My new short story, “The Open Air,” appears in the July issue of Numéro Cinq. About the strange world of office work, it incorporates thoughts and things I’ve experienced over the past couple decades working in offices and corporate highrise towers in different cities across America. Office environments are some of the oddest places I’ve ever been in. How these so-called corporate cultures develop and how people survive in them is fascinating, something I’m sure I’ll end up writing more about later on.

I’m very grateful to Douglas Glover, NC‘s founder and editor-in-chief, and a writer I admire tremendously, for publishing this story. The new issue of the journal includes poetry, essays, fiction, and more from another all-star group of contributors. (Among other pieces in the issue, I’m fond of Julie Larios’ essay about the late, great, Austrian, experimental poet Ernst Jandl, who’s a personal writing hero of mine.) Hope you enjoy the story and some of the other wonderful things in this issue. Thanks for reading.