They said the house was built too close to the sea—that every tide tried to take it back. From the lane, it looked half-forgotten: roof bowed, shutters blind, its lone chimney still breathing salt into the air. When I arrived, the front gate was already open, as though it had been expecting me. The brass sign beside it read THE…
In silver, a flash: fish flesh, crystal blue. Scalpel. Tool gleam in blue glove, blue gown angel. A wolf in water, chest collapsing. The rind of a stomach pressed to glass, leering in. Sliced mouths on the hips, a cheshire lump removed from a woman at the body’s corner. A window in the long room’s milky skin. A glance taken…
I. The Job There was the sound. It’s always mistaken for something else—a backfiring car, Roman candles. When I hear gunfire, I think of those countries on television: crowds packing a two-tone bazaar, shawled women, kids waving at the camera. Somewhere, a machine gun rattles. A bomb goes off. No one flinches. But here in America, we want to hear…
Cloud shadow hangs low on brindled hills. The chill breeze clears a musty mind. Doors slam, birds trill, air conditioners buzz, the wind hums this daily choir. This town was not named in irony. A New River rises every rain. An editor, writer, and poet, Charles Grosel lives in Arizona. He has published stories in Western Humanities Review, Water-Stone, and…
Kylee Kyte (she/they) is a poet, playwright, and social worker based in San Diego who believes that creative expression is instrumental to mental health and social justice. Kylee’s work has previously won the “Outstanding Creative and Performing Arts Award” at San Diego State University. You can see more of her work @thekytewrytes on Instagram.
It began with the drapes. One day, while dusting the living room, Suzanne Spencer noticed a small thread escaping from the weave of the fabric. She pulled at it until it broke free. Instead of rolling it up between her thumb and finger, she took the thread, lifted it to her mouth, and swallowed it. Then, she continued the dusting,…
When my grandmother died, no one asked the house what it wanted. They asked about the bangles, about the land behind the well, about the teakwood trunk that smelled of camphor and mothballs. But the house— with its flaking pistachio paint and the hairline crack that ran from window to ceiling like a held breath— refused to divide. Every afternoon,…
A grocery store forty-five minutes west of Chicago seemed as good a spot as any to find a talent scout. I’d heard of kids getting discovered at shopping malls or even in the street, so why not me, and why not here? Even talent scouts had to shop for food. Any one of these people inspecting the bananas in the…
Sierra Hitchcock is a former dancer who traded her pointe shoes for a pen, continuing her love of the performing arts as a playwright and librettist. Her full-length plays include Ruckus Forum and Edgar Allan Poltergeist. With her father, Sierra has written the comedy, Way South of Eden, an original adaptation of A Christmas Carol (Weston Theater Company), as well as the book and additional lyrics…
Arthur M. Jolly (he/him) has the typical writer background–starting out as a stuntman, snake-wrangler and special effects artist, then quitting the film industry to become a helicopter pilot: instructing for the US Army at at Fort Rucker, and later flying Las Vegas tourists into the Grand Canyon. He now writes instead, recognized by the Academy with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Features…