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    • Calendar of Drinking Days
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  • Cocktales
  • Int'l Culture of Drink
  • Calendar of Drinking Days

COCKTALES

There are very few times when the telling of a good drinking story is inappropriate.  This is a collection of such tales.  

Got a tale worth telling? Go to Submissions

Love at the Wreck

by Heath Houseman, June 30, 2022


"Howard loves at the Wreck 

A forty pound clear-plastic bag of pasty-white lard

Near-to-bursting

Propped between him and the mahogany bar rail:

His belly, I realize 

Belt buckled a notch or two

(too loose)..."


Read

Strawberry Daiquiri

by Dan Flore, June 29, 2022


"...the   bartender  leaned  over and  called me  “baby”..."


Read

Your Royal Hiccup

by Drew Pisarra, June 27, 2022


"Having finished the Shiraz, I’m convinced that your father's wife (not necessarily your mother) exposed him (not in the physical sense) to his wife (your brother’s, not your father’s)..."


Read

Broken Bottle

by Mercedes Webb-Pullman, June 26, 2022


"I stumbled on the footpath in the dark,  made clumsy by my heavy shopping bags.  The concrete’s lifted where I often park;  at night I couldn’t see the warning flags.  I fell onto my knees..."


Read

Nightlife

by Ben Siegan, June 23, 2022


"I am surrounded by a mosaic of cancerous smoked and fading neon. Dry liquor and spilt ale sticks to the bottom of my boots as I wade through a sea of subculture. The bar serves as a gathering hall for the fashionably bizarre and the chronically lonely. Tribes of self-proclaimed outcasts proudly display their ceremonial garb. I brush up against leather clad alienation and vinyl draped despair..."


Read

A Blind Date

by Rp Verlaine, June 22, 2022


"The bartender says: ‟Your date is already drunk and looks like trouble.‶


She sighs, ‟coke was great till it tore a hole in my nose and my life savings.‶


Read

To the Ex Lover I Ran Into at the Bar

by Katrina Kaye, June 21, 2022

"I don’t remember your stomach hanging over the lip of your jeans as it does as you lean against counter top.  The smile you toss at the pretty waitress is all sugar and desperation. And your posture lacks the presence it had when you stood by my side..."


Read

One for the Road, I Guess

by Jennifer Lemming, June 20, 2022 


"Yeah, that girl, the one with the swaying breasts   in the sequin dress, uh, halter, I dunno,..."


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Cool

by Heath Houseman, June 19, 2022


"I always thought it would be cool To sit at the bar with the Devil himself herself itself whatever And hang out with Darkness - face to face with the heart of darkness"


Read

Sitting with the Broken Glass

by Dan Flore III, June 18, 2022


"drunk behind the abandoned Applebee’s..."


Read

Tasks for a Utopian Mongrel

by Colin James, June 17, 2022


"Cochlea rum shots are spaced best when in those taught little drums..."     


Read

Vintage

by Bruce Meyer, June 15, 2022


"...So, yes, I said something wrong. It wasn’t meant to come out wrong, but Jeannie flew into a rage. She didn’t appreciate that the world through a haze of some really superb alcohol need not make sense. I was just being sociable, and besides Bill raised the topic, whatever it was. I should not have blurted out the first thing that came into my head. It wasn’t funny. It was…I don’t remember..."


Read

Bring More Wine! (Conachlonn)

by Mercedes Webb-Pullman, June 13, 2022


"...liver be damned! Bring more wine."


Read

Buying Liquor on a Bible Belt Tuesday

by Sharon Wright Mitchell, June 11, 2022


"Drinking is not a subject that often finds its way into my writing. Therefore, I am only sending you one poem with this submission. I wrote it after feeling the undeserved judgment of a busybody upon my exit from a liquor store. As I tend to do, I incorporated that negativity into a poem, a literary “f*** you,” which I can now send back into the world like some sort of flame-throwing poetic superhero."

-Sharon Wright Mitchell


Read

Whiskey Bar Remodeled

by Joey Dean Hale, June 9, 2022


How weird boozing in old bars

No longer bars but restaurants


Crème-filled with families and fluorescent

Overhead lighting bright as church


The congregation not my crowd

Booths replaced the sticky oak bar...


Continue

In Praise of Hendricks

by Trish Hopkinson, June 8, 2022


A nod to Marge Piercy's In praise of joe:


I love you on the rocks. I love you mixed with orange and bitters. I will even sip you straight.


Continue

The Premonition

by Alan McCormick, Author and Jonny Voss, Illustrator, June 6, 2022


I’m not drunk, he said. I’m just feeling tender, like I’m really open and anything might happen.  You ought to be careful saying things like that, she replied.


Continue

The Proposition

by Leah Mueller, June 4, 2022  If your uncle yammers for hours about alcoholism, and how it fucked up the entire family, you don’t expect him to take you to a dive bar afterward. 


Continue

MORE COCKTALES

An Ode to the Forgotten Drunk

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

by Alex B. Diamond, June 3, 2022


you sit upon your barstool in a haze of shattered dreams...

Continue

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

by Cher Finver, June 1, 2022


Kenny was playing at the Las Vegas Hilton, the bar we stumbled upon was known as Quark's...  Continue

My Brother Told Me

You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

My Brother Told Me

by Trish Hopkinson, May 31, 2022


If you want to be good at something when you’re drunk, learn how to do it when you’re drunk...  Continue

Chorus of Elixirs

This is Someplace Else

My Brother Told Me

by Bruce E. Whitacre, May 28, 2022


Gin whistles. Whiskey moans. Wine sighs. Tequila squeaks...

Continue

Hangover Man

This is Someplace Else

This is Someplace Else

by John Grey, May 19, 2022


Retinas peer out like a crack in my eyelids  following a long morning on a good time's third rail—  the hangover... 

Continue

This is Someplace Else

This is Someplace Else

This is Someplace Else

by  Rp Verlaine, March 24, 2021


I know the uneven score when she tells me she’s been everywhere she can't return to. 

Continue

Walk-Crawl-Wasted

In the End, It's Just Me

In the End, It's Just Me

by Stephen House, March 22, 2021


creep exciting bender building plan ride vision drink night take-off alone home load up six pack ale bubbly bottle wine from cask public transport heading city down-town music hipster pub...  Continue

In the End, It's Just Me

In the End, It's Just Me

In the End, It's Just Me

by John Grey, December 28, 2020


I could share my side of the argument with everyone in this bar but instead I haul it before the judiciary of my thoughts.

Continue

The Twilight Lounge

In the End, It's Just Me

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

by Colin Deal, December 25, 2020


When you hit Tule fog, it’s like running into a wall of thick, black soup. It doesn’t start slowly and get gradually worse. It just begins and there is nothing to do...

Continue

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

by Colin Deal, December 2, 2020


There were only a few times in my life when I felt truly free. I think I can count them on one hand... but none quite as grand as the day I received my fake I.D.

Continue

Good Time Girl

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

Good Time Girl

by Mark Fleisher, November 20, 2020


...I decided to get drunk. Crippling drunk. Not off the 3.2 percent swill that Schlitz and Pabst called beer. I was going to get falling down drunk in a real bar.

Continue

Wingman

My Fake I.D. - Thank You James Darren Lascot

Good Time Girl

by Jeff Santosuosso, November 11, 2020


Don’t worry, Tommy, she’ll be back. Look out the window. Rain. See, she left her umbrella...  Continue

Barstool

Dumas, pere

Dumas, pere

by Douglas K Currier, October 30, 2020 


...but this is work enough, this drinking into oblivion every night only to wake with the sun and have to start all over again...

Continue

Dumas, pere

Dumas, pere

Dumas, pere

by Cynthia Strauff Schaub, October 27, 2020


I tilt the decanter to the glass, the heavy one with the scene of downtown Baltimore etched in black and real gold, probably 24 carat. Not to be put into the dishwasher, though I do....

Continue

Just a Bar

Dumas, pere

On Top of the World

by Westley Heine, October 26, 2020


These days, it’s hard to find a bar that’s just a bar... Continue

On Top of the World

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

On Top of the World

by Stephen House, October 22, 2020 


It’s about five a.m. and we’ve finally stopped dancing...  I’m standing at the bar arm in arm with the big chic and the little dude... 

Continue

The Art of Solo Drinking

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

by  Hugh Blanton, October 14, 2020


Those saviors see solitary drinking as a sign that something's gone wrong—the only type of people who would drink alone are the hopelessly addicted, the mail bomb builders, the chronic compulsive masturbators. But then there are those of us who've discovered the joy of drinking alone...

Continue

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

Seventeen Miles to Mannington

 by  Scott D. Vander Ploeg, October 13, 2020


...my workplace was situated in a dry county... No matter what the local leaders mandated, I did not plan on being forced into sobriety. 

Continue

Seduction: Mae West Style

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

Seduction: Mae West Style

by  Marianne Peel, October 12, 2020

I left a trail of red feathers across the barroom floor,slopped with the grease from spilled fried pickles.They decoupage the floor with mosaics of a fragmented boa.... 

Continue

Old Man in a Straw Hat

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

Seduction: Mae West Style

by Hugh Blanton, October 10, 2020


I listened as long as I could - waiting for pause. When I got my pause - I averted my eyes up to the close captioned TV above the liquor bottles... 

Continue

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

by Nicole Taylor , October 6, 2020


At Sam Bond's Bar I was missing my nephew Tom's birthday partywhile drinking double red Ninkasi Believers,while listening to songs with drunk Josey and Valerie,while watching traveling Michael on accordion and shells,and doing the wave dance...

Continue

Sir, I’m So Sorry

Sir, I’m So Sorry

A Lonely, Solitary Independence Day

by  Joseph S. Pete, October 5, 2020


At the punk rock dive bar with the heavily graffitied men’s room where the wild-haired woman who reeked of patchouli whirled around from her studious hunch over the jukebox to face me eye-to-eye and lament it didn’t have The Dead Kennedy’s “Too Drunk To Fuck,” they told me I couldn’t order a pitcher of PBR if I were drinking alone... 

Continue

Winter Arrives

Sir, I’m So Sorry

Winter Arrives

by  Rp Verlaine, October 4, 2020


The bitter cold keeping me indoors as if it were a cop and I a suspicious person of interest...

Continue

Last Orders

Sir, I’m So Sorry

Winter Arrives

 by  Helen Aitchison, October 3, 2020


The four friends sat round the table, stealing glances at the bar area. It was a gloomy February morning, frost lingered on the ground outside. Inside, there was a bitter chill, even with the heating on full blast.... Continue

Submissions

We are looking for work that screams drinks, drinking, and drunk. Please, no work from the anti-saloon league; we are not looking for pieces which herald sobriety, the process of getting sober, or the sober lifestyle. Basically, no sober stuff. There are other publications for that.


We would also appreciate if you don’t try to pull a fast one by submitting something that has nothing to do with drinking except for the protagonist holding a drink as he goes about his non-drinking business. If the drink doesn’t play a major role, we don’t want it.


It doesn't matter if you are established or this is your first time submitting. We are just looking for good, entertaining work.


We are not a paying publication.


Submissions must be between 300 to 3,000 words, except for novellas, novels, and other larger bodies of work. If your work is too short, bundle it with other works. If it’s too long, consider splitting it up into a serialized format.


We use Microsoft Word to read and edit submissions. Do not send PDFs or any other format. Also, please don’t copy and paste your submission into your email; send as attachment only.


For fiction, previously published work is fine but we prefer new stuff.


For poetry, send us up to four poems at a time.


For novels, novellas, or other large bodies of work, we’ll be happy to take a look. If accepted, we’ll publish one installment per week until it ends. If your work is exceptionally long and/or good, we will publish multiple installments per week. For this type of submission, please include a short synopsis (100 words or less).


Our response time is fairly quick. If we reject something don't take it personally. If that happens, feel free to submit a rewrite, but please limit resubmissions to one time per piece unless we send you some specific instructions.


Please include a short (100 word or less) bio written in third person, with author’s picture. Images must be in .jpg, .jpeg, or .png format. No .bmp or .gif. Be sure to send images as separate attachments within the same email.


Please also send a list of social media sites that you would like tagged if published.


Send all submissions to: stories [at] dearbooze [dot] com.


By submission of any work, you are declaring that the work legally belongs to you and you are granting us permission to publish.


Cheers,

Colin Deal, your drinking companion

Copyright © 2019 Dear Booze - All Rights Reserved.