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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…
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THE PREACHER MAN | Fiction by Kimberli McWhirter
It’s not much of a town. Not many would dispute my word on that. Hardly qualifies as a wide spot in the road. But it’s home. Got some good people, some bad ones, some sittin’ on the fence ones, depending on who’s watching. And it’s pretty enough, in the way things usually are, if you…
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RADIO SILENCE | Fiction by Holly Hilliard
When I heard the news about Jackson Cole, I couldn’t stop thinking about the summer I turned sixteen—the summer I got a job at Cole’s Resort. I wasn’t hired as a lifeguard since I never passed any sort of certification test, but on busy days, my boss would wink and send me out to the…
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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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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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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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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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The Community Cash Ghost: Fiction by Katy Goforth
Mama had parked the car a good while ago. We had been sitting here sealed up inside, marinating in the heat. I peeled my thighs off of the plastic seat cover. My sweat like glue making my skin feel as if it was left on the seat cover instead of my thigh. Mama’s Slim 100…
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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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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…