Beth Couture/Fiction
You don’t know why you’re doing it. You don’t know why your voice is so hard, why your legs have stopped shaking and your belly is warm now, why you feel like you could do anything and get away with...
View ArticleRosebud Ben-Oni/Fiction
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. As the Twig Is Bent By Rosebud Ben-Oni I might be some old fool selling quick breads on this side of Playa Muiramar next to the other fool selling sweet...
View ArticleHermine Pinson/Fiction
The Cat and Mouse and the Shoe By Hermine Pinson By the time the woman came upon the scene, the cat was perched on its silky haunches and eyeing the mouse, as if the two of them were the only ones in...
View ArticleAlison Meyers / Fiction
It was, she surmised, this single-minded dedication to their own pleasure — loud conversations on which she was forced to eavesdrop and their obliviousness to closing time — that prevented her from...
View ArticleC. Goodison/Fiction
Quick-as-flash I pressed on Millie’s shoulder and pushed her to the ground. We squatted on the floor, me holding my breath. Then the doorbell started ringing. We knew it was Anna Tenin, and we knew it...
View ArticleEric Schafer/Fiction
So Hoa was admired and respected, but not loved. She had, it was reasoned, a great mind and a beautiful face, but a cold heart. Her classmates said, “Poor girl. She has everything but she does not know...
View ArticleRachel Guido deVries/Fiction
My father did not like nuns, or priests either, for that matter, and neither of my parents went to mass, though they made me and Bernadette go every Sunday. When I heard Pop say, “Whadda they think,...
View ArticleThaddeus Rutkowski/Fiction
I had one teacher — a Spanish teacher — who was a perv. He would notice any girl who wore a miniskirt. The school had a dress code — one of the rules was that the hem of a skirt had to touch the floor...
View ArticleCompetition: Best speculative fiction story by person of color: $1000.00...
I conceived of the contest as a way to bring attention to both an under-served genre of writing (serious, artistic speculative fiction) and an under-served population of writers related to that genre:...
View ArticleKevin Carey/Fiction
He punches numbers on the cell phone singing to himself, “Viva Las Vegas,” taps the table, waiting. “Yo, it’s Carmen. One-nine, one- nine, twenty times,” he says to some guy on the other end of the...
View ArticleAlex Straaik/Fiction
“Everyone is afraid of God,” she told me. My grandmother was constantly making statements like this, and even now, after over a decade of my absolute atheism, she stills signs all of her cards “You’re...
View ArticleJoel James Davis/Fiction
Back at home, the air in the house feels like the sound a car makes when it won’t start, and everyone’s gone except Aunt Sophie and the three girls he has left behind. Not much has been said all day...
View ArticleCONTEST WINNER: The Chance
“Baby, I don’t need a lecture right now.” The over-head light was dim, but I put my arm over my eyes— my own signal that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It at least gives him a chance of...
View ArticlePaul West/Fiction
“You don’t need to worry, squire. They’ve nothing against Poles, why should they? But Poles that have Jews in tow… They sell better things than you in Kazimierz market. Why don’t you go and peddle your...
View ArticleFiction Contest/Runner Up
Just after Bambi turned four, some neighbor’s poor pit bull pup got loose and ended up in our backyard. The outer bands of a tropical storm had recently passed over our region and we’d been stir-crazy...
View ArticleJeanne Mackin/Author Interview
Plot and character can't, for me, be separated. They come from each other. The tricky part is not letting my own self seep unnecessarily into the characters. For instance, I have a quick temper. When...
View ArticleMaggie’s Wars/Phil Pisani
He looked at me and said, “Be careful.” Then he turned completely around as if he were doing a little jig and said, very faintly, “Trust your instincts.” He sat down at a round oak table and placed his...
View Article4 Good Books
"The United States should be ashamed to be outdone by a country like Iran. This is not to suggest that what Iranian has done is flawless. The Iranians should be more proactive about informed consent...
View ArticleJason Allen/Fiction
...she’ll leave you stunned and amazed and you’ll profess your love to her even though you’re still in a daze and she can cook and she likes dogs and even though she doesn’t know yet if she wants any...
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