If you’re a traveler at heart, it’s likely you’ll stumble on a place that grabs you and holds you so insistently you’ll never want to leave.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Vernal Equinox
By Amy Lowell
The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies between me and my book; and the South Wind, washing through the room, makes the candles quiver.
FINAL WEEK TO ENTER
Deadline: Thurs.,
Mar. 28, at midnight, PDT.
We’re looking for short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, and excerpts from long fiction and nonfiction.
Please see the Guidelines.
INTERVIEW
Narrative 10
By Vanessa Hua
No one will care as much as you do. As much as I count on my husband, my agents, my editors, my writer friends, the work ultimately rests on me.
FALL CONTEST WINNER
FICTION
FICTION
FALL CONTEST WINNER
The Spectacular
By Renée Thompson
Con held Glacier close to his chest and inhaled the scent of her feathers—a mix of mountain air and high-desert sage, of dust and bark and willow.
FICTION
Yokai
By Ron Hansen
No one had seen it of late, but the hoary legend was that the cougar prowled the forests at night, being nocturnal, and ate whatever was in front of it.
FICTION
Baby in the Pan
By Jill McCorkle
Candy was wearing those short shorts she’s too old to be wearing with that scaley green dragon tattoo looking like he’s breathing fire on her you-know-what.
FICTION
FICTION
NONFICTION
FICTION
The Rooms
By Susan Minot
What she wanted, she found herself saying before the sob choked her, was to be able to live—not just with another person, but with herself.
FICTION
Flash Flood
By Tina Nettesheim
Everything was gone between them and the mountains, everything, the way the ocean devours even the most majestic sand castle.
NONFICTION
The Measure of All Things?
By Hal Crowther
There are mornings, not few enough, when I feel like burning my birth certificate and resigning from the human race.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Rhythm & Sound
By Donald Hall
Every time you write free verse you are improvising your way toward a conclusion that will bind everything together.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2024-02
By Various Artists
New laughs while job-hunting, with teenagers, clingy socks, a modern parenting book, and a tandem bicycle.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2024-03
By Various Artists
New laughs with fresh recruits, advances in workplace technology, an embarrassing tangle, a location mixup, and desire’s stormy impact.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
My Opera
By Kim Addonizio
The staging is difficult. Exploding stars are involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers, a little country blues, a little jazz guitar.
POETRY
Pale Blue Vein
By Ellen Bass
No one wrote in the Book of Life that my father would escape the pogroms, carried on his brother’s shoulders through the snow.
POETRY
Sky Tongued Back with Light
By Sébastien Luc Butler
You’ll find me here in the peach orchard, the most I can muster. Rows & rows of clustered glow, a slab of thuds, peaches falling.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
New Year’s Day, 2023
By Dorsey Craft
My hands are dry and my eyes are dry. I think I’m supposed to feel hopeful. I think I’m supposed to take down the Christmas tree.
POETRY
Dead Horse
By J. P. Grasser
The plan was, lean way out over the edge to be shaken into smaller selves. We’d see ourselves caught by a net of stars. That was the idea, anyhow.
POETRY
Cocaine & Flowers
By Brian Gyamfi
When the gods came to America with a bag of cocaine and flowers they were beheaded. Their death had nothing to do with the president.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Exercise
By Ted Kooser
Nine day-care children are out for a walk on a winter morning, under a gray sky, led by a girl in her teens walking sideways so she can encourage them.
POETRY
Lazarus rises from the grave, New York City, 2023
By Anthony Thomas Lombardi
judging by the canary feathers jutting from your mouth i’d say you’ve come bearing mercy.
POETRY
Old Friend
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Spring billowing, I navigate my daily pool of gloom. Arrange your five deflating basketballs under the lonely net. I always loved the honesty of old friends.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Reading Sebald and Other Poems
By Sharon Olds
When I’m reading Sebald, then dozing, then dreaming that I’m reading, I feel myself come closer to you than usual.
POETRY
At the Museum of Empress Livia’s Garden Room
By Pimone Triplett
The nouns pile up. Umbrella pine, oleander, quince. Or go missing as anything else.