It wasn’t that I was bad at teaching. All the qualities that had made me a terrible student in high school made me a great teacher now. I moved fast, I made a lot of jokes, and it was okay if I went off topic. (The only useful thing I learned in my teacher credential program was how to get…
We are the California kingsnakes of the Canary Islands. Perhaps you’ve heard the troubling reports. We proliferate out of control, our habitat is expanding, our “densities are through the roof.” The EU has banned our further import. But how did we end up here, unwitting invaders on a volcanic rock in the Atlantic, so far from the San Diego pet…
Before I could scoop the meager contents of the plate into one bite—a small pork chop, a spoonful of rice, lentejas, nothing more—a honk sounded out from the busy thoroughfare outside the house. My abuela perked her head up, discerning for the honk amid an endless line of traffic. Another honk. Then another. She sucked at her teeth and shuffled…
One day a king was visited by a beggar, seeking enough money to have food to eat. Now, ordinarily the king would have him beaten and thrown in jail or worse. But it so happened that the king had as a guest the king of a neighboring kingdom, and wished to appear generous before him. “Give this man five silver…
By Breen Nolan The characters in Kyle Seibel’s debut short story collection Hey You Assholes (CLASH, 2025) are the freaks and weirdos of the world. They’re the everyday people struggling to figure it out. They’re doing the best they can. Whether Seibel’s writing about a someone experiencing an existential crisis inside of a Taco Bell kitchen, a dying father’s pursuit of pork…
Interviewed by Jessica Ribera This month marks the paperback release of Abby Geni’s second short story collection, The Body Farm. In the collection, Geni has created a laboratory for studying humanity’s relationship to the risks and weaknesses—but also incredible powers—of our bodies. The characters grapple with common yet serious challenges, from physical and mental illness to abuses and lost love.…
By Breen Nolan Elizabeth Ellen’s dazzling and darkly funny novel, American Thighs, follows Tatum Grant, a former child actor who steals her daughter’s identity to start her life over as a high school cheerleader. Tatum’s troubled upbringing is the catalyst for her move from Hollywood to Elkhart, Indiana, a town with painful ties to Tatum’s past. Written in interview style,…
Reviewed by Eric Martin In his latest novel, Theft, Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah spins a tapestry of interwoven lives in Tanzania, where social mores both connect and divide. It’s a world defined by family—historic and impromptu, broken and reimagined. In this world, the lives of individuals are powerfully shaped by a family history that the individual has no power to control.…
By Dave Oei Rachel Howzell Hall is entering brand new territory with her latest novel. After writing a book series featuring Detective Elouise Norton and ten other standalone crime and mystery novels, the two-time Los Angeles Times Book Award winner has published her first foray into the genre of romantasy with her new novel, The Last One. It features Kai,…