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Abandoned
Fiction by Zachary Kocanda I joined a lot of Facebook groups after Theresa got sick. Our daughter Katie helped me download the app on my phone. It took an hour, but I did it. First, I joined a group for spouses of cancer patients, then a group where folks chatted about growing up during the…
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The Nitty Gritty Interview with Dan Crawley
By Charlotte Hamrick Recently, I read Blur written by Dan Crawley and published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. One of the many things I loved about this collection of Flash Fiction is the strong character-driven narratives. Each character has a distinct voice and a distinct story to tell. Whether it’s a Micro of few words or…
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A Stranger Selling J-Cloths
Fiction by Susan Carey I dream of it often. Haynes Farm. The pebble-dashing on the outside walls of the farmhouse was done by a cowboy builder and after a few months the white layer cracked off in big chunks revealing the house’s bare skin. I imagined the house was embarrassed, like a woman opening the…
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Will Rusty Jump?
A review of Benjamin Drevlow’s The Book of Rusty by James P. Austin This seemingly straightforward question belies the complex meditation on unresolved grief, dead-end contexts, and toxic masculinity that animates Benjamin Drevlow’s novel, The Book of Rusty. The question, as asked, begs an answer: yes or no. As a matter of plotting, the question…
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The Pie Was a Final Draft: A House on Fire
By Michaella Thornton It’s a little after 8 p.m. and my cozy brick bungalow smells of my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. While we may not have much, I can always whip up a little bit of magic on a Friday night as my six-year-old daughter builds new worlds out of little plastic bricks…
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Learning to Swim
Fiction by Eamonn McKeon They had just arrived back at the apartment. Roy was relieved to be inside, away from the heat. Harry was straightening the dining table chairs and looking around the room. “One more time,” Roy said. “If it happens one more time, that will be it.” Harry did not appear to be…
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The Sixties at the Point of a Gun
A review of Library of America’s Crime Novels of the 1960s by Frank Vatel In 1997, the Library of America published Crime Novels, a two-volume anthology of noir fiction from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. It was a watershed for the nonprofit, whose backlist of reprinted authors—literary giants like Melville and Twain, statesmen like Jefferson…
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Imagining the Woman Known Only as Wife On this Eroded Tombstone in the Old Butler Cemetery off Route 194
Fiction by Janice Leadingham James E. McAnderson1887-1948Co. E. 7th Vol. Inf.Born in West Virginia and His WifeC___1900-1962 C___ spent her growing-up split between her grandmothers—Grandmama, a Baptist who lived in a white clapboard just past the General Store, and Mamaw, who told fortunes with the bones of a bad-luck-cat washed clean in a south-flowing-river to pay Popcorn…
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Flexing My Creative Muscles: Training to Failure
By Melissa Llanes Brownlee I have been doing my yearly ukulele challenge for the month of September, where I am playing ten Elvis songs, some new to me, some not, and posting my videos on the place formerly known as twitter and my ukulele Instagram. These videos are not me showcasing my best. It’s just…