“Spencer Hangs Over Newark”

…is a short story I wrote.

Somewhere near 700 feet, Spencer looks down at the seaport of Elizabeth, streetlights like pinpricks in a child’s planetarium. The 737′s wing angles down by minute degrees, reaching out toward Manhattan as the plane makes its final approach. The airport beckons, a harbor of new glows and old concrete. He opts for the window seat just behind the right wing whenever he can get it for this moment: looking back over his shoulder at the ground, gazing at industry in miniature. The slumber of oil refineries, cargo loaders, outlet shops. The diminished motion on the turnpike now that the day’s commutes have ended.

It can be read as issue 23 of THE2NDHAND, available now. A list of stores where the print version is available can be seen on the site; it can also be ordered online, or downloaded as a PDF. Past broadsheet authors have included Al Burian, Joe Meno, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Jim Munroe, and Adam Voith; THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills is also the author of the novel Sons of the Rapture, which is damn good. I’ll be in the Southeast for two readings in early March; see below for more information.

THE2NDHAND broadsheet installment 23 / THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills’ Sons of the Rapture release party and reading
Saturday 3 March 2007, 7 PM
Criminal Records, 1920 3rd Ave. N, Atlanta 404-215-9511 (criminal.com), FREE

With readings by THE2NDHAND contributors
Tobias Carroll (from Brooklyn)
C.T. Ballentine (from Chicago)
& THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (from Birmingham)
also featuring Duck & Herring Co. editor Jamie Allen (from Atlanta)
Print the flyer here

And in capital South HQ:
Sunday 4 March 2007, 7:30 PM
Speakeasy, 1920 3rd Ave. N, Birmingham 205-251-1506 (speakeasy1920.com), FREE

With readings by THE2NDHAND contributors
Tobias Carroll (from Brooklyn)
C.T. Ballentine (from Chicago)
& THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (from Birmingham)
and with a performance by Delaine Derry Green (from Birmingham) of the comics annual Not My Small Diary.
Print the flyer here

Hoping to have a NY-based reading at the end of March. More information on that as it comes…