STORY OF THE WEEK

Mice By Rick Bass

Mice

By Rick Bass
I’d actually lit the first burner before noticing the nest but turned it off before lighting the others. A near miss for the mouse family.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Early Options By Allison Albino

Early Options

By Allison Albino
Every woman has a bump under her shirt when you think you’re pregnant, you start to hear crying in the streets and coffee shops.

OPEN TO ALL WRITERS

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

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

Ice Cream By Rae Canaan

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

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.
The Toll By Daniel Mason

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

iSTORIES

FICTION

The Bedwarmer By Nathan Poole

The Bedwarmer

By Nathan Poole
Something in me acknowledged that to be beautiful and to be a woman would be costly, but this was worse than what I imagined.

iSTORIES

The Right Fielder By Tom Lakin

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.

NARRATIVE 10

NARRATIVE 10

NARRATIVE 10

NARRATIVE 10

Ten Questions for Pamela Paul

Ten Questions

for Pamela Paul
My day job is overseeing book coverage at the New York Times and editing the Times Book Review. Writing is squeezed into the margins of my days.

NARRATIVE 10

A Talk with Sarah Ruhl

A Talk

with Sarah Ruhl
Q: Who is your favorite character in fiction; your fave character in life?

A: Elizabeth Bennett. And in life? How to choose?

NARRATIVE 10

An Interview with Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

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

POETRY

POETRY

The Invention of the Darling By Li-Young Lee

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.

A Prophecy Is Nothing By Rosalie Moffett

A Prophecy
Is Nothing

By Rosalie Moffett
Amazon closes, as if pulling tight a black suture, the distance between desire and the fulfillment of that desire. I was promised full control.

POETRY

Genesis and Other Poems By Sharon Olds

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.

iPOEMS

CARTOONS

Ella Says and Other Poems By Gwen Strauss

Ella Says and
Other Poems

By Gwen Strauss
Between interrogations Hélène mapped on the walls of her cell the Gaussian integral, the square root of pi.

iPOEMS

Third Act By Ed McManis

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 2021-09 By Various Artists

Cartoon Art Volume 2021-09

By Various Artists
New art and humor from Pat Byrnes, Seth Fleishman, Eva Novakovich, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, and P. C. Vey.