autumn 2023. He can be found online @badguybirnie.
Burke De Boer is an Oregon-grown, Texas-based writer and horticulturist. His upcoming novel, In Sheep's Clothing, will be available November 2022 from Third Eye Sockeye Press. Twitter him @professorjoke.
Locus Magazine once called John Weagly “a new writer worth reading and following.” His short fiction has been nominated for the Derringer Award, winning one in 2008, and various other accolades. As a playwright, his scripts have been produced on four continents. His latest collection of stories, Dancing in the Knee-Deep Midnight, is available from Close To The Bone publishing.
Tom Funk is a judge in the state courts of Illinois. He began writing short stories about 7 years ago after hearing thousands of them in his day job. He has been published in Spitball, Altarwork and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Julia Nunnally Duncan is a Western North Carolina author of ten books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her most recent books are a poetry collection A Neighborhood Changes (Finishing Line Press) and A Place That Was Home, a collection of personal essays released by eLectio Publishing. She is a frequent essay contributor to Smoky Mountain Living Magazine and often writes about her WNC upbringing in a textile mill town in the 1960s. She lives in Marion, NC, with her husband Steve and enjoys spending time with him and their daughter Annie.
Chris Daly resides West Coast USA. Publications include Rolling Stone, Wormwood Review, Tears in the Fence and Chiron Review.
Chris George is the author of The Occultation (Surveyor Books), which was named one of LitReactor's best books of 2021. He is a writer, educator, and artist who lives and works in Dallas, TX. You can find him virtually at christopherdgeorge.com.
Rob Maxwell grew up in Butler, Alabama, in the state's Black Belt. The son of a millwright, he is a former book reviewer for the Mobile Press Register and has an MFA from the University of Alabama. At the Eugene Walter Writers Festival in Mobile, he took awards in fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in Oracle, Thicket, storySouth and Tartts 3, a fiction anthology from the University of West Alabama. A retired Navy intelligence officer, he now makes his home in Daphne on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
David Larsen is a singer/songwriter and writer who lives in El Paso, Texas. He has recorded twelve albums for El Viejo Records and his songs have been performed and recorded by various artists. His stories have appeared in various literary magazines and journals.
Alex McMillin has had stories published in Misery Tourism, Punch Riot, and Defunkt. He plans to include the story herein in a collection someday. Follow him on Twitter @McMillin_Writer.
Mark Mellon is a novelist who supports his family by working as an attorney. He writes two-fisted, hardboiled, blood and guts pulp fiction and has four novels and over ninety short stories (many as reprints) published in the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland, Bulgaria, and Denmark. Short fiction by Mark has recently appeared in Cirsova, Savage Realms, Dark Horses, and Mystery Magazine. His novella, Escape From Byzantium, won the 2010 Independent Publisher Silver Prize for SF/Fantasy. He’s a member of the HWA. “A Hunting Party” is very loosely based on stories about Mark’s grandfather, Matthew “Daddy Ben” Benzaquin, a notable San Antonio character for several decades. More information about his writing is available at: www.mellonwritesagain.com.
J. M. Jordan recently began writing again after a twenty-year hiatus. He is a Georgia native, a Virginia resident and a homicide detective by profession. His poems have appeared in Arion, Carolina Quarterly, Delta Poetry Review, Image Journal, Louisiana Literature and elsewhere.
Benjamin Rhodes is a queer and trans poet living in Northeast Ohio. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Kent State University and a BA in English from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. His work can be found in Cleveland Review of Books, Limpwrist, Sidereal Magazine, Freezeray Poetry, and elsewhere.
Terri Lynn Coop is a recovering lawyer who now teaches high school English to unsuspecting sophomores. Her work has appeared in two Anthony-nominated anthologies: Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash and Lockdown: Tales of Crime, Terror, and Hope in a Pandemic. Her flash fiction can also be found at classy joints like Shotgun Honey. Terri's mystery series, starring disgraced lawyer Juliana Martin, is available through Amazon.
Cowboy Jamboree Editors
Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and currently resides with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. In addition to publishing his short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Gorko Gazette, Roi Faineant Press and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and Leftover Books. Van Winkle is named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. Find him and his publications online at www.adamvanwinkle.com and @gritvanwinkle.
Constance Beitzel is former lead editor and writer for The Buzz Magazine, a weekly culture rag in Champaign, IL. Currently she teaches college writing and literature at York Tech College and is a PhD candidate studying American Literature and Women's Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Non-fiction:
http://readbuzz.com/author/constance-beitzel/
Kassie Bohannon holds a B.A. in Writing & Linguistics from Georgia Southern University. She edited for BULL Magazine for three years and has designed interiors for Cowboy Jamboree Press. You can read Kassie's fiction in Call Me [Brackets], her forthcoming review in Heavy Feather Review, and her personal writing on her website: https://kassiebohannon.wixsite.com/kassiebohannon. You can find Kassie on Twitter @imnotkassie.
“It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.”
–Larry McMurtry, 1936-2021
Herein
Stories
5 New Hurley Shorts from Brian Beatty 7
Redfish by Shome Dasgupta 8
Plainsong by Carol Willis 15
in the A.M. by Allison Barnett 21
Angel by Travis Grant 23
The Flag by Francois Bereaud 29
Can’t Put It to Words by Alfred Stifsin 36
Never Better by Sheldon Birnie 38
Barnburner by Burke De Boer 40
Buster’s Bored by John Weagly 43
Subsidence by Tom Funk 45
Five-Dollar Bill by Julia Nunnally Duncan 50
Varieties of Religious Experience by Chris Daly 51
Treasure Hunter by Chris George 54
Pantalette Rose by Rob Maxwell 59
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi by Rob Maxwell 61
Claim to Fame by David Larsen 64
Retail Therapy by Alex McMillin 69
A Hunting Party by Mark Mellon 71
Verse
Charm City by J.M. Jordan 78
Creative Nonfiction
Some True Things About Top Surgery by Benjamin Rhodes 80
Cowboy’s Guide to Top Surgery by Benjamin Rhodes 81
Finding Thalia by Terri Lynn Coop 82
Contributors
Brian Beatty is the author of five poetry collections: Magpies and Crows; Borrowed Trouble; Dust and Stars: Miniatures; Brazil, Indiana: A Folk Poem; and Coyotes I Couldn’t See. Beatty’s writing has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Conduit, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, Monkeybicycle, The Quarterly, Rattle, Seventeen and Sycamore Review.In 2021 he released Hobo Radio, a spoken word album with original music by Charlie Parr. Beatty lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Shome Dasgupta is the author of eleven books, including The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, Spectacles (Word West Press) and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press). Forthcoming novels include Cirrus Stratus (Spuyten Duyvil), Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West), and The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books). His hybrid collection of prose, Histories Of Memories, will be published by Belle Point Press. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, X-R-A-Y, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the series editor of the Wigleaf Top 50. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.
Carol Willis received a medical doctorate from Texas A&M University College of Medicine and completed her pathology residency at Vanderbilt University. She obtained an MBA in Healthcare from George Washington University and is currently a candidate for an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her short story entitled “Laws of Attraction” was recently named the first-place winner for its category in the first round of the NYC Midnight short story contest. You can find her short stories in Crimeucopia: Tales from the Back Porch, Unlikely Stories.org, and elsewhere. She practiced medicine in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Chicago before moving to Virginia. She lives in Charlottesville with her husband and four uppity chickens.
Allison Barnett is a Los Angeles-raised quasi-Southerner. A creative writing student at the University of Mississippi, she has received multiple writing awards including the Evans-Harrington Scholarship, the ENVS Writing Scholarship, and the W. Alton Bryant English Award. In her spare time, she hopes to create world peace, or at least her own peace.
Travis Grant lives in northern Alberta, Canada. You can talk to him on Twitter: @travisjudegrant.
Francois Bereaud is a husband, dad, full time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, mountain biker, and mediocre hockey player. His stories and essays have been published online and in print. His work has earned Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. The Counter Pharma-Terrorist & The Rebound Queen is his published chapbook and the realization of a dream. You can find links to his writing at francoisbereaud.com. He tweets stuff @FBereaud.
Alfred Stifsim is a writer of fiction and the occasional poem. A graduate of History from IUPUI (Indianapolis, 2014), he is an electrician with IBEW Local Union 481. His debut novel is Wild Salvation (Feb. 2022) and he has words published with Cowboy Jamboree, Close to the Bone, and Bullshit Lit. You can find him on Twitter: @AStifsim, Instagram: @alfredstifsim_author, or at alfredstifsim.com
Sheldon Birnie is a writer, father, and beer league hockey player in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Where the Pavement Turns to Sand, a collection of his short fiction, is forthcoming from Malarkey Books in Autumn 2023. He can be found online @badguybirnie.
Burke De Boer is an Oregon-grown, Texas-based writer and horticulturist. His upcoming novel, In Sheep's Clothing, will be available November 2022 from Third Eye Sockeye Press. Twitter him @professorjoke.
Locus Magazine once called John Weagly “a new writer worth reading and following.” His short fiction has been nominated for the Derringer Award, winning one in 2008, and various other accolades. As a playwright, his scripts have been produced on four continents. His latest collection of stories, Dancing in the Knee-Deep Midnight, is available from Close To The Bone publishing.
Tom Funk is a judge in the state courts of Illinois. He began writing short stories about 7 years ago after hearing thousands of them in his day job. He has been published in Spitball, Altarwork and Anti-Heroin Chic.
Julia Nunnally Duncan is a Western North Carolina author of ten books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her most recent books are a poetry collection A Neighborhood Changes (Finishing Line Press) and A Place That Was Home, a collection of personal essays released by eLectio Publishing. She is a frequent essay contributor to Smoky Mountain Living Magazine and often writes about her WNC upbringing in a textile mill town in the 1960s. She lives in Marion, NC, with her husband Steve and enjoys spending time with him and their daughter Annie.
Chris Daly resides West Coast USA. Publications include Rolling Stone, Wormwood Review, Tears in the Fence and Chiron Review.
Chris George is the author of The Occultation (Surveyor Books), which was named one of LitReactor's best books of 2021. He is a writer, educator, and artist who lives and works in Dallas, TX. You can find him virtually at christopherdgeorge.com.
Rob Maxwell grew up in Butler, Alabama, in the state's Black Belt. The son of a millwright, he is a former book reviewer for the Mobile Press Register and has an MFA from the University of Alabama. At the Eugene Walter Writers Festival in Mobile, he took awards in fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in Oracle, Thicket, storySouth and Tartts 3, a fiction anthology from the University of West Alabama. A retired Navy intelligence officer, he now makes his home in Daphne on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
David Larsen is a singer/songwriter and writer who lives in El Paso, Texas. He has recorded twelve albums for El Viejo Records and his songs have been performed and recorded by various artists. His stories have appeared in various literary magazines and journals.
Alex McMillin has had stories published in Misery Tourism, Punch Riot, and Defunkt. He plans to include the story herein in a collection someday. Follow him on Twitter @McMillin_Writer.
Mark Mellon is a novelist who supports his family by working as an attorney. He writes two-fisted, hardboiled, blood and guts pulp fiction and has four novels and over ninety short stories (many as reprints) published in the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland, Bulgaria, and Denmark. Short fiction by Mark has recently appeared in Cirsova, Savage Realms, Dark Horses, and Mystery Magazine. His novella, Escape From Byzantium, won the 2010 Independent Publisher Silver Prize for SF/Fantasy. He’s a member of the HWA. “A Hunting Party” is very loosely based on stories about Mark’s grandfather, Matthew “Daddy Ben” Benzaquin, a notable San Antonio character for several decades. More information about his writing is available at: www.mellonwritesagain.com.
J. M. Jordan recently began writing again after a twenty-year hiatus. He is a Georgia native, a Virginia resident and a homicide detective by profession. His poems have appeared in Arion, Carolina Quarterly, Delta Poetry Review, Image Journal, Louisiana Literature and elsewhere.
Benjamin Rhodes is a queer and trans poet living in Northeast Ohio. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Kent State University and a BA in English from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. His work can be found in Cleveland Review of Books, Limpwrist, Sidereal Magazine, Freezeray Poetry, and elsewhere.
Terri Lynn Coop is a recovering lawyer who now teaches high school English to unsuspecting sophomores. Her work has appeared in two Anthony-nominated anthologies: Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash and Lockdown: Tales of Crime, Terror, and Hope in a Pandemic. Her flash fiction can also be found at classy joints like Shotgun Honey. Terri's mystery series, starring disgraced lawyer Juliana Martin, is available through Amazon.
Cowboy Jamboree Editors
Adam Van Winkle was born and raised in Texoma and currently resides with his wife and two sons in South Carolina. In addition to publishing his short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction online and in print at places like Pithead Chapel, Cheap Pop!, BULL Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The Gorko Gazette, Roi Faineant Press and Red Dirt Forum, he has published several novels and plays with Red Dirt Press, Cowboy Jamboree Press, and Leftover Books. Van Winkle is named for the oldest Cartwright son on Bonanza. Find him and his publications online at www.adamvanwinkle.com and @gritvanwinkle.
Constance Beitzel is former lead editor and writer for The Buzz Magazine, a weekly culture rag in Champaign, IL. Currently she teaches college writing and literature at York Tech College and is a PhD candidate studying American Literature and Women's Studies at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Non-fiction:
http://readbuzz.com/author/constance-beitzel/
Kassie Bohannon holds a B.A. in Writing & Linguistics from Georgia Southern University. She edited for BULL Magazine for three years and has designed interiors for Cowboy Jamboree Press. You can read Kassie's fiction in Call Me [Brackets], her forthcoming review in Heavy Feather Review, and her personal writing on her website: https://kassiebohannon.wixsite.com/kassiebohannon. You can find Kassie on Twitter @imnotkassie.