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

STORY OF THE WEEK

Ladies’ Mechs

By Kris Herndon

The next day I woke to a world turned upside down. It’s a small town; word had got around. My friends no longer knew how to behave around me.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Walking Down into Cebolla Canyon

By John Balaban

This vast rubble offers its one blessing: everything it says is true—parched mesa, willow water, fox skull, circling raven.

WINTER STORY CONTEST

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

Please see the Guidelines.

Narrative Firsts

By Various Authors

Publishing first-time authors, and introducing their work to readers across the globe, is one of our greatest pleasures. Enjoy some of the authors whose first works have appeared in Narrative.

NONFICTION

POETRY

NONFICTION

Tilting at Windmills

By Dean Rader

There was a structure off on its own that I would pass from a distance. I could not see it well, but from what I could tell, it was the ugliest sculpture in the history of art.

POETRY

Hard-Boiled Mystery

By David Grubin

This father who found pleasure in hardboiled dicks, half-clad dames, and misogynist jokes, which my mother shrugged off because she was the boss and he knew it.

OUTLOUD

CARTOONS

OUTLOUD

Mooncakes

By Helen Gu

What’s forbidden packed onto her tongue like lotus paste: a body waiting for the darling blade, the washed-down moonlight gnawing at her stomach.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2026-02

By Various Artists

A fresh batch of hilarity by Kendra Allenby, Pat Byrnes, Anika Orrock, P. C. Vey and Teresa Burns Parkhurst.

LEARN!

Best Advice

By Anthony Marra

Our lives are often shaped by small, seemingly trivial choices, and the advice that guides those choices can come to us just as fortuitously.

Letters to a Young Writer

By Julianna Baggott

I can only truly devote myself to the relationship I have with the page, with my characters. My success or failure there—that is mine. That I own.

MORE NARRATIVE

RECENT AWARDS

MORE NARRATIVE

The Poetics of Place

By Various Authors

Places we have been can evoke rich memories—of a loved one, a period of pain or learning, a whole lifetime. In these poems, the writers evoke the connection between place and heart.

RECENT AWARDS

Read the works of some of the remarkable Narrative poets and writers whose recent works have received notable distinctions.