Get Out

Coming in on the second half of April now, Miltonians all across town celebrate the first real nuzzle-nudges of Spring’s gentle return to our fair lands.  Things are happening, now.  Our second Fort Saint Davids Portland event came and went, a smashing success.  It gives us ideas, not just for our own event but for the future of our literary endeavor.  We’re considering, for the first time in a number of years, of making books again.  We tried it, back in the days of the Philadelphia Independent. but the price tag was too steep, the effort to great, the risks too much.  We were broke, brother, and no one would give us a dime.  But perhaps a system of pre-orders, using the now-advanced powers of the Interwebs, and our network, you, the proud, the faithful, the Miltonians.  Get enough orders to pay for the product.  Produce the product.  How interested would you be in a print version of the Daily Miltonian?  Or a forty page booklet containing Erik Bader’s Cherry Hill. Or the complete Twenty Stories About Twenty Towns in New Jersey?

Let us know.

Fort Saint Davids Presents: The State of New Jersey

Fort Saint Davids is pleased to announce a fiction-reading type event—20 Stories About 20 Towns in New Jersey—on April 9, which is Second Thursday (TM). At WorkSound Gallery (820 SE Alder). At 7:30 p.m.

It goes like this: It goes like the title: Authors Erik Bader and Matthew Korfhage wrote 20 very, very short stories about 20 places in New Jersey, chosen pretty much at random. So Middletown, Hi-Nella, and Egg Harbor are in, and Jersey City is out, but there’s no real reason for that except the feeling.

For those of you unfamiliar, New Jersey is an American State, situated at the exact geographic center of heartache, memory, and god-damned freedom.

Dutifully also on offer are Wine, Art, and The Music of Bruce Springsteen (TM).

Above: Fort Saint Davids, in Moorestown, New Jersey, late September 1995.

You got other questions? Here’s a strictly hypothetical interview we hope will clear all that up for you:

Q. Why New Jersey?
A. Because New Jersey has more Americans per square foot than any other state in the country.

Q. Have you visited these places?
A. No. The whole point of being American is that our histories and myths remain tantalizingly up for grabs.

Q. So you’re patriots?
A. When we see the sky, we know it isn’t ours.

Q. Can we see one of the stories?
A. Sure. It’s down there.

Q. Is there anything we can do to help?
A. We are accepting donations of up to 5 dollars, for the wine and the entertainments. More would embarrass us, but less, including nothing, wouldn’t bother us.

Q. Thanks for talking with us.
A. You love this. I mean, we love you.