Excerpt from Katey Schultz’s Novel Still Come Home
Blister in the Sun Chapter 2 from Still Come Home, a novel by Katey Schultz The call center on base is nothing more than a dented doublewide lined with makeshift cubicles and a few wobbly folding...
View ArticleExcerpt: Connor Coyne’s URBANTASM, BOOK TWO: THE EMPTY ROOM
The Empty Room By Connor Coyne I found Adam and Selby sitting on the rusted white metal chairs on the Demnescus’ front porch. It was a warm day, and blue – promises of summer – but choking on pollen....
View ArticleExcerpt From Cathy Ulrich’s GHOSTS OF YOU
Being the Murdered Indian By Cathy Ulrich The thing about being the murdered Indian is you set the plot in motion. You will be sunbleached bones and fabric strips, snag of hair on root-exposed tree....
View ArticleExcerpt: Margo Orlando Littell’s THE DISTANCE FROM FOUR POINTS
By Margo Orlando Littell At four the next afternoon, Robin drove to 1118 ½ to collect Anne Sackett’s delinquent rent. She was desperate. Anne was in violation of her lease, and Robin was in the legal...
View ArticleExcerpt: Timothy S. Miller’s CITY OF HATE
By Timothy S. Miller I know he’s dead because part of his skull is missing. I know he’s dead because the room smells like blood. I know he’s dead because a sudden sadness overwhelms me. I forget if...
View ArticleExcerpt: Chris Green’s AMERICAN GUN: A POEM BY 100 CHICAGOANS
Edited by Chris Green Man’s power has always been great, yet so has indifference. When halos head hollow bodies, it’s tragic, part of being human. (93-Michael O’Daniel) Indifference. Bullets fly that...
View ArticleExcerpt: Matt Fitzpatrick’s MATRIARCH GAME
By Matt Fitzpatrick “Dammit!!!” Michonne Reilly, for the second time tripped on a sky-reaching root and fell face-first into a three-inch deep slop of rancid swamp water. She was firmly resigned to the...
View ArticleExcerpt: Gwen Goodkin’s A PLACE REMOTE
By Gwen Goodkin Excerpt from “Just Les is Fine” After lunch with Naomi, I called Lynn and told her I was sick, to cancel all my appointments. “What’s wrong?” I heard the shock in her voice. Never in...
View ArticleExcerpt: Karin Cecile Davidson’s SYBELIA DRIVE
By Karin Cecile Davidson Girl – October 1967 Rainey paraded down on us the year my daddy left. It was the year when Daddy traded in our family car for the red-and-white VW bus, Mama took to watching...
View ArticleExcerpt: Tara Lynn Masih’s THE BITTER KIND
By Tara Lynn Masih Stela Stela returns home for a short visit at Easter. Her mother tells her on the phone that the Captain is delayed at a car auction in Montgomery. In her room, she plucks at her...
View ArticleExcerpt: Ellen Birkett Morris’ LOST GIRLS
By Ellen Birkett Morris Heavy Metal Laura’s body felt heavy. Heavy was the word her son Jason had used when he could no longer lift his head up or hold the controller to play video games. She sat by...
View ArticleExcerpt: Bob Campbell’s MOTOWN MAN
By Bob Campbell Beep. Jim rolled up quickly behind Bradley out of nowhere. The engineer turned to greet the skilled trades’ foreman just as the three-wheeled industrial-strength golf cart rolled to a...
View ArticleExcerpt: Ben Tanzer’s UPSTATE
By Ben Tanzer Things Start How does it start? With a bump and a thud, or maybe it’s a thud followed by a bump, not that the bump-thud order of things is truly important. How it starts though, that is...
View ArticleExcerpt: Elizabeth B. Splaine’s DEVIL’S GRACE
By Elizabeth B. Splaine prologue August 2018 The summer had been unusually dry, but last evening’s skies had opened and unleashed the wrath of God on the small Rhode Island peninsula known as...
View ArticleExcerpt: Christine Hume’s SATURATION PROJECT
By Christine Hume From “Atalanta: An Anatomy” A decade ago, a search party found her after three long, hot summer days in northern Iran: sixteen-months old, asleep in a bear’s den, shadows furring her...
View ArticleExcerpt: Marc Sheinbaum’s MEMORIES LIVE HERE
By Marc Sheinbaum PROLOGUE Josh Brodsky drove through the early morning mist, approaching the La Quinta Inn outside San Francisco International Airport. His brother Donny stood outside, gripping his...
View ArticleExcerpt: Darrin Doyle’s THE BIG BABY CRIME SPREE AND OTHER DELUSIONS
By Darrin Doyle I. The Pretty New Nurse From Pediatrics I’m standing behind my wife in the cafeteria line at St. Mary’s. Except she’s not my wife, not yet. Right now, she’s just the P.N.N.F.P. On her...
View ArticleExcerpt: Erica Buist’s THIS PARTY’S DEAD
By Erica Buist I’m teetering on the roof edge of a concrete tomb. The air is filled with the smells of sweat and rum, and I’m being jostled from all sides by excitable dancing men, hollering...
View ArticleExcerpt: Sara Davis’s THE SCAPEGOAT
By Sara Davis When Kirstie interrupted me I was in the break room. I had just sat down at the round, perpetually stained plastic table in the corner and was listening with satisfaction to the coffee...
View ArticleExcerpt: Lee Matthew Goldberg’s ORANGE CITY
By Lee Matthew Goldberg At six on the dot, the gloved cellular let out a piercing ring. A timer turned on, ticking down with each buzz. E wouldn’t have long to remain idle. The entire pod apartment...
View ArticleExcerpt: Sadie Hoagland’s STRANGE CHILDREN
By Sadie Hoagland Cadence When that first baby died inside me and I had to give birth to its rabbit corpse anyhow, I tell you it warn’t the only thing that died inside me. And I don’t mean I got...
View ArticleExcerpt: Spencer Fleury’s HOW I’M SPENDING MY AFTERLIFE
By Spencer Fleury Nicole Before we start, I think you should know that I am not the sort of person who opens up easily. This whole thing feels unnatural to me. So, yeah. Just putting that out there. As...
View ArticleExcerpt: D.W. Hogan’s UNBROKEN BONDS
By D.W. Hogan Mary watched at a distance as new girls arrived to fill the beds once occupied by her closest friends. She didn’t join in when they formed cliques and established their unique versions of...
View ArticleExcerpt: Erica Plouffe Lazure’s PROOF OF ME AND OTHER STORIES
From “Selvage” (originally published in the Greensboro Review, Spring 2010) By Erica Plouffe Lazure The back windshield of the ancient Charger would not break under Cass’s hammer, and all she wanted...
View ArticleExcerpt: Jessica Bell’s A TIDE SHOULD BE ABLE TO RISE DESPITE ITS MOON
By Jessica Bell A breath of earth hides in shallow water. A small boy disrupts its peace as he plucksit from its bed of black sand to use as askipping stone. It slips and glides across the bay—...
View ArticleExcerpt: Karin Cecile Davidson’s THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES
By Karin Cecile Davidson The Geography of First KissesCompass Points The first was Leon. A small, muscular boy. A midshipman at the academy. He knew about compasses, easterly winds, how to bring the...
View ArticleExcerpt: Jan Stinchcomb’s VERUSHKA
By Jan Stinchcomb Verushka was always different. Her mother, Elena, hoped her daughter would be just like her, a born midwife, but she was forced to accept that Verushka was another kind of being...
View ArticleExcerpt: M. Evelina Galang’s WHEN THE HIBISCUS FALLS: STORIES
By M. Evelina Galang When my twin and I turn sixty-five, the women in the city begin coming out of their houses. One at a time, we hear their stories. We hear them speaking on the radio. We hear them...
View ArticleExcerpt: Terry Tierney’s THE BRIDGE ON BEER RIVER
By Terry Tierney Make It Home Alive During my second beer the yelling begins upstairs. I try to block it out, but when I hear the loud smash of breaking glass and Donna crying, I stride toward my front...
View ArticleExcerpt: Jessica Jopp’s FROM THE LONGING ORCHARD
2 shares Facebook2 Twitter Email By Jessica Jopp From the first time the girls heard their parents mention the lunar eclipse it sounded like a majestic event. And based on the picture of a previous one...
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