My Totally Aweome Funeral: A Response Curtis Smith
			The Decathlon: The Course Jessica Hollander
			Ambient Plumbing (a prequel) J. Ryan Stradal
			Aquaria Anne Elliott
			Belleville, IL: Liner Notes Chris Orlet
			Lane 12: Behind the Story Shellie Zacharia
			Fireworks: Audio Commentary J. Chris Rock
			Pregnant: Sketches Catherine Zeidler
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			Shellie Zacharia's fiction has appeared in Swivel, Washington Square, Dos Passos Review, Small Spiral Notebook, Vestal Review, and other journals. She teaches in Gainesville, Florida.

Photo by Sean Carman

�Lane 12� was a story written while I was away at a writer�s retreat in North Carolina. After one of those days of solitude, holed up in a room singing old rock songs and staring at walls and doing all those things we do when suddenly faced with �writing time,� I kicked back one night and yammered with some poets and fiction writers and a guy with a guitar. The subject that popped up was bowling � a response to a fellow writer�s recently shared flash fiction bowling piece. Someone else mentioned having once owned a bowling alley. Someone talked about cosmic bowling night, and another writer mentioned buying a bowling ball at a thrift shop with the monogram JTH. I remembered my own bowling league days, back when I was ten and had a patch sewn on my shirt for Girl High Average.

Give some writers some drinks, a topic, and the world opens up. At some point I said, �Be back in fifteen,� and ran to my room and started my story. I came back to the group with an opening paragraph, a description of Juney Teresa Hart, and after I read it aloud, I got hoots and cheers. Every writer needs a story to receive such a grand welcome.

Read "Lane 12" by Shellie Zacharia in Hobart 6.