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ARTFUL ACADEMICS | By Brandy Renee McCann
Somewhere In Time: Writing The Imagined Future In November, the planet Pluto entered the sign of Aquarius and it will remain in that sign until 2043. I don’t want to write about astrology, but given the chaos of the last month, it’s worth mentioning as a thought experiment. Pluto (think underworld) is known as the…
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THE NITTY GRITTY INTERVIEW WITH KRISTIN TENOR
By Charlotte Hamrick Kristen Tenor’s This is How They Mourn (Thirty West Publishing House) is a collection of flash and micro fiction that reads like memoir. The pieces are intimate, pulling the reader into stories of sacrifice, pain, regret but always with a foundation of love and discovery. I agree with the blurb on the…
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MY THOUGHTS AS I SIT PROCRASTINATING IN THIS OFFICE CHAIR ON A FEBRUARY AFTERNOON | Creative Nonfiction by Laila Amado
Dolphins dying in the Black Sea because the sonars of warships mess with their brains. Only a small percentage of deceased cetaceans wash up on the shores. The majority sink to the seabed, their lungs filled with water. Warfare as ecocide. Biomimicry. Micro drones becoming pollinators. The strange and quiet sadness of the world in…
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RAT SNAKE | Fiction by Anna Robertson
The three hard knocks pounded on the hollow metal door at seven AM. Only Beth’s brother knew that she had been held up in his camper, tucked away in the hay barn, and this morning she was pretty sure that even Justin wished he didn’t know that she was there. She opened the door to…
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SPECIAL INTERESTS | Fiction by Stanton McCaffery
We’re successful at what we do because of our special interests. Mine: revenge and murder. Also dinosaurs, but that doesn’t help with the murder so much. Some blood got on a book across the room. It’s an illustrated book about the tyrannosaurus. In most cases, if we get blood on something, I burn it or…
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MUSINGS FROM NATURE: Finding Our Voice
By Susan Schirl Smith Decades ago, I returned home from an evening out dancing at a student union pub. The door to my college dorm room was slightly ajar, unusual noises coming from inside. I expected to see my roommate there as I entered. But it was empty. Standing in the middle of the room,…
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NO TIME TO DIE | Creative Nonfiction by Brian Benson
I was walking into the latest James Bond movie, hands and arms full of popcorn and frozen Junior Mints and foamy beer, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I shuffled my snacks to my elbow pit, pulled out the phone and found a text from my aunt, asking if I’d talked to my mom.…
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A LITERARY JOYRIDE: EXPERIMENTAL FICTION MEETS MAGICAL REALISM | a review by Dawn Major
Review of Bradley Sides’s Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood In Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, a collection of seventeen magical realism stories by Bradley Sides, the author experiments with unconventional narrative structure, multiple points-of-view, and genre-fusing. Sides can break the rules because he knows the rules. The author avidly contributes author interviews and…
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LATECOMER | Fiction by Eileen Frankel Tomarchio
He slips in quiet as a silverfish, right after opening credits, a few seats over. No showy Whew! like the matinee is sold out, like it isn’t empty in here but for the usual few lunch-baggers and running commenters and dozing users in the balcony. The movie’s a dark one. A Place In the Sun.…
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OPERATIC HEART | Fiction by Jen Soong
My lover didn’t disappear all at once. On Friday, I walked home from work and she kissed me at the door, smelling like cardamom. The sky spilled lavender ink. “Look, my pinky finger is missing,” she said, holding up her right hand. Gone. No stub or trace. Her tone was full of anticipation. Her face,…