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Ghosts: Creative Nonfiction by Meredith McCarroll
Turning my rental car toward the lake, the road has been widened and the house where Amity grew up is nothing. A spot between roads. The gravel lot where I used to park is a condominium now, so I make my own spot in the grass. I prop my foot onto the tire to tighten…
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The Nitty Gritty Interview with Christy Tending
By Charlotte Hamrick Christy Tending’s High Priestess of the Apocalypse (ELJ Editions, 2024) is a unique collection of flash memoirs that weaves together threads of climate change, activism, parenting, personal reflection, trauma, grief, and healing. Christy freely opens her heart and invites the reader in as she shares her life experiences, the wonderful and the…
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A Woman of Childbearing Age: Fiction by Rebecca Long
You take off your boots and socks first. Then your jeans and sweater. Should you leave on your underwear and bra? It’s never clear. You fold your clothes neatly on the only chair in the room and put on the flimsy gown, open side in front, wrapping it tightly around your body. You wonder how…
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My Mother, My Father, My Pen
By Sacha Bissonnette I’m one of those writers who needs to nail down a title before moving forward with a piece. I know that there are many better writers out there who have left their masterpieces untitled until they’ve penned the last sentence. It’s a mental thing, a hang up thing, but without a title,…
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Destin: Fiction by Joe Kapitan
Ryan is always too far. Today he swims out past the second line of sandbars and breakers, fading from view, his head a black dot amidst the silver sunspots dancing on the waves. Ellie is different. Deliberate. Ellie’s pale skin flares red in the fierce June sun of northern Florida. The wrinkled, orange-haired woman who…
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Embracing the Absurd
A Review of Anna Dickson James’ Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch Me Fall Down By Alex Carrigan In her short story collection Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch Me Fall Down, Anna Dickson James brings together 18 stories that examine the mental, emotional, and social oddities of gender roles in the traditional and speculative…
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American Girl Doll: Fiction by Mary Thorson
“What American Girl Doll do you have?” She asks me, with her hands behind her back and her chest stuck out. Her hair is washed and perfect. Her dress is expensive even though it’s only for play. I want that dress. I want to cut that hair. I have the one with no money and…
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Fire to Tend To
I started writing because I wanted to cut out the pain that had been festering in my chest and put it on the table where all could see it clearly. I had just moved off to college and had left home for the first time in my life. My mother was struggling with opioid addiction,…
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The Nitty Gritty Interview with Elaine Chiew
By Charlotte Hamrick The Light Between Us, published by Neem Tree Press,is a work of speculative fiction that explores Singapore’s turbulent past through a supernatural connection between Wang Tian Wei, a 1920’s photographer, and Charlie Sze-Toh, a 21st century archivist. The story intrigued me from the first page and took me on an adventure through…