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THE FRACTURED MIRROR: November Remembers
By EDWARD KARSHNER This was supposed to be a Halloween column about pumpkin spice, witches, and ghosts. Folklore teaches that life is unpredictable and we must learn to pivot when confronted by the unimaginable, like hurricanes in the mountains or a vile creature returning from the past “nursing a hard grievance” toward the drēam (Old…
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THINGS THAT ADD UP | Fiction by Elizabeth Murphy
Mama expected a boy, lo and behold got me, called me Paddy, short for Patrick. She was like that, determined to have things her way, not caring about the troubles she was inflicting on me. As if the name wasn’t trouble enough, she sent me to school at age four. I was the runtiest runt…
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HEALTHY HABITS: Move With a Purpose
By Valerie Peralta On my first day of acting class, the instructor asked my classmates and me – a hodgepodge of millennials and Gen-Xers – “What is acting?” After nodding to responses such as “a portrayal” and “a group of characters bringing a story to life,” Gail answered her own question: “Acting is action.” I…
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EVERYTHING IS JUST ABOUT THE SAME | Fiction by John Bovio
Amsterdam lights the shadow. That dark part of your soul. The winds off the North Sea cut to the bone. Can eat you alive. This city rages like a destructive and unpredictable fire. The people who come to Amsterdam and lack the good sense to leave usually are sent home. Sometimes breathing. After I killed…
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FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN | by John Brantingham
a review of Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s Little Ones Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s Little Ones explores the idea of outsider status in its both style and content. Reading this collection, I was confronted again and again by the concept of difference, feeling outside of the mainstream. LaJoie’s style, which is often non-narrative and often defies classification in…
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Buried Nitrogen: A Disquisition on Sticky Rosinweed
By Sandra K. Barnidge Recently, an English professor at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, invited me to Zoom into her “Writing for Money” class to talk about my unusual career. I’m a rare creature in this field, apparently, as someone who has written both corporate messages for large institutions and a genre-bending novel…
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MARKED | Creative Nonfiction by Summer Hammond
“Out of all the boys, Summer, he’s the one you set your heart on?” Sliding down her sunglasses, my mother eyed me in the rearview mirror as we left for Luke Michael’s graduation party, a blue paisley gift bag perched on my lap. What my mother was really saying was, listen kid, you don’t stand…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: The End
By Michaella Thornton A friend tells me it’s not uncommon for librarians to visit other libraries on their travels. I smile at the thought. Whenever I travel, I visit cemeteries. Dvořák’s tomb in Prague. Keats’ grave in Rome. Mother Jones’ monument in Mt. Olive, Illinois. Stonehenge. My profession isn’t one that necessitates an interest in…
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I GUESS I BETTER NOT | Fiction by Tom Andes
The instructions from the hospital and the nurse both had stressed that he wasn’t supposed to drive or operate heavy machinery after the procedure, but Hank knew the damn doctors just said stuff like that to cover their asses, which was how he happened to be driving his ex-wife’s Honda Accord up Gentilly Boulevard two…
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IT’S FUNNY IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT | By Rob. D. Smith
Sequential Art was my gateway into reading. And I loved to read. Nothing brought me more joy than exploring a fictional world that seemed more glorious than my own world. Comic books and comic strips just helped my already blossoming imagination with the art accompanying the words. Woeful Charlie Brown trying to get through childhood…