I had the pleasure of hearing John Madera read from his debut flash fiction collection, Nervosities at the KGB Bar in NYC a few weeks ago. Enjoying “Some Varieties of Being and other Non Sequiturs,” the first story in the collection of innovative, word-bending flash fiction released by Anti-Oedipus Press. The story opens with an exploration of Varanasi:

“…recombinant city entered through a multiplicity of openings: doors, windows, gateways, dreams; recursive city: it mumbles: breath to death; it mumbles: birth to earth; sepulchral city: it rasps: dust in the shadows, dust in the wall cracks, dust in the air, dust on the windows, dust in the whitewashed sky….”

Madera’s rhythmic prose draws the reader into a lyrical surrealscape,  a place of memory, the narrator reminds us as the dust gathers on the city. Madera invites the reader to have a conversation with the story, where the mind may go where it must and go as it must in the streaming narrative—a door, a window, a dream, a rickshaw ride, a deepening grief, a bomb left at Varanasi’s Sankat Mochan Temple, some kerosene and a little skiff. The interiorities are unforgiving, critical and yet, tender too, in their stark perspectives delivered with sincere care not only in their meanings but also for how they feel in the mind and on the tongue. “…dust in the shadows, dust in the wall cracks, dust in the air….” Reading Madera aloud is a poetic delight. READ MORE

About Nervosities

In this debut collection of experimental short fiction, John Madera explores the complexities of identity, memory, history, and language, revealing the heterogeneities and instabilities that distinguish the post-industrial world. Born of diaspora and transversalism, the fourteen stories in Nervosities exhibit narrative modes and voices that converge on our ever-evolving culture of violence, mediatization, and fragmentation. Ultimately, these fictions enact a realization of what Deleuze and Guattari (via Antonin Artaud) call “the cancerous body of America, the body of war and money.” Reading Nervosities is at once a journey to an alternate universe and an uncanny chronicle of all-too-familiar terrain. READ MORE

About John Madera

John Madera’s fiction has been published in Conjunctions, Hobart, Salt Hill, Sleepingfish, and The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, while his criticism has appeared in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. A recipient of an M.F.A. from Brown University as well as two grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, Madera lives in New York City, where he serves as editor-in-chief of Big Other and runs the literary publicity company Rhizomatic.

About Openings

Openings is a recommendation column for Eckleburg readers, featuring fantastic books with fantastic openings, where readers first meet intriguing characters, settings and moments in which the mind can explore what is and what might be. Explore more great Openings with us at Eckleburg.

Rae Cline

Rae Cline is the author of the short story collection The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals (Patasola Press, NY). Her debut novel is forthcoming from 7.13 Books in spring 2026. Her stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in print and online at The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, McSweeney’s, DIAGRAM, North American Review, Gargoyle and more. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have won prizes, scholarships and fellowships from Johns Hopkins, American University, Aspen Writers Foundation and North American Review. She earned an M.A. in Writing at Hopkins and received her M.F.A. in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from American University, where she was the recipient of the Starr and Sartwell scholarships. She has lectured on campuses and other venues including Hopkins, American University, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and others. She is the founding editor of Eckleburg and is represented by Jennifer Carlson with Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. Read more at raecline.com.