Smoking With Kathleen Hale by Brandon Wicks cigarette by SuperFantastic via Creative Commons license Anxieties of security figure beautifully in "The Corn"--Beannie, as a kid, digs pit traps and laces tripwires everywhere--what germinated this idea? My characters tend to suffer from nympholepsy, and I'm interested in how a sense of instability can manifest itself as obsessive tendencies or fascinations. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about literal armaments, and this idea of trying to control your own entrapment by becoming the engineer of it. If you've designed the prison, you know the modes for escape. Those anxieties, along with Beannie's developing sexuality, converge at a fairgrounds. What makes this such a ripe setting for you? For Beannie, the idea is that if she can control her physicality and physical surroundings, she can avoid any sense of loss. Fairs are transient and makeshift, essentially unreliable, and use sensory overload to trigger human tendencies toward excess. Sprawling, unchecked self-indulgence becomes the counterpart to Beannie's calculated personality. This story reads like a single episode, or window, within a wider history of these characters' lives. Do you think you will revisit them in your fiction? I might! Lastly, the story begins with that very bracing image of the mother, reminiscent of urban legends. What macabre story do you think impacted you the most as a kid? I remember stories of kids sitting down on escalators and having their skin all peeled off at the last step, or a girl falling spread legged on a fence and never being able to have kids. But as a kid, I had no sense of pain yet, or of consequence, or even of my own mortality, and so truly macabre stories had no resonance for me. It's only now that I'm older that literal, day-to-day dangers bump my heart parts. Right now I'm sort of fascinated by the prevalence of meth heads roving rural areas, looking for farm equipment with which to make their drugs. They are maniacally goal oriented, feel no pain, and their skin is all shredded from self-abuse. They are actually zombies, threats to our safety. They are modern day, real life monsters. Read The Corn. Issue Thirty (December 22, 2010): Eulogy for Maria Mamani, Fire-eater by Ed Bull «» Language Barrier by Thomas Cooper «» A Goblet Falls by Barbara Diehl «» Life Lesson by Damian Dressick «» Yams by Gary Fincke «» How We Handle Our Midnights by Charles Hale «» The Corn by Kathleen Hale «» Amelia by Aubrey Hirsch «» Inside by Ashley Inguanta «» About Things That Are Lost and the Places That Things Get Lost Andrea Kneeland «» The Good Woman by Sara Levine «» Buckaroo by Ravi Mangla «» Her New Friend Jesus by Michael Meyers «» Conjugation by Jen Michalski «» Dairy Queen by Jennifer Pashley «» What Do You Do? by Dariel Suarez «» Up, Up and Away by Art Taylor «» Three Jokes by M. Thompson «» Between Budapest and Dying by Dean Marshall Tuck «» Crash-o-rama! by Chris Wiewiora «» Thirty-Word Story Contest Winners «» Interviews: Ed Bull «» Thomas Cooper «» Barbara Diehl «» Damian Dressick «» Gary Fincke «» Charles Hale «» Kathleen Hale «» Aubrey Hirsch «» Ashley Inguanta «» Andrea Kneeland «» Sara Levine «» Ravi Mangla «» Michael Meyers «» Jen Michalski «» Jennifer Pashley «» Dariel Suarez «» Art Taylor «» M. Thompson «» Dean Tuck «» Chris Wiewiora «» Cover Art "Holiday Wishes" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editors Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.