Well, friends and love affairs, cheap salesmen and expensive seats, I find myself in Philip, South Dakota, for this year’s Unread Literature Expo, to be held in Pizza, etc. The sauce is good, but the crust is often burnt. This is my 14th year in a row, ever since I ran out of that sushi restaurant screaming, naked, half-doused in fire by slightly flammable soy sauce. That was an awkward, confusing time in my life, a period where I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be, or if I didn’t want 1st degree burns on my body. But now look at me! I’m in Philip, damnit! And I love it here! I love it every year. It’s beautiful and wide and everyone is friendly and offering me rides. The expo itself is always kinda a bummer, though. These are my kin, my brethren, my closest allies in mediocrity, but there’s also a lot of depression in the Unread Literature business. I learned to swallow that wave up a long time ago, like white makeup on a willing clown. And I don’t even like raw fish anymore! But my buddies occasionally have a harder time. That’s why I’ve gathered them here, in my lit mag, for you all to not read. 

Speaking of which, what’s up with you? Why don’t we turn this page around for once and find out what the hell is going on with the humble reader? Are you there, dear friend with back and forth eyes? If so, please don’t out me, otherwise I won’t be invited back to the Expo next year, and I really, really enjoy this. I mean, I need this. Some realities of success are too normal to be fodder for anything besides articles on young people. But y’know what isn’t normal? The Bismark Quality Inn Lounge at 10:00pm on a Monday. Also your standard, confused, half sexy relationship, hearing voices, hearing voices from writing implements, and anything that comes out of Ronald Ballwater’s brain, which is perhaps becoming a little too regular around here. What am I supposed to do with an indecisive critic? He’s all I got! Read all about it here! Leave me alone! I’m going bowling at the only bowling alley unseen by the internet! See yah later, nobody!

– Ed.