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Water Viper
Creative Nonfiction by Kaitlyn Crow Tromping around together in the creek, Granddad told me stories about cottonmouths and water moccasins. Twice a year, he drove in from Ravenswood with something new – retellings of “The Seven Wives of Blue Beard;” news clippings featuring bears eating out of suburban trashcans – but snakes came up every…
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The Screech Owl
Fiction by Chris McGinley 1901, Black Boar Mountain, Eastern Kentucky Lydia stood under the old oak tree, close enough to see the vibration in the breast of the screech owl that sat in a hollow up the trunk. She tried to predict the timing of the bird’s eerie call, to sing out just as the…
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Coke Bottle / A Burro’s Tale / Fried
A Small Town Triptych Creative Nonfiction by Charlotte Hamrick Coke Bottle One day Mamma walked in my room and said A body could balance a coke bottle on your butt. She didn’t say if that was good or bad and I didn’t ask. I remember this because Mamma didn’t talk to me directly too much.…
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Vultures Are Everywhere
Fiction by Dave Gregory Lucas relaxes on his front porch, reading, and is jarred by a sudden pulse and buzz from his phone. An Amber Alert glows on his screen. Every working cellphone, across the province, simultaneously receives the same urgent text message. Twelve million people read together: an eight-year-old boy is missing. The suspect…
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Imaginary Deaths
Creative Nonfiction by Stephanie Parent Here is what I remember: The little orphan Heidi separated from her grandfather in Heidi, the Shirley Temple version. I watched the movie one morning before preschool, and then refused to go. My mother let me stay home. Littlefoot’s mother, victim of both a Tyrannosaurus rex and an earthquake in…
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Deer
Fiction by Nick Gardner Lissa hit her hash pen and curved the county roads through mid-Ohio, hoping to forget about the grad school apps Tom had left tabbed up on his MacBook like he wanted her to find them, mouse hovering over submit. He was applying for Gender Studies in places like Tallahassee, Baton Rouge,…
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Porcellanidae
Fiction by Mandira Pattnaik In our parts, the crab-girls wear skirts a little above their knees, twist their arms to look like unfurled bright petals. They glaze porcelain bodies to resemble a trap, a floret blooming. In times such as ours, the crab-girls lie to their mothers, use swear words, race their cycles with boys…
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Through the Trees, On a River
Fiction by Scott Gates His mama had told him it was too hot to be outside after ten, to come on inside, but the heat didn’t bother him. He had nice spot on a little rise near the pond, and he watched the still water from between two of the five trees on their property.…