STORY OF THE WEEK

The Last Days of Monkey Zak: Part 1 By Skip Horack

The Last Days of Monkey Zak: Part 1

By Skip Horack
It wasn’t even clear to Mikey whether he was breaking any laws, and that’s what I meant when I called him small-time.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Türkenmarkt By Talin Tahajian

Türkenmarkt

By Talin Tahajian
In the Turkish market along the Landwehrkanal where murky water recedes to its lowest point, all the men selling figs and rojeeg are my grandfather.

FINAL DAYS TO ENTER

FINAL DAYS TO ENTER
Deadline: Sun., Nov. 17, at midnight, PST.

A contest for writers, poets, artists, photographers, performers, and filmmakers between eighteen and thirty years old.

Please see the Guidelines.

OPEN TO ALL WRITERS

OPEN TO ALL WRITERS
Narrative winners and finalists have gone on to win honors including the Pulitzer Prize, and have appeared in collections such as The Best American Short Stories.

See the guidelines.

Fall Issue

SPRING
CONTEST
WINNERS

First Place







Second Place



NARRATIVE OUTLOUD


Video

Fall Issue

SPRING
CONTEST
WINNERS

First Place

Grief By David Rabe

Grief

By David Rabe
He listened, standing motionless and attentive, to the silence, realizing that in compliance with an earlier impulse, he was listening for ghosts.







Second Place

Badger Mountain By Ryan Cannon

Badger Mountain

By Ryan Cannon
Sky takes laps around the kitchen table with the child screaming into his ear. Nobody’s going to come all the way out here, not in the storm.



NARRATIVE OUTLOUD


Video

Reading Two Poems By Donald Hall

Reading Two Poems

By Donald Hall
The dog stopped and stared. A woman's long bare legs stretched up at the edge of the graveyard.

POETRY
CONTEST
WINNERS

First Place





Second Place





Third Place

POETRY
CONTEST
WINNERS

First Place

Addendum and Other Poems By Hannah Perrin King

Addendum and Other Poems

By Hannah Perrin King
On its string of starlight, the moon rose, a stomach of stone. In the yard, the coyotes yipped till it sunk.





Second Place

I Carried My Father Across the Sea By Gbenga Adesina

I Carried My Father Across the Sea

By Gbenga Adesina
He was a child. He was dead. He was the shaft of a Long-tailed Astrapia. He was a forest of bruise.





Third Place

Karyotype andOther Poems By Rebekah Denison Hewitt

Karyotype and
Other Poems

By Rebekah Denison Hewitt
I’m told I should rethink resolution. Let myself go darker. The way my body does—without permission.

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

The Fate of Others By Richard Bausch

The Fate of Others

By Richard Bausch
The old man looked over at him, not quite smiling. “I pissed in the fountain.” He heaved a long, slow sigh. “Twice.”

FICTION

OTP By Ann Beattie

OTP

By Ann Beattie
The babies were going to be triplets, but one dematerialized. The remaining ones are a boy and a girl.

FICTION

The End of Life By Yoon Choi

The End of Life

By Yoon Choi
He thinks with joy and conviction that the Japanese are his enemy. It is a wonderful thing to have an enemy.

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

Love Takes Hold By Michael Croley

Love Takes Hold

By Michael Croley
When he came back, the drinks freshened, she had slipped out of the dress. He was surprised by how unsurprised he was.

FICTION

The Letters By Nicholas Delbanco

The Letters

By Nicholas Delbanco
He had touched a nerve in her, a memory of what it felt like years before to be possessed by fiction and forcing a phrase into form.

FICTION

Naming By Yelena Furman

Naming

By Yelena Furman
I sensed that a name defined who I was and would be in the future. Renaming myself was a little like being reborn.

FICTION

iSTORIES

FICTION

Late Rumspringa By Austin Smith

Late Rumspringa

By Austin Smith
One morning, after chores were done, chores his boys used to do, Abraham Zimmerman told his wife that he was going to town.

iSTORIES

Toby and Cooper By Tracy McCallum

Toby and Cooper

By Tracy McCallum
Toby’s also got this pug dog that sits under his chair, with a harness that says Service Dog on it. It’s kinda plug-ugly, like him.

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

NONFICTION

Plain Lucky By Bill Barich

Plain Lucky

By Bill Barich
While still a schoolboy, I received a surprise invitation to try out for the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. 

NONFICTION

Great Falls By Pia Z. Ehrhardt

Great Falls

By Pia Z. Ehrhardt
Walking on Canal Street with my two sisters and a niece, I slipped on the curb and fell on my face.

NONFICTION

The Great Floating Pig Barn on the Mekong By Scott Ezell

The Great Floating Pig Barn on the Mekong

By Scott Ezell
The thinly disguised so-called zoo was actually a 3-D menu.

FEATURES

FICTION

NONFICTION

FEATURES

My Dear Friendand Yours By George Saunders

My Dear Friend
and Yours

By George Saunders
“What would Tobias Wolff do?” is a question that often appears in my mind at moments of duress.

FICTION

Flotsam By Nancy Hale

Flotsam

By Nancy Hale
It would never do to offend the conductor of a vessel containing the life not only of herself but of the being most precious to her.

NONFICTION

On Nancy Hale’s “Flotsam” By Ann Beattie

On Nancy Hale’s “Flotsam”

By Ann Beattie
The child does not yet know that having your facts straight won’t make life clear and protect you.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Wintercearig Waltz and Other Poems By Kelli Russell Agodon

Wintercearig Waltz and Other Poems

By Kelli Russell Agodon
I add powdered sugar to the angel food cake, Made with real angels, I say to the shadows.

POETRY

By Land By Tyree Daye

By Land

By Tyree Daye
I’ve lived on dirt roads that bent and ended at a gate of pines, the dust skipped up didn’t make my mother look like a dream.

POETRY

Presence andOther Poems By Dan Gerber

Presence and
Other Poems

By Dan Gerber
His mooseness was implacable, the light behind him from the trees.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

When I Lose and Other Poems By Richard Kenney

When I Lose and Other Poems

By Richard Kenney
When I have fears that we may cease, another genus losing its single species, then I lose speech.

POETRY

Ode to Left-Handedness and Other Poems By Gregory Orr

Ode to Left-Handedness and Other Poems

By Gregory Orr
So all I could do was cut in clumsy zigzags and feel like a fool.

POETRY

The Joy of Writing and Other Poems By Wisława Szymborska

The Joy of Writing and Other Poems

By Wisława Szymborska
I’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools, blues for brooders.

POETRY

iPOEMS

iPOEMS

POETRY

A Soliloquy Would Imply That the Stage Is Empty By Michael Wasson

A Soliloquy Would Imply That the Stage Is Empty

By Michael Wasson
I’m kneeling—praying for this sinner to be saved.

iPOEMS

Red By Shangyang Fang

Red

By Shangyang Fang
By the firewood door I halt and watch a monk, under plum boughs, sweeping flitting shreds of red.

iPOEMS

Priest Lake By Christopher Warner

Priest Lake

By Christopher Warner
Oar blades, vast swirls of cirrus at dawn. The dead move within us in unmoored astronomies.

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-10 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-10

By Various Artists
Great new toons by Pat Byrnes, Joe Dator, Andrew Dicus, Felipe Gomez Galindo, and Mick Stevens.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-09 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-09

By Various Artists
New art and humor by Pat Byrnes, Andrew Dicus, Drew Panckeri, Julia Suits, and Chris Weyant.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-08 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2019-08

By Various Artists
New laughs from Pat Byrnes, Todd Condron, Seth Fleishman, David Rowles, and Mick Stevens.