Leigh Claire Schmidli It’s not often the case, but we’re all hungry for dinner about the same time that night. Me and Anka, my landlady. Her fat-cat Bazo. We collide in the tiny kitchen, circling...
Jared Povanda When your sister married Charlie, you wanted to punch him. Do you remember the weight of my arms around your middle? That ficus in the huge terracotta pot scratching our faces? The hall...
Mohamed Morshed Mustafa emerged from the tunnel that led him out of the airplane and stepped into the airport. There were numerous lines of people facing glass booths; he joined the shortest line,...
Wendy BooydeGraaff Cracked Fake Leather Sit on the bar stool for the zillionth time, eating the spaghetti and meatless balls (tofu? seitan? you still can’t get it straight after three years) your...
Ellie Cheng They say they can’t find your son when you wake up. Edward, you try to say. Edward David Solomon when he’s running away from bathtime in his Spiderman undies, Eddie for...
Melissa Darcey Hall We meet on the first night. Sandy-eyed, thirsty, and half awake, I tip-toe to the kitchen, careful not to wake Wesley, and there she is, sitting at the kitchen table painting her...
Kenneth Jakubas I’m giving specific instructions in my will that I be buried with items from one year in my life. Being a nostalgic person, I chose the twentieth year. I wanted all of 2009 in...
Faith Shearin 2022 Spring Fiction Contest Winner During the months after her husband, Max, died, Jane adhered to a self-imposed schedule. She had gotten this idea from a widow she’d met in her...
Anna Sheffer 2022 Spring Fiction Contest Runner Up We remember confirmation camp on summer mornings when the air smells like woodsmoke. At camp that year, every night ended with a campfire, and every...
James Sullivan The tree still had most of his needles, and although Carly had been at first against our adopting him, something forlorn and shaggy in his expression convinced her, as it had me, and...