I have been plucking my name apart, rearranging and redesigning my signature, since I was in middle school. I had a dream of becoming a fashion designer, convinced that everyone would soon know of the some-day-renowned “House of García.” At the time, I loved the sound of my own last…
Hey, writers: get a life! By: Sten Spinella
Surrounded by timeless books and long-dead people, I feel as if I’m not alive. Knowledge has been passed to me through the letters from Birmingham’s jail, the empirical questioning of ancient philosophers, and the jumbled proverbs of Sancho Panza. I have acquired only a modicum of knowledge about the world…
Ocean Vuong and the Body as Poetry By: Nicholas DiBenedetto
The audience will enter Night Sky through way of a keyhole
Invagination by Daniel Arpie (2016)
“I would wake and then begin again, They would wake and then again begin.” * * * I know a Person who works at one of the McMahill genetic testing clinics in the Pacific Northwest. McMahill’s marketing has recently become very diffuse and not totally unhip: the new Senior…
An Important Distinction by Sten Spinella (2016)
This piece won third place in the Jennie Hackman Memorial Award for Short Fiction. When mom named me “Elan” she said it was to set me apart from the other boys. I’m certainly apart from the other boys, in that the other boys went to college, or the other boys…
Tiny by Emma Capron (2016)
She hears Jamie rustle in the bed beside her. He is deep within the throes of peaceful slumber, his breathing deep and regular. Tonight is the first night in months in which the gentle rise and fall of his chest has not lulled her into darkness, into the escape of…
Four Rules for Professional Thievery by Tyler Valzania (2016)
“Okay this first rule is the most important of all so listen up,” he said as he transferred a grease-stained wrench from his hands to mine. “The world is not fair, that’s a fact of life alright? So don’t get all high and mighty and act like it should be….
They Didn’t Mean To by Carleton Whaley (2016)
The Old Man had a perpetual hunch to his shoulders, which was only accentuated as he chuckled at the cat sitting across from him. His shoulders rose and fell quickly, and at their height they nearly touched his bat-like ears, the same ears that the cat would swat at late…
Invisible by Máiréad Loschi (2016)
I don’t know all the technical jargon and stuff, but I can tell you what happened to me. I guess if you need to know all those medical details it’s in the chart. I mean you guys can read those charts, right? Maybe those regular doctors don’t put down the…
C. Buddingh’ – “The Hyena” – Translated from the Dutch By Matthew Ryan Shelton (2016)
Empirical Science has often shown a reputation up: the old Egyptians held him in high esteem, and Pliny held that the stone he carried in his eye, the hyena, laid under the tongue, would grant him sight, into the future. Alas, all he carries in his eye is a cockeyed…
