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

A Master at Work

By Eugène Delacroix

Compiled here are some favorite quotes from Delacroix, who wrote constantly about technique and his creative process in his Journal.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Part of a Traveling Exhibition

By Bob King

I heard the vacuum whoosh of his final breath, like an air-lock chamber before he clunky-spacesuit lumbered out into the starlit void.

ENTER TODAY

Six-Word Stories

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.

SIX-WORD STORIES

Youth

By Gabriella Deich

Regret, heartbreak, coming of age, and moving on—all captured in two six-word stories by the seventeen-year-old author.

Winter Issue

FALL CONTEST WINNERS

First Place

Second Place

Winter Issue

FALL CONTEST WINNERS

First Place

The Elephant Box

By Russell Working

July the “Two-Story Elephant” was getting claustrophobic, shackled in a dank hold like the criminally insane.

Second Place

Budapest 1984

By Marcella Hunyadi

I also knew something the tall man didn’t: when my mother smiled at people she hated, her smiling was just a warm-up.

N30B WINNERS

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

N30B WINNERS

First Place

We Spoke of Death and Other Poems

By Kelsey Hennegen

I’m careless with my desire like when I claw the ice on my windshield without gloves and my fingertips burn white.

Second Place

The First People
on Mars and
Other Poems

By Felicity Sheehy

Of course there are writers. And artists. In love with one or the other, not at the same time.

Third Place

Bodily Assumption and Other Poems

By Erin Marie Lynch

A suit of skin can be filled, emptied, filled again. Or ripped, split, sewn. Like a metaphor of violence, which is a violence.

FICTION

A Small Blip on an Eternal Timeline

By Ifeoma Sesiana Amobi

My family came to America when I was one, and in my tiny luggage bag my mother stuffed dreams too large for me to carry.

FICTION

The Rage of the Squat King

By Rick Bass

What would make a sane, much less an educated, person want to watch such blood sport?

FICTION

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

You Can’t Keep Going Like This

By Shane Delaney

I appreciate the Plunge is special to you, sir, the guard said. But it’s special to everyone else too.

FICTION

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

Old Lovegood Girls

By Gail Godwin

Good old Meredith Grace. Depend on her to wake up the sleeping demon of competitiveness and goad it into action.

FICTION

Butterfly

By Vivian Ludford

“Do I look pretty?” Wenci would ask. “Do I look like I live here?” She could have lived anywhere and made it hers.

FICTION

Off to Zamboanga

By Robert Stone

A splinter of opportunity was presenting itself that might profitably be seized by a desperate man, one with nothing to lose.

FICTION

End of Story

By Marian Thurm

During those months when she was hooking up with her affair partner, she was still helping get my mother into her nightgown.

NONFICTION

NARRATIVE 10

iSTORIES

NONFICTION

Hoopster

By Bill Barich

My father came up with a simple plan. If I weaseled out of Bible study a little early, he’d pick me up and speed me to the gym.

NARRATIVE 10

Ten Questions

for Vanessa Hua

Q: The book you wish you could read again for the first time?

A: Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior.

iSTORIES

Donahue’s

By Andrea Marcusa

Everyone said the woman at the end of the bar was once an Argentinean prima ballerina with royal blood.

POETRY

Marking the Swans and Other Poems

By Linda Bierds

I could hear the words move toward me, down through the centuries, down through the unions of beauty and greed.

POETRY

Miracle of Lights / Ode to My
Imperfect Love

By Sara Brickman

Olive oil and paprika slant, just a little bent to the eye that’s looking.

POETRY

From Deluge

By Leila Chatti

I won’t be the last to look into a painting like a mirror, to ignore the glutted world in order to better scrutinize the self.

POETRY

Sleep Apnea

By Ian T. Hall

I’m grateful she took me for forthright, cause I’m not fit to give her the blood-honest truth.

POETRY

Snapshot of My Natural Father and Other Poems

By Edward Hirsch

A short flight from Phoenix, he could go to Vegas on a hunch.

POETRY

Jakob Poem 4

By Jackson Holbert

Today the wind is crazy and the river is insane. Today I’m getting absolutely clean.

POETRY

The Leaf in
My Pocket and
Other Poems

By Maria Hummel

will never fade brittle rip or crumble to its skeleton of veins I cannot see its color if I think green it must be green

POETRY

Suitors Know Best and Other Poems

By Vandana Khanna

Every night, the moon is a smooth omen staving off the inevitable—all the Suitors breathing behind the door, warping the wood with their want.

POETRY

from “The Last Bohemian of
Avenue A”

By Yusef Komunyakaa

Sweet talk an antihero with wet kisses on his eyelids, saying, Come over here & lie down.

POETRY

Learning the Ancestors’ Tongues and Other Poems

By Philip Metres

And you call us gathering together a murder? Is it the inked iridescence of our feathers?

POETRY

The Night I Watched My Twelve-Year-Old Brother Get Cuffed & Taken from Our Home, Tearing Up, Saying: “I Didn’t Do It!”

By Anacaona Rocio Milagro

i was ten, his right hand.

POETRY

The keepers

By Talin Tahajian

I’m in love with the boy for whom the abandoned warehouse in North London, quaking with bodies, trembles with sound and smoke.

CLASSICS

iPOEMS

SIX-WORD STORIES

CLASSICS

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.

iPOEMS

Feathered Cup

By Shangyang Fang

Read this beautiful, dreamlike poem—a complete universe on a single screen.

SIX-WORD STORIES

First Lady

By Jane Seskin

A literal interpretation of the First Lady’s initiative, imagined in just six words.

READERS’ NARRATIVES

READERS' NARRATIVES

GO BEYOND
THE MFA

READERS’ NARRATIVES

Washington, DC

By Jonathan Fink

My wife calls to say my daughter’s eye is out, initially suspected lost on the National Mall.

READERS' NARRATIVES

Manila, Philippines

By Rowena Leong Singer

I often observed my grandmother as she cracked shells, pinched off heads, twisted necks, and pulled off feathers.

GO BEYOND
THE MFA

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-03

By Various Artists

New laughs from Seth Fleishman, Mary Lawton, Glen Le Lievre, Mick Stevens, and P. C. Vey.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-02

By Various Artists

Great new toons by Pat Byrnes, Charlie Hankin, Glen Le Lievre, Mick Stevens, and P. C. Vey.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2020-01

By Various Artists

Unreal and all too real toons by Seth Fleishman, Charlie Hankin, Mary Lawton, Drew Panckeri, and David Rowles.

STORY OF THE WEEK

A Master at Work

POEM OF THE WEEK

Part of a Traveling Exhibition

ENTER TODAY

Six-Word Stories

SIX-WORD STORIES

Youth

Winter IssueFALL CONTEST WINNERSFirst Place

Second Place

Winter IssueFALL CONTEST WINNERSFirst Place

The Elephant Box

Second Place

Budapest 1984

N30B WINNERSFirst Place

Second Place

Third Place

N30B WINNERSFirst Place

We Spoke of Death and Other Poems

Second Place

The First People on Mars and Other Poems

Third Place

Bodily Assumption and Other Poems

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

A Small Blip on an Eternal Timeline

FICTION

The Rage of the Squat King

FICTION

The End of Life

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

You Can’t Keep Going Like This

FICTION

Naming

FICTION

Old Lovegood Girls

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

FICTION

Butterfly

FICTION

Off to Zamboanga

FICTION

End of Story

NONFICTION

NARRATIVE 10

iSTORIES

NONFICTION

Hoopster

NARRATIVE 10

Ten Questions

iSTORIES

Donahue’s

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Marking the Swans and Other Poems

POETRY

Miracle of Lights / Ode to MyImperfect Love

POETRY

From Deluge

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Sleep Apnea

POETRY

Snapshot of My Natural Father and Other Poems

POETRY

Jakob Poem 4

POETRY

POETRY

POETRY

Winter Issue

FALL CONTEST WINNERS

First Place

Winter Issue

FALL CONTEST WINNERS

First Place

N30B WINNERS

First Place

N30B WINNERS

First Place

The First People
on Mars and
Other Poems

Miracle of Lights / Ode to My
Imperfect Love

The Leaf in
My Pocket and
Other Poems

from “The Last Bohemian of
Avenue A”

GO BEYOND
THE MFA

GO BEYOND
THE MFA