STORY OF THE WEEK

Shapes By Jim Weber

Shapes

By Jim Weber
He knew his Mestiço accent betrayed him. The lilt of his ancestry—men who had been offered imprisonment in Portugal’s dungeons or servitude in its colonies.

POEM OF THE WEEK

You Never Told Me If There Was Any Moon in Baltimore By Emma Binder

You Never Told Me If There Was Any Moon in Baltimore

By Emma Binder
Is there fruit at the grocery store? Do hills sigh as you drive past? Do fields say your name as I do?

SIX-WORD STORIES

Combat By Stanton S. Coerr

Combat

By Stanton S. Coerr
War. Nineteen. I was older then.

Helicopter. Bodies on. New guys off.

Read the rest here.

CONFLICT, ACTION, RESOLUTION

Narrative is looking for six-word stories that can stand alongside the best that have been written. Read some examples and see the guidelines here.

Fall Issue

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

Fall Issue

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

Local Color By Christopher Kempf

Local Color

By Christopher Kempf
“The South is very much alive,” Brian said to me, quoting the litigator of Plessy v. Ferguson, Albion W. Tourgée—“a nation can never bury its past.”

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

Fleur-de-lis By Susan Minot

Fleur-de-lis

By Susan Minot
The fleur-de-lis was a heraldic crest he liked: it had regal history, all the while secretly being a phallic image that included a penetrated vagina.

SPRING CONTEST WINNERS

The Ravages of an Unloved Life By Tryphena L. Yeboah

The Ravages of an Unloved Life

By Tryphena L. Yeboah
I hope for an acceptance of what I am. But, no, I lie. I very much, with all my heart, want to be all things beautiful.

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

Muse and Other Poems By Keith S. Wilson

Muse and
Other Poems

By Keith S. Wilson
through the trees, breathless, the grouse leads us steady as a rope. a marvel to be undone or free or black or natural.

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

What Dark Tastes Like and Other Poems By Anne Haven McDonnell

What Dark Tastes Like and Other Poems

By Anne Haven McDonnell
I never grew out of it, the blurred edge of gender, the freedom of in-between, both, neither.

POETRY CONTEST WINNERS

From The Judas Ear By Anna Journey

From The Judas Ear

By Anna Journey
Three grand a batch, I’d told him, dropping the egg donation forms in his lap. I’d ignored his protests—You’ve done way too much acid.

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

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

Miss Me Forever By Eugene Cross

Miss Me Forever

By Eugene Cross
Tulsi is not in the position to lose a friend. He pinches the pill between his thumb and forefinger and places it on his tongue.

FICTION

Ice By Andre Dubus III

Ice

By Andre Dubus III
She was sure her husband had heard her then and would come running outside, maybe even with his stupid pistol.

FICTION

FICTION

Blindsight By Joyce Carol Oates

Blindsight

By Joyce Carol Oates
What would it be, to be the last living survivor of a language? With a couple, there must be one who outlives the other.

FICTION

Sagrada Familia By Holiday Reinhorn

Sagrada Familia

By Holiday Reinhorn
Until I met my husband I had the habit of telling people that my father died in a fire, but that was only if they asked.

FICTION

Food for the Common Cold By Morgan Talty

Food for the Common Cold

By Morgan Talty
The farther I got, the more I wanted to see the place engulfed in flames, so the matter between Mom and Frick would be settled.

FICTION

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

FICTION

A Saint from Texas By Edmund White

A Saint from Texas

By Edmund White
Middle-class people imagine the privileged are bored and negative and languorously disapproving, but the truth is you’d swear they were on speed.

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

Carol Edgarian in Conversation with Bridget Quinn

Carol Edgarian in Conversation with Bridget Quinn

A lively and far-reaching conversation about women’s rights, the power of the vote, and the too-often racist lens of history.

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

Forward and Thrive By Fabian J. Luna

Forward and Thrive

By Fabian J. Luna
After my father passed away, I’d go back to stare at the cave paintings on the walls, trying to make sense of the voices silenced by time.

GRAPHIC STORIES

GRAPHIC STORIES

GRAPHIC STORIES

GRAPHIC STORIES

This Place We Call Home By Angie Kang

This Place We
Call Home

By Angie Kang
It was the closest place to ours I could remember. And still, I was constantly reminded that it didn’t belong to us.

GRAPHIC STORIES

Origin of the World By Seong Eun Macfarlane

Origin of the World

By Seong Eun Macfarlane
Fly through the past 13 billion years in this beautiful and evocative graphic story.

GRAPHIC STORIES

Occupy City Hall Sketchbook By Sofia Warren

Occupy City Hall Sketchbook

By Sofia Warren
On June 23rd, ahead of the July 1st budget deadline, activists set up camp at New York City Hall.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Across the Sea: A Sequence By Gbenga Adesina

Across the Sea: A Sequence

By Gbenga Adesina
On the sea, your prayer is not to the whorl scarf of waves. Your prayer is to the fitful sleep of the dead.

POETRY

Observations on Connectivity By Justin Balog

Observations on Connectivity

By Justin Balog
All matter planets atoms stuff seemingly unconnected and unfamiliar were part of one unified system

POETRY

Syrinx and Other Poems By Bruce Bond

Syrinx and
Other Poems

By Bruce Bond
The world has fallen from a high place and shattered gardens over earth, and the scattered pieces need each other to be seen.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Ulysses Recapitulates and Other Poems By Will Brewbaker

Ulysses Recapitulates and Other Poems

By Will Brewbaker
Trembling hand on my trembling hand, you said heaven would absolve every earthly wrong.

POETRY

A Walkabout in Andrew Wyeth’s Painting and Other Poems By Elena Karina Byrne

A Walkabout in Andrew Wyeth’s Painting and
Other Poems

By Elena Karina Byrne
Running before a storm’s roiling, I learned how to love being alone, jump over wide spaces.

POETRY

The Lime Tree By Jessica Dionne

The Lime Tree

By Jessica Dionne
You say Laima lives here, goddess as cuckoo, gifting ripe wombs to women who kneel at roots, singing up to the branches.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

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

Flightless (The String) By A. D. Lauren-Abunassar

Flightless
(The String)

By A. D. Lauren-Abunassar
steal pens from hotel lobby desks and drawers untouched bibles. throw these pens into bodies of water and listen.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Grendel’s Mother to the Spear Danes By Erin Lynn

Grendel’s Mother to the Spear Danes

By Erin Lynn
am I an animal
I am a woman
a wetland
I am made
of weather

POETRY

One More Day and Other Poems By Elizabeth Metzger

One More Day and Other Poems

By Elizabeth Metzger
Things had been going hellishly for a long while which meant many were making me hate.

POETRY

Fallen By Dion O’Reilly

Fallen

By Dion O’Reilly
I fed that baby lamb, tested the milk’s temperature on my wrist, rubbed its dark wool with my bare hands.

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Before the Borderless by Dean Rader and Cy Twombly

Before the Borderless

by Dean Rader and Cy Twombly
This, viewer, is what I am thinking as I imagine you in front of the painting—lost in the swirl of signifier and signified.

POETRY

The Touch and Other Poems By James Richardson

The Touch and Other Poems

By James Richardson
Forty years on, the wine we poured out on the lawn leaving the party together reaches the ocean.

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.

iPOEMS

iPOEMS

iPOEMS

iPOEMS

Signs By John Freeman

Signs

By John Freeman
Chestnut buds green the trees. How time operates on the mind, winding it like a clock.

iPOEMS

Sunrise Reminds the Shama to Emerge By Brenda McCaffrey

Sunrise Reminds the Shama to Emerge

By Brenda McCaffrey
sunrise reminds the shama to emerge from her perch in the pandanus tree

iPOEMS

Ampersand By Kevin Thomason

Ampersand

By Kevin Thomason
In carved hearts—the artery, link that links but won’t spell it out, scarf for pairs of playwrights.

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-11 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-11

By Various Artists
Karen support groups, writers’ keyboards, and more, from J. C. Duffy, Glen Le Lievre, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Mick Stevens, and Kim Warp.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-10 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-10

By Various Artists
New toons by Kendra Allenby, Bob Eckstein, Glen Le Lievre, Julia Suits, and Phil Witte.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-09 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-09

By Various Artists
Great new art and humor from Bob Eckstein, Farley Katz, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, David Rowles, and Kim Warp.