August 29, 2024
I Love Myself By Falling Into a Well of Sadness
by Dawn Bratton
THESE FAMOUS WORDS are derived from Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill,” which for many listeners first introduced them to Kate in 2022, when it received renewed attention after appearing in the popular Netflix series, Stranger Things... read more >
November 09, 2023
Short Story
People From the Future
by David Hutto
People from the future are following me. Or I should be more accurate, as accuracy is a praiseworthy virtue. I do not believe these temporal voyeurs are stalking me, but rather, I will no doubt some day do something to become famous, or to change history. Naturally, once time travel becomes possible, they will want to see me in my early days... read more >
August 31, 2023
NONFICTION/HUMOR
Beaker Goes to Bonnaroo
by Darby Jones
One of my favorite adventures began with an unexpected call from a guy I had only met once at a show... read more >
May 04, 2023
FICTION
Closet
by Jennifer Fernandez
One February evening when the trees were still bare and shivering, my husband disappeared into a closet. His cold feet had stung mine the night before so I suggested he find an extra blanket... read more >
March 16, 2023
CREATIVE NONFICTION
Mood Indigo
by Priscilla Long
To say that indigo is just a color would be like saying that diamonds are just a stone. A deep study of indigo—the plant—based blue dye—would give you a pretty good window on the history of the world... read more >
March 02, 2023
SHORT STORY
The Patrol
by Katherine Vondy
Soon my family will be ready. Maybe not one hundred percent ready, because you can’t be ready for everything, but we will be ready enough... read more >
December 22, 2022
Your Aunt’s Apartment
by Rob Crawford
Alone now, I work in my studio every day. By the window, by the mad blue water on this summer evening, I draw a teapot and two onions. As I sketch the spout’s shadow with charcoal, my wife’s velvety voice fills my ears... read more >
December 01, 2022
Out of Boredom
by Zebulon Huset
Alone now, I work in my studio every day. By the window, by the mad blue water on this summer evening, I draw a teapot and two onions. As I sketch the spout’s shadow with charcoal, my wife’s velvety voice fills my ears... read more >
June 09, 2022
Still Life
by Pam Wolfson
Alone now, I work in my studio every day. By the window, by the mad blue water on this summer evening, I draw a teapot and two onions. As I sketch the spout’s shadow with charcoal, my wife’s velvety voice fills my ears... read more >
April 07, 2022
gurl child
by Danez Smith
I celebrate my manhood like I celebrate my sexuality — it’s cool I guess. I don’t particularly enjoy gay pride or men’s locker rooms. I didn’t choose any of this: this skin, this anatomy, the skin I crave to make a body out of me... read more >
March 17, 2022
SARTORIUS
by Erik Martiny
I had what you would call an eccentric childhood, especially by Irish standards of behaviour. This being said, my parents were not what you would call Surrealist artists or anything so it wasn’t as if my mother was Leonora Carrington, getting up at night to snip a lock of hair .... read more >
April 09, 2021
The Ghost Parade
by Elizabeth Parsons
As the tourists order their first round of nightcaps, Spaniards just are beginning their suppers, and the restaurants swarm. Lights glimmer from the shops, their walls lined with black and white images of round shrouded women and brooding bulls long dead and slaughtered. Waiters sway beneath platters of paella, cocktails and squid soaking in their black juices. They dance gingerly over toddlers and the occasional haggard gypsy to arrive at their destination... read more >
September 07, 2018
Traveling At A Crossroads, Italy November 2017
by David Charles Barudin
From where I sit at an outdoor café off Piazza Maggiore in the heart of Bologna’s old city, I face the main basilica and the 12th Century towers of the oldest university in Europe. There’s no rush... read more
September 01, 2018
Next on Maury: One Set of Twins. Two Baby Daddies!
by Michael Leal García
When the doctor raised what should have been the first of his twin sons, Danny saw a head of wooly hair and Vantablack skin that couldn’t have come from him or Liliana, who tugged at his sleeve and shouted something he couldn’t make out. Her words an unintelligible din as her anguished face dimmed and drifted out of frame... read more
June 28, 2018
Damage Control
by Hege Anita Jakobsen Lepri
It’s been a long time since he woke up choking on his own heartbeat, but he still allows for that extra half-hour in the morning in case he needs to talk himself down. He’s only needed it three, four times in the past year, but his alarm stays put. So most mornings Roberto locks the door of his bachelor apartment earlier than he needs to, walks quietly down two flights of stairs and out to his car... read more
October 04, 2017
Man Down
by Denise Schiavone
Of Submersion
Man down. Only he wasn’t shot. Just loaded into a massive steel cylinder armed with food and supplies for sixty days, millions of dollars worth of technical equipment, live explosives and a hundred other guys. They lined up on the pier alongside the sleek black mammoth bobbing like a cork in the bay...
read more
September 08, 2017
Spindle City
About Jotham Burrello
Jotham Burrello is the publisher of Elephant Rock Books, Director of the Yale Writers’ Conference, and a professor at Central Connecticut State University. His writing has appeared in journals and magazines. He’s a proud winner of the New Yorker Caption contest. He’s currently completing his novel, Spindle City. He lives with his wife and three tax breaks in Ashford, Connecticut, the crown jewel of the Quiet Corner.
Fall River, Massachusetts, 1911: The kind of day Minister Johns said Jesus had promised. Crisp and sunny, though warm for June. The type of weather, Johns said, that respects a man’s daily toil. The paper predicted 50,000... read more
August 10, 2017
“The Sinkhole” excerpt from EMERSON, a novella
About Caleb Michael Sarvis
Caleb Michael Sarvis is a writer from Jacksonville, Florida. He is the fiction editor for Bridge Eight Literary Magazine and received his MFA from the University of Tampa. His work has been featured in or is forthcoming from Hobart, Literary Orphans, Panhandler Magazine, Flock, The Molotov Cocktail, Barrelhouse, Atlas and Alice, Oyster River Pages, and others.
I got it from her, this habit of clenching my feet into a fist. I may not be the sharpest knife in the jar, but I understand this: a marriage is built of bones and teeth. We take care of ours: we brush, we floss, we see our dentist. Even so, I’m holed up in a Florida hotel writing this eulogy while she’s at a shoot–‘em–up flick... read more
July 27, 2017
IT MUST BE BEAUTIFUL IN BERLIN THIS TIME OF YEAR
by Ron MacLean
About Ron MacLean
Ron MacLean is author of the novels Headlong and Blue Winnetka Skies, and the story collection Why the Long Face?. His fiction has appeared in GQ, Narrative, Fiction International, Best Online Fiction, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Frederick Exley Award for Short Fiction and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. He holds a Doctor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY, and teaches at Grub Street in Boston. Learn more at www.ronmaclean.net.
I got it from her, this habit of clenching my feet into a fist. I may not be the sharpest knife in the jar, but I understand this: a marriage is built of bones and teeth. We take care of ours: we brush, we floss, we see our dentist. Even so, I’m holed up in a Florida hotel writing this eulogy while she’s at a shoot–‘em–up flick... read more
July 20, 2017
The Wealth of Water Waste
About Clinton Crockett Peters
Clinton Crockett Peters is the author of Pandora’s Garden: Kudzu, Cockroaches, and Other Mis-fits of Ecology, forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press. He has been awarded literary prizes from Shenandoah, North American Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Columbia Jour-nal. He holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow, and is ABD pursuing a PhD in English and creative writing at the University of North Texas. His work also appears in Orion, Southern Review, Fourth Genre, Hotel Amerika, The Rumpus, Catapult, and elsewhere.
Twelve of us canoe on the Green River in Utah, whose color, a buttery turtle shell, almost earns its name. Along with the six barrels of food choices, jerky and Nova bars, two toilets, seven tents, and sunscreen, we barge sixty gallons of H2O. The old manure, piss, and, especially... read more
October 22, 2016
Smoking with Sallie
About Dorin Schumacher
Dorin Schumacher’s writing on silent film star Helen Gardner appears in Women Screenwriters (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge, 2010), This Film is Dangerous and many other anthologies and publications. Her personal writing appears in The New York Times and Stonepile Writers Anthology (University of North Georgia Press, 2014), alongside numerous other publications. Her website is https://beacontowers.media
When I was five, Emery Sizer, a seven-year-old friend, got me to play doctor. She’d lie down on her back, pull down her panties and declare, “I am the patient and you are the doctor.” She’d turn to her younger sister, nicknamed “Bumble,” and say, “You are the nurse.”.. read more
September 16, 2016
Like Something Flung
by Erik Rasmussen
There began a hum. Is how he felt it. A tone of feeling. It wasn’t so much a mood. Like there were moods that came and went. Or changed into cousin moods. Normal stuff. But all happening in the environment of the hum. The hum maintained. Sort of grew, is how he thought of it. The hum enveloped, filled the spaces between moods like water. Then he slept... read more
May 12, 2016
Antigone for Matt Tomlanovich
About Donald Breckenridge
Donald Breckenridge is a novelist and the fiction editor of the Brooklyn Rail, co-editor of InTranslation, and managing editor of Red Dust Books. He is currently working on a new novel based on Sophocles' three Theban plays. His writing has recently appeared in Vestiges, Numéro Cinq, BOMB and is forthcoming in Black Sun Lit.
A door sketched on a piece of scrap paper with a black roller tip pen. The ceramic coffee cup decorated with birds accompanied by the insistent din of house sparrows just outside the open windows. Orange leaves scattered over the wet sidewalk then blew into the street. Garbage cans and black bags lined the curb... read more
April 14, 2016
Short Story
Failsafe
by Damon Barta
About Damon Barta
Damon Barta once lived in a place where he could see for miles in every direction. He now lives safely among trees. His work has appeared in several print and online journals. Selected fiction can be found at www.damonbarta.net, and new fiction is forthcoming in Salamander.
I turn the bolt, slide the chain, and twist the tab. By the time I get to the knob, I know that he's heard the thud, the tinkle, the click, and that he's identified the source of each. Not only does he know that the door is being unlocked, he can visualize the specific mechanics that correspond to the sounds... read more
September 24, 2015
Photo Essay
Structures in Decline
by Francis DiClemente
For this art project I explored the city of Syracuse, New York, where I reside, as well as my nearby hometown of Rome, discovering buildings and structures in various states of disrepair or decay; most of the buildings in Syracuse stood within walking distance of my apartment building... read more
August 27, 2015
NOW I'M ASKING YOU TO DEFINE YOUR TERMS
by Kristina Marie Darling and John Gallaher
About Kristina Marie Darling
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over twenty collections of poetry and hybrid prose. Her awards include fellowships from Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome, as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Kittredge Fund, the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Rockefeller Foundation Archive Center. She is currently working toward both a Ph.D. in English Literature at S.U.N.Y.-Buffalo and an M.F.A. in Poetry at New York University.
About John Gallaher
John Gallaher is the author of five books of poetry, including Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (with G.C. Waldrep, 2011), and In a Landscape (2014), as well as two chapbooks, and two edited collections, The Monkey and the Wrench (with Mary Biddinger) and Time Is a Toy: the Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt (with Laura Boss). His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Poetry, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere.
It wasn't until after we signed the agreement that I realized my role was entirely unclear. I didn't panic, though, until you started needing me to do things... read more >
August 27, 2015
JAMESTOWN REDISCOVERY
by Kristina Marie Darling and John Gallaher
About Kristina Marie Darling
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over twenty collections of poetry and hybrid prose. Her awards include fellowships from Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome, as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Kittredge Fund, the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Rockefeller Foundation Archive Center. She is currently working toward both a Ph.D. in English Literature at S.U.N.Y.-Buffalo and an M.F.A. in Poetry at New York University.
About John Gallaher
John Gallaher is the author of five books of poetry, including Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (with G.C. Waldrep, 2011), and In a Landscape (2014), as well as two chapbooks, and two edited collections, The Monkey and the Wrench (with Mary Biddinger) and Time Is a Toy: the Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt (with Laura Boss). His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Poetry, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere.
Are we dancing, then, or are we fighting? Maybe I should have stretched or done a warm-up lap. So, I will close my eyes and pretend we’re on the phone. A little background of electricity from something in the house running... read more >
August 20, 2015
Protocol
by Kristina Marie Darling and John Gallaher
About Kristina Marie Darling
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over twenty collections of poetry and hybrid prose. Her awards include fellowships from Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome, as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Kittredge Fund, the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Rockefeller Foundation Archive Center. She is currently working toward both a Ph.D. in English Literature at S.U.N.Y.-Buffalo and an M.F.A. in Poetry at New York University.
About John Gallaher
John Gallaher is the author of five books of poetry, including Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (with G.C. Waldrep, 2011), and In a Landscape (2014), as well as two chapbooks, and two edited collections, The Monkey and the Wrench (with Mary Biddinger) and Time Is a Toy: the Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt (with Laura Boss). His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Poetry, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere.
At the training center they’re teaching us “roll over” and “play dead.” We’d thought, beforehand, that it was one thing: “roll over and play dead,” but we knew so little back then... read more >
August 13, 2015
IN GUADALAJARA, ONE OF US WILL EMERGE AS THE FEARLESS LEADER
by Kristina Marie Darling and John Gallaher
About Kristina Marie Darling
Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over twenty collections of poetry and hybrid prose. Her awards include fellowships from Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome, as well as grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Kittredge Fund, the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Rockefeller Foundation Archive Center. She is currently working toward both a Ph.D. in English Literature at S.U.N.Y.-Buffalo and an M.F.A. in Poetry at New York University.
About John Gallaher
John Gallaher is the author of five books of poetry, including Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (with G.C. Waldrep, 2011), and In a Landscape (2014), as well as two chapbooks, and two edited collections, The Monkey and the Wrench (with Mary Biddinger) and Time Is a Toy: the Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt (with Laura Boss). His poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Poetry, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and elsewhere.
From the beginning, I wasn't good at following the rules. You just kept making ordinances, though, and I wondered if you liked seeing them broken.
First, there were the specifications for your office, which must always be stocked with fine wines and expensive chocolates. Then there was the code of ... read more >
The Diary of Spider-Bat
by Martin Ott
About Martin Ott
A former U.S. Army interrogator, Martin Ott is the author of six books of poetry and fiction, including the forthcoming books Underdays, University of Notre Dame Press and Interrogations, Fomite Press. More at www.martinottwriter.com
OK, so just how did a formerly productive member of society with a graduate degree in writing end up putting on a half-assed superhero costume for tips? One word: Hollywood. It’s an all-powerful evil entity that chews people up from all walks of lives, all ages. On the bus bench outside my apartment, Leon from Hoboken recites Shakespeare in a British accent, and claims mastery of archery, horse riding, and yodeling. If you haven’t already guessed it, Leon had once been a working actor with a pretty good agent, then an agent that specialized in magic acts, and now he himself was an agent of terror for the nannies, students, and working class families looking for a place to sit while taking the LA public transit system... read more >