We’re hunkering down here in South Texas, amigos, on the verge of Hurricane Alex. We’ve hit up Wal-Mart and stocked up on our non-perishables and water. We’ve filled up our gas tanks, boarded up our windows, stacked sandbags by the front and back doors, just like the local news told us to.

ME: All prepared, hon.

WIFE: Did you bring the Duracells? What about the candles?

ME: Shit.

While we make our way back to Sam Walton’s cornucopia one more time for those AA’s, check out this week’s fiction picks. They’ll tickle you with words like raindrops. They’ll jolt you with thunderous prose.

Until the storm passes, dear friends. Enjoy.

– Robert Paul Moreira

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This summer DSM is getting animated. Every Wednesday we’ll be posting an animated short created by the talented and prolific Meg Pokrass. Pokrass, of course, is the well-known author of hundreds of stories and poems. Lately, though, she’s been dabbling in animation using a pretty slick program called xtranormal.

Says Pokrass: “Up until now, I was writing short fiction, and poetry… and animation was something I could really explore dialogue and humor with. Here, timing is crucial. Watching the characters move and speak became so amusing, it inspired stories to emerge in this format that would not have in any other.”

It’s hard to say if Meg’s creative output will benefit more from animation’s affect on her writing or her writing’s affect on animation. We’ll just have to wait and see. Till then, pull up a chair and enjoy today’s short.

I Blush

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Meg Pokrass is a fiction writer who lives in San Francisco where truth is questionable. Her debut collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” will be published in 2011 by Press 53. Meg’s work was selected for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Flash Fiction 2009. She has published over one hundred stories and poems. You can see more of her animations here at http://pokrasstinations.com/

Some Of Us Are In Its Path

It’s a mad scramble on the Texas/Mexico border as folks rush to secure their homes. The storm is imminent. It has not (as we type this on Tuesday afternoon) been upgraded to a hurricane, but CNN assures that it will be a hurricane before it makes landfall and that it will most likely take the lives of all those in its wake (we embellish slightly for dramatic effect). If you’ve never lived through a hurricane, it’s likely that you are unaware of the ritual known as the hurricane party. Allow us to illuminate.

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