Welcome to The Fergus Falls Review
The Fergus Falls Review is devoted to fiction, humor, poetry, and lots of essays and commentary, all published online, free to everyone, with no advertisements. We plan issues on an irresponsibly irregular schedule, but ideally once every two months.
The Fergus Falls Review is published by Joseph Berman, with help from poetry editor Jessica Wrona.
Fergus Falls, the novel, is now published!
After considerable effort and way too much time, management is pleased to offer Fergus Falls, the novel, for your reading confusion pleasure. We've got 741 pages--every one a winner!--divided among 45 chapters plus prologue and epilogue. Read the synopsis on this exciting page, and if you dare, go on to make your purchase of ebook or paperback.
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Winter 2022 • The Fergus Falls Review Blog, Fiction, Humor, Poetry
Date: 09 Jul 2024
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Down, Down With the Lizard Party
I can explain away Donald Trump (borderline psychopath) and his various minions (cowardly sycophants, gullible idiots.) But the bloc of six on the Supreme Court, and their brethren in the Federalist Society, what do we make of them? Their rock-ribbed conviction looks like religious zealotry, albeit their justification comes not from a conventional bible but from Project 2025, or perhaps some related but secret manife
Read MoreDate: 04 Jun 2024
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Introducing: Mount Playa Alpine Resort
UPDATE 9/4: Thank you all who visited the installation. Below are photos. End of August, 2024. You stand resolutely on the evaporated bed of Lake Lahontan in northern Nevada, staring across the trash fence. You observe the local sun, inexhaustible and insufferable, and the reason why sensible living things skedaddle to points elsewhere. You observe the wind whip up dust clouds that will anoint you on their arrival, a
Read MoreDate: 10 Apr 2024
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Eclipse Report
We meet Mr. Conspiracy (which, um, is not his real name) in the motel lobby. I speak with him only briefly, while my wife soldiers onward for well over an hour. Mr. C. is likely my age but looks a lot older, with a ring of white puffy hair circling a chrome dome and a pasty face and lively eyes. He speaks quickly and enthusiastically with many hand gestures. We learn that he hails from New Jersey by way of northern V
Read MoreDate: 01 Apr 2024
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Ski Day at Vail
I am the sixth man on the six-person chairlift. The other riders are a family of five. To my right is Mom, to her right are the three young children, with Dad on the end. Ms. Mom is chipper and talkative. She asks me where I am from and how I am enjoying my day. Mr. Dad is focused on the children, directing their attention to the trail map, conveniently printed on the safety bar in front of us. He wants them to ident
Read MoreDate: 31 Jan 2024
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Skiing in My Own Private Idaho
Her name is Phoenix, as in the city, as stated on the tag on her shirt. Within five minutes we learn all sorts of details about each other. She asks for and receives my demographics of age, height, weight, home address, and skiing ability—which is advanced intermediate. I also volunteer the reason why I’m renting—United Airlines lost my ski bag—and she sympathizes. I learn that Phoenix has lived her entire life in ne
Read MoreDate: 20 Dec 2023
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We Need the Beatles; We Don’t Need Donald Trump
Driving west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, I notice the taillights on the SUV ahead of me. Each light is a thin vertical bar with a horizontal bar jutting out, two-thirds up from the bottom, the bar jutting to the left on the left light and to the right on the right light. The overall effect is a Christian cross that has been divided in half lengthwise, then the halves pulled to opposite sides. I find the image very
Read MoreDate: 27 Nov 2023
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Spooky Spoon says, “You Numberjacks Think You Are So Clever!”
Be ready for lots of juvenile references. I’m now at the tail end of a long Thanksgiving weekend. My wife and our college-age son took the opportunity for a retreat/adventure together in Ithaca, New York, leaving me in charge of the 6-year old and the rest of the household. We had an afternoon at the bowling lanes, with a stop for donuts on the way home. We ran foot races around the house. We played board games, card
Read MoreDate: 28 Oct 2023
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Dog vs. Spiderman
Dog vs. Spiderman Prelude Our new friend Stephanie M. gifted us a bunch of dog toys, notably several stuffed Spiderman dolls. The contest of Dog vs. Spiderman has proven to be one-sided. The dog rips into the shells and tears out the cotton stuffing, leaving limp cloth Spiderman shells and severed limbs and heads strewn about the carpet. We can imagine dog-toy versions of Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin cackling
Read MoreDate: 25 Aug 2023
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Colorful and Haunting
Last Sunday afternoon, because I was not ready to leave Rochester, New York, I walked gamely into Bowl-a-Roll Lanes, an old-timey alley on Jefferson Road just beyond the shopping malls and freeway entrances. Most of the house balls were too small for my wide fingers, but I found a 16-pounder that fit well enough. I bowled a 146 for the first game and 169 for the second, both very good scores for a duffer like me. But
Read MoreMisirlou (Theme from Pulp Fiction)
Debbie Harry
Ben E. King