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

Destined

By Sasha Vasilyuk

Not a day had gone by as I sat bored and numb in my middle-school ESL class in foggy San Francisco that I hadn’t dreamt about returning to Moscow.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Autumn Reverie

By David Lee

A strange odd lost duck day all over—sunrise with a honed edge like a table saw trembling to get started on a bait of cured hickory after an early moonset.

OPEN TO ALL WRITERS

We’re looking for short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, and excerpts from long fiction and nonfiction.

Please see the Guidelines.

AWARDS FOR OUR AUTHORS

The Nobel Prize, National Medal of the Arts, Pushcart Prize, and many other accolades have been received by Narrative authors, including ones whose first publications were here.

Fall Issue

FICTION

FICTION

Fall Issue

FICTION

The Toll

By Daniel Mason

There had been a lot written, he said, about the biology, the epidemiology of the pandemic, but very little on the soul.

FICTION

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

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

NARRATIVE 10

POETRY

NARRATIVE 10

An Interview

with Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

Dr. Seuss has the Shakespearean aspect of being completely beholden to language while also bending language for his own purposes.

POETRY

The Invention of
the Darling

By Li-Young Lee

What we can’t see are two bodies moving at the speed of longing, burning at the blinding rate of dying, traveling in several worlds at once.

POETRY

Genesis and
Other Poems

By Sharon Olds

I forget what it was like—for most of ten years, to wake next to no one, a being reduced, like the handiwork of a sculptor who could not stop.

iSTORIES

iPOEMS

CARTOONS

iSTORIES

The Right Fielder

By Tom Lakin

The right fielder winces, clocking the ball’s swift descent. A lone thought in his mind: Catch it, for God’s sake, catch it.

iPOEMS

Third Act

By Ed McManis

You retell the story and I wait for my cues, when to smile, nod, the dark part where we both are silent.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-08

By Various Artists

Great new toons by Sam Patnoe, Ali Solomon, Mick Stevens, P. C. Vey, and Kim Warp.

STORY OF THE WEEK