Jill Christman Here is the so-called dead grandmother story the teacher told us not to write. Everybody has one. Once upon a time there was a shy, bookish, bespectacled girl with a larger...
Brian Doyle Thanks for your submission to the magazine. I’m honored that you thought to give us the chance to read it. It doesn’t quite fit here, though, thus this note, to say, as gently...
Anna Potter 1. At sixteen years old, I have “never been kissed,” a phrase I find politically and personally loathsome. I am six feet tall, capable of biking eighty miles a...
Ira Sukrungruang My father had a porno collection. Because I was alone most of the night—my parents worked the night shift—I was in the habit of snooping through their desks and drawers....
Anne Panning —from my mother: her measuring tape, golden and waxy, spiraled from storage in her sewing basket. It’s a gangly ten-footer, built for quilts and bridal veils; I wear it like a...
The word “benign” has several meanings. It can mean kindly or harmless. Or gentle – which is nice. I thought it also meant “sitting around doing nothing,” but this incorrect.
If you are...
Gail Griffin 1. Some memories seem to rise on their own from nowhere, faces slowly appearing in deep water. This is how Gloria came back. One day in my middle age, I remembered that I had had a...
Colleen Abel The word deviant. A lovely, leering word, its two keening e sounds and the snap shut of its final syllable. You would never guess this body harbors such linguistic loveliness....
Nikki Reklitis First Things First He will walk towards you in a sky-blue shirt and you will know it’s him. His eyes will be wide and deep and beautiful. You will walk together past Mooney’s Bay,...
Scott Larson … In the spring, the local farm supply store sells recently hatched baby chicks. Gallus gallus domesticus. They keep them in large rubber tubs, right in the middle of the shopping...
