Tincture Journal, Issue Two, Winter 2013 by Daniel Young

Tincture Journal, Issue Two, Winter 2013 Reviews

• 
  Bel Vidal

  Just as I did with the first one, I read this issue of Tincture from virtual cover to virtual cover. A wonderful, eclectic collection of quality writing. Some works stood out more than others for me - the hilarious 'First Comic Falling' by Nick Sun, that had me laughing out loud in the middle of the night; the dreamy 'Night Kitchen' by Kate Whitfield; the harrowing 'Road to Mirpur Khas' by Shobha Rao; the simple, predictable and yet surprising 'In a Small Town' by Christian Fennell; the masterful 'All that Glitters' (non-fiction) by Marnie Hirst... and there were more but if I keep going I would just have to retype the table of contents.
  Some excellent poems as well; I enjoyed the poetry of Stuart Barnes, Sarah Martin and the amazingly deep 'Winter Nocturne' by 18 year old MJ Abolafia.
  Looking forward to reading Issues 3, 4 and the upcoming issue 5
• 
  Rudi Landmann

  Disclaimer: I have a personal connection to the editor and publisher of this journal.
  
  ----
  
  As with last time, there's some spectacularly brilliant writing in here.
  
  This issue contains eighteen short stories, eight poems, and five non-fiction pieces. This kind of poetry is Not My Thing and I won't comment on it here apart to admit that I didn't previously know what a 'blackout' poem is, and now I do. So I've learned something!
  
  The short stories are mostly mainstream literary fiction but also include two speculative pieces ('Chingdu' and 'A Perfect Storm') and two stories that might be magic realism, depending on how literally you read them ('The Night Kitchen' and 'The Snake Who Watched Over'). This time, a greater proportion of the stories follow a traditional narrative structure as opposed to the current fashion for vignettes-as-stories. Whether you find this pleasing will be a matter of taste, but it greatly pleases me, at least.
  
  Two of the vignettes (one fictional -- 'The Ducklings', one non-fictional -- 'Eating') were so superbly well-observed and beautifully constructed that I hated to see them end. Both authors, Deborah Sheldon and Roxanne Groebel, set up situations and characters that I wanted to see develop somewhere, to the point where I even felt annoyed when the narrative stopped!
  
  Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones' 'The Ironbark Branch' gave me highly realistic characters in a highly realistic scenario of domestic disharmony and just enough resolution to satisfy. To me, this is close to structural perfection in a short story.
  
  I also really enjoyed Karen Vegar's 'Survivor' for much the same reasons. The prose didn't stand out to me as much as the prose of the other stories I've mentioned so far, but I thought it was a fun and engaging story, and appealed to my love of tales of paranoia and conspiracy. To me, it read like a bit like an updated version of the 80s Twilight Zone episode 'Shelter Skelter', localised to an Australian setting. Our conspiracy nuts are a little different here. :)
  
  Of the non-fiction pieces, one really stood out for me: 'All That Glitters' by Marnie Hirst, which relates a chance airport encounter with a young Australian woman who has been working as a sex worker in Tokyo. This was superbly sensitive and achieved what I felt was a really tricky balance between compassion for the woman and non-vilification of the norms and mores of another culture. In my opinion, this piece alone is worth the price of this issue of Tincture Journal.
  
  My two favourite stories this time around were Matt Smith's 'A Perfect Storm' and Michelle Faye's 'Father'; two very different pieces!
  
  'A Perfect Storm' depicts an Atlantean hero witnessing the destruction of his homeland in the company of a recently-vanquished demon. I love it for its wryness and its iconoclasm, and I read it with great relish and glee. Comparisons are rarely fair, but it tasted a lot like a Neil Gaiman story to me. (There, I said it anyway!) Only two things detracted from my enjoyment. First, I never really bought a mediaeval Christian demon in this Classical setting: he always seemed strangely anchronistic to me, and an unneccessary anachonism at that, when Classical mythology is not exactly hard up for monsters. Second, there's a howler in here about the Minotaur coming from the island of Minos. This jarred me as thoroughly as a reference to the famous Australian gold mining region of the Gold Coast would have. However, I loved the story so much that even these nits didn't detract much from it.
  
  To me, the jewel in the crown this time is 'Father'. This story portrays the rift and difficult silences between two brothers who must now confront them after the death of their father. I found this a deeply moving piece, told with tremendous understanding. It is very much a lesson in 'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle', because the story reveals that even the brother I initially found less sympathetic had not had it easy either.
  
  So again, Tincture Journal delivers writing that is always of a high standard and occasionally spectacularly so, and serves up some great tales at the same time. Highly recommended to anyone who values good writing.
• 
  Tasha

  Awesome! Really loved this edition, will be writing a post about it on my blog.
• 
  Todd Sullivan

  Been a while since I read this issue and just now seeing it on Goodreads. From what I remember, great fiction, great poetry, great non-fiction. There's a ton of eJournals, but this one is definitely professionally done and still going strong with current issues released regularly. Highly recommend for anyone looking for a good escape through the written word. I also love that Daniel Young embraces multicultural writing. A big plus for me as a reader to view the world through the eyes of the world's authors.
• 
  Curious Reeds

  Phew, big issue, glad that's over.