STORY OF THE WEEK

Johnny, Hit and Run By Tiffany Promise

Johnny, Hit and Run

By Tiffany Promise
I didn’t see the needle pricks in your ditch, the bruises puckered under tattoo. I didn’t know that by falling for you, I was falling for your demons too.

POEM OF THE WEEK

God Forgive Me, I Like the Drama of Watching By Brandi Nicole Martin

God Forgive Me, I Like the Drama of Watching

By Brandi Nicole Martin
myself at nineteen, rising from a horizon of gurneys. Her toothpick-thin arm lifts to take an offered pen.

FINAL DAYS TO ENTER

FINAL DAYS TO ENTER
Deadline: Sat., July 31, 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.

FICTION

Fleur-de-lis By Susan Minot

Fleur-de-lis

By Susan Minot
The woman on my right was not wearing black but a white bouclé jacket and a yellow flowered dress with a deep neckline showing a soft slash of cleavage.

Spring Issue

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

Spring Issue

FICTION

Making Things Up By Kate Axelrod

Making Things Up

By Kate Axelrod
It was late January when I started to notice ingrown hairs along my bikini line. I showed Becky, who said decisively that they were not ingrown hairs.

FICTION

Donnaiolo By Richard Bausch

Donnaiolo

By Richard Bausch
“It comes to my attention that the children are staying with you. You do not want me as an enemy, Signore Hartsford.”

FICTION

Talk to Me By T. Coraghessan Boyle

Talk to Me

By T. Coraghessan Boyle
“Looking for students to assist in his cross-fostering project, 10–20+ hours a week. No experience necessary. Just patience and a good strong back.”

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

Ice Cream By Rae Canaan

Ice Cream

By Rae Canaan
Unbeknownst to him, she had been a stone in the shape of a girl the whole time, sinking in her very own ocean.

FICTION

Freedom By Ha Jin

Freedom

By Ha Jin
He meant to show his superiors that he was not someone they could kick around at will and that he had dignity and principles.

FICTION

Another Star By Kirstin Valdez Quade

Another Star

By Kirstin Valdez Quade
When Angel explained that Mike tried to strangle her, Marissa just shook her head. “He was joking. Mike jokes around.”

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

Rupert Murdoch & Me by Bill Barich

Rupert Murdoch
& Me

by Bill Barich
You’d never catch me toiling on Grub Street, or so I believed, until I got a chance to write for the Sun of London.

NONFICTION

Billionaires’ Boats By Hal Crowther

Billionaires’ Boats

By Hal Crowther
The way we react to mega-yachts and Mar-a-Lago polarizes Americans as much as the way we feel about race or assault rifles and the NRA.

NONFICTION

The Far Side of the Moment By Maria Hummel

The Far Side of
the Moment

By Maria Hummel
Momentum in fiction arrives when the author shifts gears to deliver both the experience and the meaning of change.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

American Standard Version By Chaun Ballard

American Standard Version

By Chaun Ballard
1 o Lord, how we must break Your heart daily. 2 we arrive to consume Your brokenness: we wafer & grape juice into blood.

POETRY

The First Time and Other Poems By Kate Bond

The First Time and Other Poems

By Kate Bond
the stitches
were novel;
at recess
I showed them off
like a temporary tattoo.

POETRY

Mother of the Cane River Creoles By Britny Cordera

Mother of the Cane River Creoles

By Britny Cordera
She’d never seen an ark like this before, didn’t have a word to call this belly never full, going to swallow her too.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Perseids and Other Poems By Norman Dubie

Perseids and
Other Poems

By Norman Dubie
The night-lightning turns the brown buttes into roosting hens leaving eggs to be polished with the long hair of daylight

POETRY

Of the God That Comes to Mind By Gina Franco

Of the God That Comes to Mind

By Gina Franco
the builders gone home, the insides of the house smelling of the dead fire and paint thinner, the brushes strewn in the sink

POETRY

David Comes Home By Anthony Immergluck

David Comes Home

By Anthony Immergluck
David, I don’t know how to say this, but I didn’t think you’d make it. For I have met this particular Goliath, naked in the shuckling pews of wheat.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

From BINT By Ghinwa Jawhari

From BINT

By Ghinwa Jawhari
actresses, their pealing laughs breaking laws in every language, opened windows in our dreams both-handed, waved us in, naked elbows on the sill.

POETRY

From Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters By Yusef Komunyakaa and Laren McClung

From Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters

By Yusef Komunyakaa and
Laren McClung
Does primal urge or a mob’s swarming lead us down a spiral to dreams of broken glass?

POETRY

Innocence and Other Poems By Erin L. McCoy

Innocence and
Other Poems

By Erin L. McCoy
Pooled against midnight, she studied a guidebook to uninterrupted sleep. I left our city intact beneath the passport of my skin.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

To Flee the Kingdom and Other Poems By Lisa Olstein

To Flee the Kingdom and Other Poems

By Lisa Olstein
Last night finally you came through, dead but whole, cheerfully turning knobs, looking for the door you were meant to enter.

POETRY

Pandemic Villanelles By Gregory Orr

Pandemic Villanelles

By Gregory Orr
Usually, keeping others out is what home locks are all about, but we took ourselves prisoner, threw away the key.

POETRY

After Noguchi and Other Poems By Michael Prior

After Noguchi and Other Poems

By Michael Prior
That time and water can make metal look charred: the fountain—rust-crusted, osseous—has been dry for half a century.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Wings, 1999 By Yaccaira Salvatierra

Wings, 1999

By Yaccaira Salvatierra
Carry me from México and California because there is a kind of man whose loneliness comes from having left his country.

POETRY

A Heroine’s Primer By Caroline Shea

A Heroine’s Primer

By Caroline Shea
Did you think you’d return to applause? No one wants the hero home. A scar in the shape of a daughter marring the hearth.

POETRY

In the Land of Long Distances By Dylan Weir

In the Land of
Long Distances

By Dylan Weir
These heels are hurting halfway home and harbor freight yards laid out forever and farther in front of me.

POETRY

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

iSTORIES

POETRY

On the Isle of Fast-Flowing Waters By JinJin Xu

On the Isle of Fast-Flowing Waters

By JinJin Xu
LIKE ANY YOUNG POET the Misty Poet writes the Poem not for the hunger-striking students, but for the Lover he meets on the train.

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

Ranch Album By Gail Steiger and Lew Steiger

Ranch Album

By Gail Steiger and Lew Steiger
Following four cowboys over the course of a year, this documentary offers an intimate portrait of a profession that’s changed little over the generations.

iSTORIES

Witness By Madelena Grossmann

Witness

By Madelena Grossmann
It was as though we’d been there in that kitchen, seen his grandmother dial that number scratched on the wall.

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-07 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-07

By Various Artists
Dour cows, sweet real estate, and more, from Kendra Allenby, Pat Byrnes, Sam Patnoe, P. C. Vey, and Kim Warp.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-06 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-06

By Various Artists
New art and humor from Bob Eckstein, Mary Lawton, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, David Rowles, and Mick Stevens.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-05 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-05

By Various Artists
New laughs from Kendra Allenby, Pat Byrnes, Ivan Ehlers, Glen Le Lievre, and Kim Warp.