On the morning of April 6, 2013, Johnathon and my older son Karl were wed at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield (MA). The ceremony was originally to have been performed outdoors on the beautiful grounds and in the bright sunshine. But because the temperature was 35 degrees and a brisk breeze was blowing, the festivities were moved ( Read more... )

The Not One of Us website and email were down for eight days (April 9-16) due to a pernicious domain-name problem. In effect, the website and email did not exist during that period, so all submissions were returned undeliverable to senders. My son Karl, who designed the website and who acts as our technical advisor, was finally able to fix the ( Read more... )

In this, our belonging issue, we have a young man who follows “the guy,” a dim girl who becomes part of an abusive “family,” townspeople sharing a sacrifice they hope will make all their lives better, burb boys and pixies trying to connect, and two people plotting to rescue a friend from a dangerous love. There are falling gods and faceless shape- ( Read more... )

“We have partners who lose things for a living (and what they lose stays lost), the captain of a ship in the desert, a lonely boy not so safe within his room, absurd death threats and names written on a wall, a ghost gardener and the pain of passing.”

Lost and Lonely contents ( Read more... )

Here’s the standard account of my publications for the year.

Magazine issues and collections (editor and publisher)

Under Review, January 2012.

Not One of Us #47, April 2012.

Not One of Us #48, October 2012.

Journal articlesMinah Kang Kim, Robert J. Blendon, and John M. Benson. "What Is Driving People's Dissatisfaction with Their Own Health ( Read more... )

I just realized that I never posted this.

One story (“The Sweepers,” by Patricia Russo) and one poem (Sonya Taaffe’s “Incubation”) from Not One of Us #45 were honorable mentions in The Best Horror of the Year (BHY, edited by Ellen Datlow). In addition, one story (“A Wolf in Iceland Is the Child of a Lie,” by Sonya Taaffe) was an honorable mention ( Read more... )

This issue is a veritable land of opportunity. We have a resistance movement rallying behind a singer with an unusual talent, a young woman moving from taxidermy to the opportunity of a lifetime, a stowaway to gold mountain, a couple finally getting the chance to marry long denied them both in life and in death. Plus a purple-eyed cat and cake. ( Read more... )

In this, our latest issue, things are not as they seem. We have walls with voices and zoos with mirrors, living dead and sex with ghosts, breasts with blue hair and beasts not quite unicorns, the dead as comfort in despair and angels as messengers of doom, health for the waiting and a secretly shared cortex ( Read more... )

The title of this, the latest of our annual Not One of Us special publications, speaks to its dual nature. “Under” is the theme of the art, stories, and poetry. We have blue clay hidden under dead earth, a present not found under a tree, and two people trapped beneath the waves, a wordy monster and a stealthy coyotl, the kouros of Poseidon, a gnome ( Read more... )

Here’s the standard account of my publications for the year.

Magazine issues and collections (editor and publisher)

Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing, January 2011.

Not One of Us #45, April 2011.

Not One of Us #46, October 2011.

Journal articlesRobert J. Blendon, Minah Kang Kim, and John M. Benson, “The Public, Political Parties, and Stem-Cell Research ( Read more... )