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Closing Time (inspired by a Semisonic song we aren’t quoting for copyright reasons)
By Stuart Phillips Editor’s note: It’s been 5 years and just over a week since I published the first story here at Reckon, “Country Roads” by Stuart Phillips, so it feels particularly fitting that Stuart is sharing his thoughts with us this week. Back then I wasn’t sure that anyone wanted to read stories about…
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WE’RE IN AN EMERGENCY | Fiction by E.A. Aymar
The murders quieted the town of Cromwell, Virginia, turned the storefronts into blank faces, the streets into empty, dreamless nights. Cromwell was typically a tourist destination this time of year, the weeks before Christmas. The town’s main street had been decorated to look like a holiday village, garland wrapped around streetlights, a group of carolers…
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TCHOUTACABOUFFA (LIFE ON A RIVER) | Fiction by Amelia Franz
Ashley gazed through the sliding glass doors, over the deck and back yard sloping down to the river. The Tchoutacabouffa was flooding from all the rain. Soon, it would lap at the cedar fence pickets, creep up the walls of the Little Tykes playhouse, with its bright blue roof and shutters. Until she heard him…
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ARTFUL ACADEMICS: The Bees’ Needs
By Brandy Renee McCann Have you closely watched bees working summer flowers? In my backyard, tiny, fragrant goldenrod flowers unfold in clusters along arched stems, swaying and bending amongst tall burgundy-tinged mugwort and a rainbow of zinnias. Pollinators—little bees, big bees, and butterflies of all kinds—blossom hop amongst the golden florets, sometimes pausing to nap,…
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THE FIRST TRAIN OUT | Creative Nonfiction by Cindy Sams
A girl rides west toward a new stepfather, a yellow bedroom, and a life she hadn’t asked for. June 1972 The train pulled out of the station in New Orleans at dawn and headed west over Lake Pontchartrain on a long stretch of track that led to Benson, Arizona. Our new home. At least for…
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THE NITTY GRITTY INTERVIEW WITH RONITA CHATTOPADHYAY
by Charlotte Hamrick Ronita Chattopadhyay’s micro chapbook, Preparing to be Wrecked, is one of five micro chapbooks in the collection Grieving Hope, edited by Diane Gottlieb for ELJ Editions, 2025. The eight pieces in Ronita’s collection explore feelings of grief and confusion as a young girl at the death of a dear friend, her first…
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I THINK I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE | Creative Nonfiction by Katrina Ralbag
It was 98 degrees with 90% humidity, and my thighs were sweating through a beige knee-length pencil skirt. He had to choose yesterday to kill himself, in the middle of summer, during a pandemic. It felt like a final fuck you. One last gag from a man who’d always had a dark sense of timing.…
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MUSINGS FROM NATURE: Learning to Breathe | by Susan Schirl Smith
The woods have a unique quiet. A silence, almost, but for the sounds of the whispering leaves as the wind caresses their surfaces. An occasional birdsong creates melody with the sounds of the breeze. My feet crunching softly on the dirt path are rhythmic, patterned, meditative. The light— chiaroscuro, a fractal sun dancing on leaves…
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RESURRECTION DRIVE | Fiction by Abigail Myers
Brother Hank called yesterday and said, Brother John, I know it’s not a good time, I sure am sorry to bother you, it’s just that I figured you probably still had the keys from Christmas and you got that big truck, and I said, No, I know, it’s fine, I’ll bring ‘em by tomorrow. He…
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UNEARTHING OUR ANCESTORS: An Interview with Jeremy B. Jones | by Jessica Cory
Jeremy B. Jones’ most recent work Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries will come out in September 2025 with Blair Publishers. Cipher follows Jeremy’s fourth great-grandfather’s encoded writings while simultaneously grappling with the author’s own role in his family, particularly as a parent. This book offers a raw, honest look at the role of…