Dragnet Issue Four contributor Gary Barwin has part of his novel Yiddish for Pirates up over at Joyland. It begins: 

1.

Moishe as a child. He told me stories.

Some were true.

At fourteen, he left the shtetl near Vilnius for the sea. How? First one leg out the window then the other. Like anyone else. Before first light. Before the wailing of his mother.

A boychick with big ideas, his kopp—his head—bigger than his body. He would travel beyond the scrawny map of himself. And beyond the shtetl. He’d travel the ocean. There were Jews—he’d heard stories—that were something. Not rag and bones shmatta-men like his father, Chaim, always following the dreck of their nag around the same small world. Doctors. Court astronomers. Spanish lords. Tax farmers. Learned men of the world. The mapmakers of Majorca. They were Jews. Rich and powerful, they were respected by everyone. They could read the sky. They knew what was on the horizon. They knew what was over the horizon. Jews had trickled through the cracks of the world and had rained upon the lands.

The rest is, here!

Issue Three contributor Shari Kasman has a new story up at Joyland. The story, entitled, “Blindfolded Nude Male Swinging Stick at Donkey Pinata,” is as funny as its title suggests. The piece explores the art world as well as the nature of biography: 

Kurt von Hagersfeld (b. 1963) was born and raised in a small suburb of Boston where he developed such a strong love for celebrations that he relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico to pursue studies in event planning and management. He remained there throughout the 1980s, then moved to San Francisco, relocated to Houston, spent time in Oklahoma City, and finally made his way down to New Orleans. He refuses to disclose the specifics of his current location since he believes that some details should be left to the imagination. Von Hagersfeld has said that the fact that he exists should be enough to satisfy anyone’s curiosity as to his whereabouts. The gallery’s clever administration team and support staff suspect that the artist makes his permanent home in either Los Angeles, New York, or Nevada, although von Hagersfeld has responded to these guesses by saying, ‘You’re wrong.’ 

To see the rest, follow the link…