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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,…
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THE POWER OF WHAT’S LEFT UNSAID | a review by Francois Bereaud
A Review of Maud Lavin’s SILENCES, OHIO As a person who has lived on both coasts but never in the “fly over states” (which I imagine to be pejorative to those to who live there), I came to Maud Lavin’s chapbook, SILENCES, OHIO from Cowboy Jamboree Press, interested in learning more about a large swath…
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THE THINGS I ALWAYS DO | Fiction by Benjamin Porter
I clean Grandpa before I clean the rooms. This makes it easier—to get it out of the way. Maybe it means I hate him, or I’m just chicken shit. Either way it has to be done quick, like setting a joint in one pull. Saw that once back in high school at a match where…