• Vera
  • Vera

STORY OF THE WEEK

If the Body Makes a Sound By Tryphena L. Yeboah

If the Body Makes
a Sound

By Tryphena L. Yeboah
She had never said a word about her fear of childbirth, since it would come across as absurd. What kind of woman is terrified by her own power?

POEM OF THE WEEK

Shepherd, Shepherd Where Are You? By Mary Curtis

Shepherd, Shepherd Where Are You?

By Mary Curtis
The people awakened, rose up, raged at tyrants garbed in uniforms and robes. Gouty, engorged by their plunder gated and guarded they fell.

ENTER TODAY

ENTER TODAY

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

Please see the Guidelines.

FICTION

Fame By Arthur Miller

Fame

By Arthur Miller
In the glass he saw his round, sad face and narrow beard, his sloping shoulders and wrinkled corduroy lapels; for the King of Broadway, he thought, you still look like a failure.

Winter Issue

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

Winter Issue

FICTION

Bioko By Bill Barich

Bioko

By Bill Barich
Of course we drank too much during the crisis. The country was in shreds, tearing itself apart at the seams. Clubs, machetes, widespread rioting, then rumors of a civil war.

FICTION

Telepathic Message in Time of Crisis By Ann Beattie

Telepathic Message in Time of Crisis

By Ann Beattie
He considers my writing interchangeable with other coronavirus activities, such as staring at your bank balance while sucking the ends of your hair.

FICTION

Vera By Carol Edgarian

Vera

By Carol Edgarian
I would never believe that a man or a wish could save us. Having come from desire, I knew too much about desire. I knew San Francisco was a whore’s daughter, same as me.

FICTION

FICTION

NARRATIVE 10

FICTION

The Crossing Guard By Sara Houghteling

The Crossing Guard

By Sara Houghteling
He stops and frowns. “You going to be okay out here? I mean, a woman, by herself, in the dark?”
This hasn’t made it on to my list of worries.

FICTION

oh By Lance Olsen

oh

By Lance Olsen
Before stepping out, Doctor Dressler left a note on the kitchen countertop, black marker on yellow lined paper: Suicide. Back by 7:00. Love, Max.

NARRATIVE 10

Ten Questions for Paisley Rekdal

Ten Questions

for Paisley Rekdal
I wish I could return to my early twenties when I was suffering from insomnia and, to while away the nights, turned to nineteenth-century novels.


NONFICTION


CLASSICS

GRAPHIC STORIES


NONFICTION

Beachfront By J. D. Debris

Beachfront

By J. D. Debris
This beach is the perfect place to sip iced coffee, strum major-seventh chords, or meditate on the complete and utter destruction of humanity.


CLASSICS

The Masque of the Red Death By Edgar Allan Poe

The Masque of
the Red Death

By Edgar Allan Poe
With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself.

GRAPHIC STORIES

Signaling By Jenny Lesser

Signaling

By Jenny Lesser
I walked around with a beat-up copy of Kafka’s stories. I thought it had a knife or candle on the cover but now realize it was a pen nib.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Bedtime Stories By Yasmine Ameli

Bedtime Stories

By Yasmine Ameli
My mama and her cousins ride bikes to the Caspian in their bikinis. The oil is good, the rial strong. When bearded men yell at the girls, they just laugh.

POETRY

The Goodbyes By John Balaban

The Goodbyes

By John Balaban
Say their names all you want, you are calling after ghosts: Dead parents, good or bad, dwelling in terminal silence.

POETRY

Real Trees Are a Different Matter By Emma Binder

Real Trees Are a Different Matter

By Emma Binder
Canadian geese stand agog at real trees, real lake, wondering at the call of exodus unmooring webbed feet.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

The Idea of Antarctica By Kōan Anne Brink

The Idea of Antarctica

By Kōan Anne Brink
When the islands dry up, there is no telling a difference, there will be no needing to tell a difference. Silk cloud, silk veil of rock unfolding.

POETRY

Nothing (Elegy for My Father) By Patrick Thomas Casey

Nothing (Elegy for My Father)

By Patrick Thomas Casey
Nothing stills, nothing stops. The world is still as it was before. The gulls still cry their nothing sounds; the sea still toils as nothing drowns.

POETRY

Not an Elegy By Patrick James Errington

Not an Elegy

By Patrick James Errington
Thank fuck there’s still a little weather left. Snow, which means you don’t have to talk about it, means despite itself, no poems needed.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Divine Apparitions By Rebecca Foust

Divine Apparitions

By Rebecca Foust
In a tree’s convulsed burl, I saw the pope who blessed Mother T’s covert deathbed conversions but forbade condoms for men who had AIDS.

POETRY

Yet and Other Poems By April Goldman

Yet and Other Poems

By April Goldman
He said laughing, it is brave of you to try to use the word beautiful, really kind of wild.

POETRY

Ground Squirrels By J. P. Grasser

Ground Squirrels

By J. P. Grasser
Their rebirth was almost more joyous to see, better than before—praise this ever-loving life, I thought, that goes on despite our efforts to the contrary.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Elegy for Suzanne Nash Gurin By Katy Gurin

Elegy for Suzanne Nash Gurin

By Katy Gurin
Every time I think I know the horror of it exactly, Iʼm wrong. For mourning they say three months, two months, a year.

POETRY

Doorknob Comments By Jessica Hincapie

Doorknob Comments

By Jessica Hincapie
Suddenly it seemed so silly. Demanding love from even a mother; expecting that poetry, of all things, ought to tell the truth.

POETRY

Gamble By Kassy Lee

Gamble

By Kassy Lee
Why my grandma loved penny slots and romance novels with unicorns mounted by long-haired men, I never knew.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Tacenda By Nadra Mabrouk

Tacenda

By Nadra Mabrouk
My own skin now still hardening in February. His name remains, always relevant, debris in the lake where I stand on the edge.

POETRY

Gifts for a Beautiful Body and Other Poems By Komal Mathew

Gifts for a
Beautiful Body and Other Poems

By Komal Mathew
Who am I to tell you now what was given to me (by my mother and my mother’s mother)?

POETRY

They Were Blind and Other Poems By Rooja Mohassessy

They Were Blind and Other Poems

By Rooja Mohassessy
Fatwas condoned our arrest for the rouged contours of our lips, not what came out of them

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

The Monkey’s Face and Other Poems By Max Seifert

The Monkey’s Face and Other Poems

By Max Seifert
One of the guys is always bound to be that guy. You felt the tree you hole up in at night being climbed.

POETRY

Communication By Soren Stockman

Communication

By Soren Stockman
It is part of the deal, the church, the nation I call home, where citizens protesting their own killers are told Go back to Africa.

POETRY

Last Acre By Lee Colin Thomas

Last Acre

By Lee Colin Thomas
Where the subdivision gives way to what it was once: an open field simmering in the nacreous breath of a summer moon.


iPOEMS

READERS’ NARRATIVES

READERS’ NARRATIVES


iPOEMS

January By John Freeman

January

By John Freeman
I cooked pasta
with chilies last
night and my
fingers still
burn.

READERS’ NARRATIVES

Thomas Nelson Community College By Bill Glose

Thomas Nelson Community College

By Bill Glose
I could follow the lessons of my silent father or try something different. And so I wrote a poem.

READERS’ NARRATIVES

Mumbai By Beatrice Rao

Mumbai

By Beatrice Rao
We learned to be thankful for each sunrise and sunset. The birds chirping at the windowsill, singing no matter what.

SIX-WORD STORIES


CARTOONS

SIX-WORD STORIES

Rembrandt By Dipen DasGupta

Rembrandt

By Dipen DasGupta
A story about materialism, morality, cupidity, and conflagration—all in just six words.


CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-02 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-02

By Various Artists
New laughs from Glen Le Lievre, Jared Nangle, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Ali Solomon, and P. C. Vey.
Cartoon Art Volume 2021-01 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-01

By Various Artists
Great new toons by Kendra Allenby, Pat Byrnes, Ivan Ehlers, Kate Isenberg, and Mick Stevens.