by Alfredo Salvatore Arcilesi Millie mooed. Cate mooed with her. The cow stared at them. Millie giggled at the old joke, a pure, authentic song. Cate giggled with her, exaggerated, trembling notes. The cow stared at them. Millie continued to pet the cow’s cheek. Cate stroked the other, looking for signs of impatience …
By Esty Loveing-Downes and Jacob Shapiro Mystery writer Elizabeth Sims knows a whole lot about a bunch of stuff. After all, she’s a former newspaper reporter. And photographer. Also, a ranch hand, corporate executive, certified lifeguard, bookseller, symphonic percussionist, and member of American Mensa. An award-winning author of books stretching from one end of the literary …
William Snyder Me, my father, nurse Joanne—the blue carpet, the clean fluorescence, the open rooms. And inside those rooms, people with gift-wrap paper, soda cans, TV remotes. My father doesn’t look, though days ago he would have, would’ve asked, even strangers: How are you? Beautiful day, isn’t it? But now it’s his feet—if he can …
Addison Rizer The morning I put my dog down, a love letter skitters across the sidewalk. I can tell by the flashes of pink scribbled onto the thick envelope turning end over end as it dances with the wind. On a bench, across the street, I wonder if it’s real. If I am real. I’m …
Nathan Mann Before Teddy’s mom goes, she teaches Jacob and his mom three signs. Thank you. You’re welcome. More. Teddy can lip-read. But his mom worries. This is his first playdate. She leaves, turns onto the logging road, disappears. Jacob leads Teddy inside to his action figures. They play quietly with the men, …
J. Howard Siegal I stop into the gas station the other day to pick up a pack of smokes, and I see him there, that kid who once saved all of humanity from a looming catastrophe, or just found himself really bored at a party, or possibly both of those things at once. He sits behind the counter, his dark hair and narrow features folded into the crease of a newspaper, his limbs rumpled in …
Eloise Schultz Morgan finds the first louse on our bed. I pinch the second in a piece of tape, drop it in the trash. Our long-haired house is understandably horrified. Jess won’t share her hair dryer. I borrow Gaia’s but don’t say what for. Shir advises to drown my scalp in Cetaphil. At the pharmacy …
Mark Niedzwiedz I wonder who lives in the house with the bright red chimney. Someone must, for on cold winter mornings, smoke bellows from the stack, and the smell of freshly baked bread stops me in the thaw and snap. So, I linger for a moment and stare at this dreamy abode, lit by the …
Amanda Tumminaro First, Mary will pick at your brain,till you feel like a lab ratrushed down the drain.You’re a fad, and she takes out her Nikonto make you feel so utterly diseased,till Susan Atkins considers you her personal icon. Second, Mary will pick up your clothes and ask,“Why are you such a ragamuffin?”She’ll then look …
Ifeoluwa Ayandele My mind is a wandering star, travelling through illustrations & re-thinking how to redraw the graffiti of my ancestors. My ancestors are people of drums & dance, & in my dream, I’m initiated into the occult of the calligraphy of an hourglass-like drum. My grandfather leaves indigo footprints in the marble floor to …
Holly Day we were going to take the boat out, sail to the edge of the world, tease the monsters waiting there with our bare, dangling feet, toes tickling the ocean skin like tiny pink fish but you had to go and ruin it chase shore-hugging mermaids instead had to search clam-shell bikinis for pearls …
Tess Gunty i. All this death and I’m just fluttering a scented trash bag. I’m just feeding the cat. Usually, I’m going somewhere. Meanwhile, I feel fine. I Instagram alibis like everyone, post excuses like: I can’t find my fire hose or my diploma, I can’t find my time maker or my policy machine. What’s …
David Romanda how do snails have sex? if I learn to pray with my full being will God materialize in the room and maybe sit on the edge of the bed? murder couldn’t ever be truly satisfying, right? should I or shouldn’t I mention my epilepsy on the first date? does anyone really win big …
Joe Baumann Matthew Smythe cannot get his father out of the house. Whenever he carts in potential buyers, his father rattles the pots and pans, bangs cabinets, creaks up and down the stairs, leaves hot breath on the master bath’s mirror. He even makes the bedrooms smell like cat pee, despite the fact that …
Brian Okwesili It is a cold Wednesday morning. The harmattan breeze settles over the city like the heavens have come to meet the Earth. Everything is brown and dry and cold and more brown. It is mid-November, but the people on the streets have begun to talk about Christmas, its merry moments, and how everything …
Gavin Bourke Landed into the midst, ensuing chaos. Exaggerated connections, heart-sink presence. Cynicism and entitlement Severed from the natural, human relationship. Emotional shrapnel inside the urn, carried by the pallbearer. No longer to be ventriloquized, alcohol seeping through the cracks of the last few generations. Induced Alzheimer’s in a mother, cared for by her unmarried …
Philip Deal Flat feet repaired by pediatric shoes, bowed legs straightened by a heavy metal brace, buck teeth reshaped by wire. Where would I be without medicine? I ask my wife. Single, she says. One piece of broken heel, removed, two fingers, snapped in games, surgically realigned. A double hernia, held in place by gauze, …
Jeffrey Hantover Spectacle lynchings were preserved in photographs that were made into postcards sold openly in stores and city newspapers, sent through the mail, and presumably displayed in homes. Bob, Me on a postcard! Right there in front. Grinning like a cat with a bowl of cream. My new bowler hat and my red tie, …
James Reidel The mild winter, the weak frosts, and an old, stale flu shot that still dispels the aches that flutter about my temples, the fits of it’s-nothing, my dizzy spells, and the like—they slackened the healthy fear of getting sick, that last fear on which today’s gods and empires would stand and fall. For the first …
by Stephanie Mark “How come my boss won’t make accommodations for me when I identify as an attack helicopter?” I reconsider my policy of not putting a curse on men on the first date. “He should really make accommodations for anyone whose comedy is stuck in the last decade,” I say. He rolls his eyes. …
by Jason Wyvern 1 Minute So I’m in the men’s toilets with my hands under the hand dryer. And for the record, I’ve been in the men’s toilets with my hands under the hand dryer for seventy-five seconds. My hands aren’t wet because I haven’t been to the toilet and I haven’t washed them, I …
by Daniel Deisinger “It’s standard going until we get to The Balcony. We’ll be able to watch…It’s where people would normally watch the sun rise. What it is now, I’m not so sure.” # Despite their heavy coats, thick boots, and clumsy gloves, the wind screamed out of the purple-tinted darkness and sliced them to …
by Anna Kaye-Rogers It was because of how good our hair looked underwater, How freeing it would be to never know your own weight. The ocean stretched for miles, but I would have settled for a lake. Was it the ability to outswim expectations, To live free without clothing or men? They gave us a …
Continue reading “Why Did the Girls I Know Want to Be Mermaids?”
KyKye: Paolo, the main character in your short story, “La Camaraderie du Cirque” has a complex relationship with his voice and the others he acquires. It makes me wonder how you, as the author, feel about your own voice. What is your relationship to your voice and how would you describe it? Dave Ring: As …
Shift: What’s the story behind “Deadfall”? JF: The story is part of a collection of stories I’ve been working on about these characters. The plot itself originally was the backstory in another piece, but (as sometimes happens) the backstory proved to be more interesting, so I decided to make it its own stand-alone piece. The …
“It really only takes me three months to write a book. So that’s three months of hard, focused work. Now the problem is, it takes me six months to do these three months’ worth of work, not because I’m sitting around playing games all the time, but because I feel like in my head that …
If it’s banned, you’ll sell more copies. You’ll get a lot of press and people will want to see what they’re missing. But I think if there’s a serious issue that you want to write about, you write about it. If you want to write about it because you think it’s going to make money? That’s a bad reason. You want to write with your heart. Not with your pocketbook.
I stop revising whenever it feels natural to stop. I don’t believe in obsessing over my poem—when it’s done, it’s done, and I’m ready to send it out into the world. Then it’s time to write another one. But that doesn’t mean I don’t revise a lot. It’s quite the contrary; I simply don’t believe in obsessing over edits when it’s clear a poem is finished. It’s instinctual.
By Dorothy Chan
I’d love a man vending machine
in the hallway of my celebrity home,
and I know this sounds like an ‘80s
high-concept film starring Andrew McCarthy
in his puppy-dog-eyes-golden-boy-prime
shrunk inside a vending machine
in a department store in Hong Kong,
because this is my version, and have you seen
vending machines in Kowloon malls
with their Korean beauty products
and knickknacks you just can’t live without?
By Sarah Gerard
To love is to orbit potential if you love nothing. It’s raining in the mountains and you will never have to learn that pain is profit. I find a cabin. There’s a dark ring circling the lot. The river is named for its origin. Taking a man is also killing him. I will never forgive your father. I attach myself to the mountain’s breast and drink the milk of the future.