Zoe liked stories from her mother’s crazy life, like when she and her best friend took someone’s drunk mother to the back door of a bar so she could screw Johnny Cash.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Conditional
By Cate Lycurgus
If all along we all had known
the leaves we leafed would
leave us lone- ly
NONFICTION
A Brief Handbook of Revision for Writers
By Tom Jenks
Few good works, if any, spring fully formed in first draft. What few spontaneous acts of literary creation exist, such as Coleridge’s fragmentary “Kubla Khan,” are those of authors whose technical abilities match their genius.
POETRY
16D
By Sherman Alexie
On the airplane, the woman across the aisle and one row in front of me was beautiful. She wore the best pair of blue jeans in the history of the world. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Can denim be sacred? Probably not. But I’m trying to make a point here.
N30B WINNERS
N30B WINNERS
N30B WINNERS
N30B WINNERS
Arpeggio Progression in Missing Key and Other Poems
By Danielle Blau
do you asks pretty
sue know whatI love what pretty
please tell us
N30B WINNERS
Belated: A Video Story
By K. Reed Petty
Jeremy—
How’s everything? It’s been forever! Things with me are pretty good. I’m seeing someone, which is awesome! which is nice?
N30B WINNERS
Outsider: A Photography Portfolio
By Nikhil Roshan
In 2014 I set out to create an intimate photographic document of daily life in the Dhubri district along the border where the Brahmaputra River runs.
NARRATIVE 10
NARRATIVE 10
NARRATIVE 10
NARRATIVE 10
Favorite Things
from Vikram Chandra
What’s the most useful criticism you’ve ever received?
“You’ll never be a writer.” I’m stubborn.
NARRATIVE 10
A Converstion
With David Corbett
Ten words you use most on the page? In life?
Cocktails! (The rest are irrelevant.)
NARRATIVE 10
A Short Talk
With Austin Smith
What’s your current obsession?
Finding the perfect desk. I’m downright neurotic about desks.
NONFICTION
NONFICTION
NONFICTION
NONFICTION
Savages
By Carol Edgarian
Our father roars, “Chrissakes, that’s enough! You people fight more than any other kids in America.” Could it be true? Did we in fact fight more than any other kids in the country?
NONFICTION
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Write a One-Star Review
By Jane Lancellotti
“This book sucked!” “Vastly overrated!” “Boring!” “Tedious!” “Waste of time!” Internet reviewers screamed at my friend, who got a great review in the Times.
NONFICTION
Cuba Libre
By Richard Smith and Tom Jenks
History is fickle. No one long rules it, though Castro’s endurance invited an illusion of success. Cuban youth have a saying, grown tired and ironic, “Un año mas.” One more year.
FICTION
FICTION
FICTION
FICTION
The Stroke
By Ann Beattie
“I hated your secretary. I still resent how cowardly you were in her presence. Why didn’t you hire someone unqualified?”
FICTION
The Manzanos
By Kirstin Valdez Quade
My name is my grandmother’s: Ofelia Alma Zamora. I am eleven years old and too young to die, but I am dying nonetheless.
FICTION
hittingrod
By Brenden Willey
His father said, What’s keeping your mother? His father’s face slack but coloring, his annoyance no parody now.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Ma: A Memoir
By Lynn Freed
Sixty years of marriage had only heated the furious war between them. Every day she waited impatiently for me to take her to the hospital.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Shooting Party
By Susan Orlean
Getting into fistfights, maybe; hurling insults about badly dressed bridesmaids, of course; but I didn’t expect to shoot or get shot at.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Betrayal
By Tobias Wolff
That evening I went to Charlotte’s room to confess. Betrayal was written on my face, in my eyes, in the movements of my hands, and I knew it.
iPOEMS
iPOEM
iPOEM
iPOEMS
No Apples, No Clover, No Hay, No Grass, No Carrots, No Maize, No Alfalfa, No Linseed, No Deep Bag of Oats
By Willa Carroll
Just sugar cubes and a crop for you.
iPOEM
Cosmology for the New Year
By Michael McGriff
The light from dead stars only exists in the minds of the living. The salt-echoes of your hips fall through me.
iPOEM
The Eclipse That Quenched the Ego
By Elizabeth Metzger
Draw me a map of your agonies, all the missing rivers you dried, a star-thread species nobody could keep in the grave.
READERS’ NARRATIVES
READERS' NARRATIVES
6 MUST-READS
READERS’ NARRATIVES
Goa, on the Arabian Sea
By Shelley Buck
Ulrike swam in the gentle waters of the Arabian Sea. She seemed to find relief from her gloomy partner and her subservient role.
READERS' NARRATIVES
Hollywood
By Lara Michelle
She said she’d sworn off men and was living with her transsexual female slave in a loft in downtown LA. She wasn’t accepting any new clients.
6 MUST-READS
We’ve chosen a miscellany—a great classic, a hilarious audio reading, a poignant photography portrait, one of the best dog stories ever written, poetry that will blow you away, and a marvelous send-up of Ayn Rand—to entertain and delight you. Enjoy!
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
The Crossing
By Amber Adams
You cut through the surface impelling yourself buoyant and unresisting the water holding you as before the undertow of this war.
POETRY
King and Other Poems
By Kai Carlson-Wee
Riding away from whatever would save them, knowing the other direction is pointless and not worth suffering through.
If Eve Side-Stealer & Mary Busted-Chest Ruled the World
by Natalie Diaz
What if Eve was an Indian & Adam was never kneaded from the earth, Eve was Earth & ribs were her idea all along?
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Ghazals for the Body
By Portia Elan
My love has the lifespan of an Arkansas Black apple. Every time I unfold the paperclips their shear strength is less, is less.
The Children and Other Poems
By Kathy Fagan
I wasn’t made to live alone. One night there’s a sky with clouds by Magritte, the next you’re headed over the guardrail, and who do you tell?
POETRY
Independence Day and Other Poems
By Elyse Fenton
The neighbor's sprinkler is set midday to soak the sidewalk and the dying summer grass, but it makes my daughter shriek.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
From the World-Womb of Our Impending Doom
By Spencer Hanvik
What do we hope for, horse? What do we hope for at this point? There is nowhere to run.
POETRY
Two Poems
By Christine Holm
You were never a cadet, but understood the importance of angles, the heat of friction, how uncontrollable the atmosphere.
POETRY
Electricity and Other Poems
By Kitt Keller
I saw buildings shooting up into the air, skylines blossoming and wilting, the whole cycle running over and over and over: blueprints to rubble.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Interior Design and Other Poems
By Corey Miller
It’s easier to say welter is the weight of the sea, to think every gibbous moon is waxing, every crescent moon remaining the same.
POETRY
If I Die in a Combat Zone
By HC Palmer
If I must be killed, I wish to be killed by a sniper. His efficient nail does not require a tree or an IED.
POETRY
Theory of Everything and Other Poems
By James Richardson
Maybe what really interests me in the mirror is not myself but that person who looks so interested in me.
POETRY
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
POETRY
Between a Cynic and a Romantic
By Ashley Romano
We just hope someone will prove us wrong—as in reptiles have three-chamber hearts, but the crocodile is equipped with four.
Two Poems
By Ed Skoog
Showering at night is short fiction, a history bulletin, a guidebook to invisible reservoirs of this region.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Poetry Readings
By Donald Hall
The master reads five of his poems during our interview with him.
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2015-02
By Various Artists
More laughs from Farley Katz, Ken Krimstein, Glen Le Lievre, Rina Piccolo, and Kim Warp.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2015-01
By Various Artists
Great humor from Farley Katz, John Klossner, Glen Le Lievre, Rina Piccolo, and P. C. Vey.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2014-09
By Various Artists
Hilarious new cartoons by J. C. Duffy, Ken Krimstein, Glen Le Lievre, P. C. Vey, and Kim Warp.
