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We are in his car. “Bell, I’m starving. Want to go for a burger or pizza?” I panic. Pizza. 285 calories per slice. Burgers. Harder to estimate.

Tobias Wolff reading his story "Bullet in the Brain" and Helen Gu reads her poem "Mooncakes" aloud.

I was writing copy for cheapo furniture for a crummy ad agency.

She remembers that golden ocean, the promise of a whole new land.

I want to be bright scarves, soft rain, seabirds pecking at receipts.

You can go from one town square to another and never fall in love.

We need the opportunity to dance with really exquisite strangers.

“Even though we aren’t carrying out the deed, we are the most responsible.”

The girl marched directly up to me, glaring, and said, “You hit my dog.”

This body is all I have, I say. Some days it is still not enough.

You can learn to exhale. Let the marrow of dusk leak onto your knees. Tongues rattling, we are scared into daughters again & again. The act of silence: heavy as rain. Heavy enough to believe in.

How’s everything? It’s been forever! Things with me are pretty good.

Always know the creative life begins again and again.

Betrayal was written on my face, in my eyes, and I knew it.

The author reads her story, a finalist in the Winter 2013 Story Contest.

I will rehearse loss until I feel it coming. Until it’s real.

I returned to Vietnam with a tape recorder to collect ca dao.

You could not look at Leila for long, and yet you longed to look at her.

You could not look at Leila for long, and yet you longed to look at her.

Sonja slapped her sister. How could she shed tears for the past?

Narrative Prize and Pushcart winner Anthony Marra reads “Chechnya.”

We are teachers so maybe we can help something change, tap into something.

An in-depth audio interview with Ann Beattie on her writing.

Frank Conroy

Geoffrey Wolff