by Morgan Shaver Endless days float past, each one blurring into the other. I cannot remember the day when I was displayed on the high shelf above the produce. Nor can I say with any certainty how long I’ve been up here. Flanking me are similar creatures, though none of…
by Laura Schulkind Two towns in the California desert, settled by those who settle deserts. Those with nothing left to lose. Those with everything to lose. Squeezing hope from stone. Digging, digging to the source of dreams. In one, growers imagined palm fronds whispering at night. Traveled to Arabia for…
by Michael C. Keith Everybody is dealt a hand of cards. It’s the way you choose to play them that matters. …
by Marilee Robin Burton I trekked to Glendale to retrieve a copy of Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips, an intense and dark writer. The book was a collection of stories I’d been wanting to read and had even ordered from Amazon but was too anxious to await the money-saving secondhand…
by Saramanda Swigart Julia used poison the first time. She’d been married to the senator for almost six years. There was a scandal involving a minor tribute, and even though it was easy to cover up, the senator’s reputation suffered. They had a child, but he died. After that, bitterness…
by Cathy Krizik Keandra placed her napkin in her lap. “Can we pray?” Oh shit. Lunch was supposed to be soup and salad. Not this. I clenched my teeth and dropped my knife, the clang reverberating like a spade hitting rock. Here? Now? Really? “Pray—right. Yes, of course.” Keandra and…
by Elizabeth Ivey I didn’t always know what I was, but I knew I was different. It was as though I had simply sprung into existence, sprouting from the gritty front steps of St. Agnes’s. The matron found me pounding on the dense oak door in the driving rain, drenched…
by Allyson Lewis How do I start again? That’s the question I kept asking myself. I had written a book, and like many others, my family and friends loved it. Toward completion of the book, I had readers begging me for the next chapter. Frankly, it was a five-year process,…
by Doris Ferleger Your bent elbow juts out. It is stiff and light and feels easily crushable against my hip as I walk around you. My body jerks away. I circle you at a distance of eighteen inches plus eighteen inches, the distance of each of our auras. Though maybe…
by Teresa Burns Murphy As Tom Langston drove up the street where he lived in the suburban neighborhood of Kennerly, Arkansas known as Hawk Hills, he saw his recliner sitting on the curb in front of his house. He pulled his car into the driveway, jerked the gearshift into park,…