By Joanna Laufer Ten days after my mother’s surgery, she asked me to look at her body without a breast. As the doctor removed the gauze dressing and Steri-Strips, the nurse held up a hand mirror by the stem. I was twenty-three. I stood beside her, leaning against blue crinkled paper on the exam table, squinting at the mirror like it…
Something that’s weird about me is that I have oven mitts for hands. Not actual oven mitts; that’s just what one of my old foster parents called them. He said it meant I was going to grow a lot in a few years. It never really mattered much to me, except for it looking kind of funny with the rest…
You Ask Me Where It Comes From It comes from anywhere and everywhere. It’s the irritant that starts the nacre’s flow within the shell, the thing that captures your attention and won’t let go. Somewhere in the back of your brain as you go about common duties: washing dishes, folding laundry, it begins to form until you pry your mind open with a…
Photo by Kevin Jay Photography Pajama Dolls They weren’t just any dolls, these gifts from our grandparents, but, an aunt said, special ones, with skirts you could unzip to reveal secret compartments for storing pajamas. My cousin Melinda’s was pink, mine blue, vastly unfair, since my room was pink and hers was blue but our aunt said it would…
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…
By Sara Marchant In Suleikha Snyder’s Big Bad Wolf, the world is full of strangers and strangeness, but it is recognizably our world. “Different,” she tells us, “unequal, but same.” The novel is set in the Divided States of America after the Darkest Day of 2016, where Sanctuary Cities are more than lip service and operate to protect the rights…
By Kathryn E. McGee I had the privilege of meeting Lisa Quigley and Mackenzie Kiera while studying with them in the UC Riverside Palm Desert MFA Program about seven years ago. We were beginning our careers by working on horror and dark fiction projects, and I remember how remarkable it felt to suddenly know these amazing women who were trying…
In this episode, we asked our reviewers—readers from various marginalized communities—to write about any book by any marginalized author that has stayed with them in some way. Their choices spanned the globe and reached deep into what it means to be human. Ranging from nonfiction to thrillers, these four books take readers around the world and to different time periods,…