By Ioannis Argiris I had the privilege of connecting with Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author Viet Thanh Nguyen to discuss his new literary spy thriller The Committed. In this sequel to The Sympathizer, the unnamed narrator travels to Paris, where he lives with his new handler—his aunt. Once a dedicated communist spy in America, the narrator is introduced to a…
By Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera Driving east on Interstate 10, I crank up the a/c. The sun peeks up over distant mountains, blinds me despite my designer sunglasses. Damn! It has been years since I trekked across this desert. Swore the last time I’d never do it again. I don’t remember much about last time. Just knew when I left, there…
Falling asleep in a room I don’t belong in—in a bed that’s not my own. All the melatonin in the world can’t help me slip into my dreams and away from watching the shadows of tree branches stretch across the room.
by Stacy Bierlein Outdoor education was a thing the parents liked. Kids should know how things grow, they said. Children want to take care of things, we agreed, to be individually responsible. If the cabbage actually survived we took it to a local food bank. This time, though, the rabbits got in. Was something wrong with the soil? a little…
“Imagine you are swimming in the ocean. Something brushes against your leg while you are treading water. It is most likely a piece of seaweed, but your heart stops because you know it’s a shark and suddenly the shore seems impossibly far away.”
Don’t Read the Comments is Eric Smith’s fifth young adult novel. Smith heavily integrates popular culture into his fiction, and this novel is no exception. The protagonist, Divya Sharma, is an eighteen-year old celebrity gamer known as “D1V” who supports herself and her mother through corporate sponsorships,
By Christina Rauh Fishburne Look at her go. See the ghost of sinew in those triceps and biceps as the creamy brown silk slides up to her shoulder in retreat. This gown was always her favorite. The one destined only for significant cocktail parties and evenings of general greatness. Observe her form. The strain of her graceful neck, the fluid…
By Vanessa Mancos At night, we must remove our mouths. We leave them in the mouth bucket on the front porch until dawn. The new law that dictates this was put into affect effect after the demonstrations. The demonstrations: ecstatic airing of our grievances, many small globs into one big one. They did not care for that. When the mouth…
By Gay Degani Sally was in Mrs. Lee’s fourth grade class at Marshall Elementary, the third school she’d attended in four years. Her father, a restless, impatient man, insisted she was old enough to walk the five-and-a-half blocks from their rented house to school: “What are you, chicken?” This was long before parents got arrested for letting their kids wander…
By Sarah Sheppeck Edward coughed as the 507 to Oak Ridge slowed to a stop in front of him. The bus shuddered as it struggled to break, belched thick gray exhaust toward the cars behind. He gestured to the woman standing beside him—an attempt to indicate that she should board first. She shook her head, put up her hand in…