Narrative Magazine | Writers, Fiction, Poetry, Storytelling, Nonfiction, Art

STORY OF THE WEEK

The Storm

By Thomas Hardy

Apparently there was to be a thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold continuous rain. The creeping things seemed to know all about the later rain, but little of the interpolated thunder-storm.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Kronos

By Joshua Mehigan

If there are two and if they’re unaware that I am there, they meet each other in the passage, pause as if exchanging news, then go their own ways home.

FINAL DAYS TO ENTER

The $5,000 Narrative Prize is awarded annually for the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction by a new or emerging writer.

Deadline: April 30, at 11:59 p.m., PST.

PAST NARRATIVE PRIZE WINNER

Quiver and Other Poems

By Paisley Rekdal

What do we do with memory, do we burn or do we embellish it, do we study it like the elk projected onto the archery studio screen?

FICTION

Boulder City

By T. C. Boyle

Four words—Your mother passed away—coming at him from the realm of anonymity, the lips of a stranger speaking through the inert slab of a phone hundreds of miles away.

FICTION

The Red Shoes

By Lavanya Vasudevan

We thought for a long time that it was only a child’s exuberance, the kind most of us had left years behind, the irresistible desire to jump and run, even in a sacred space.

HIGH SCHOOL CONTEST WINNER

POETRY

HIGH SCHOOL CONTEST WINNER

No, but I once got very close

By Michelle Li

That was the year I kept talking to myself: I am good I am good I want to be loved. By you, I mean.

POETRY

Monologue of a Ghost

By David Mason

I stood in laced boots. My foot felt strong. I had that feeling of being young again, immortal, wearing a magic war shirt.

POETRY

That Spring

By Lo Naylor

spring came all the same. announced itself like a woodpecker on bark. my heart barked in my chest. each morning, I didn’t dare go back to sleep—couldn’t bear to wake twice.