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Fiction

The Golden Hour

by Erica Ruppert

Author spotlight

Thomas woke alone, and opened his sticky eyes to the dusty golden light filling the bedroom. He expected to see Benjamin in the other bed, beside him, as if they were still children together. The bed was filled with familiar shadows, but Benjamin wasn’t there. Instead, among their discarded toys, he found another boy’s body, again. His memory stuttered, caught on faces and places and angles of light, aromas and flavors that had long since faded to dust.

In Mar. 2022 (Issue 114)

Poetry

Nineveh

by Belicia Rhea

I wrote this poem in response to a distant loss, but as with all complex loss, the aftershocks linger. I wanted to explore the imagery and symbols of memory, how reminders live inside fleeting moments, small objects, or arrive with a snarl as bigger beasts—and even after years, there are these reverberations, quiet hauntings, a sort of ebb and flow of recollection.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

In the Walls and Beneath the Fridge

by Jonathan L. Howard

Author spotlight

It was the unexpectedness of the scream that pulled him to his feet from a sofa slouch before the television, that sent him in a run the short way to the kitchen. Jess’s soft padding steps the same path a few seconds before, unconcerned, slippered, still sounded in his memory. Get me a packet of crisps whilst you’re in there, love, will you? The snap of the light switch. The clicking of the old school fluorescent tube coming to life.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

Fenworth City Municipal Watersheds Field Survey

by A.L. Goldfuss

During the lonely summer of 2020, I went on a long bike ride and saw a pair of egrets in a marsh; at the time, it was a beautiful and comforting sight. That evening, I watched trail cam footage of California wildfires blazing through a forest. This story knitted itself together quickly.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

The Summer Castle

by Ray Nayler

Author spotlight

I have spent my life trying to understand what the thing called memory is. I know some of what it is not. It is not the opposite of forgetting. And it is not a record of what happened. How many summers did we spend at the castle? Five? Seven? We did not go there every summer, though now it seems impossible childhood summers could have existed without the castle.

In Feb. 2022 (Issue 113)

Fiction

New Meat(™)

by Jordan Shiveley

“New Meat” was inspired by my fascination with mouths and the act of devouring both in the feral nature of it and the cultural taboo of being seen to do it or at least to revel in doing it. Can the envie de manger for something you haven’t ever eaten in the first place be communicated like a fever? Can the idea of eating something, the phantom mouthwatering of seeing a meal or being told of it consume you?

In Jan. 2022 (Issue 112)

Fiction

The Elements of Her Self

by Kiyomi Appleton Gaines

Author spotlight

She remembered the scent of rain and bamboo. The squish of her shoes in the soft loam as she followed her father through the forest. He with his axe over one shoulder, and she carrying a lunch her mother had packed for them. She had always thought him a giant of a man, so powerful and strong. But she remembered following along behind him and noticing the delicate curve of his back.

In Jan. 2022 (Issue 112)

Poetry

if the ghosts haunt you, bind them in ink

by Susan Calvillo

I first began writing these journal entries to hide a secret inside of them. Jadeera, a character in my novel Within Sight, was confronted with this unsolvable mystery. Giant sea monsters started washing ashore with strange markings on their bellies—some dead, others half-dead and furious, wreaking havoc on her village. I created an artifact, the leather-bound leaflet in which these entries are penned.

In Jan. 2022 (Issue 112)

Fiction

Dick Pig

by Ian Muneshwar

Author spotlight

Ass o’clock in the morning and it’s black out. Black black, the kind of black you only get in these miserable, middle-of-nowhere places. No, “middle-of-nowhere” is too generous; this is past that, right at the line where nowhere becomes miles of uncharted forest thick with months of snow and screaming with wolves and whatever other ungodly feral things make noise when everything decent in the world is asleep.

In Jan. 2022 (Issue 112)

Poetry

When the Wraith Smiles

by Ali Trotta

My friend, artist John Gallagher, posted a collection of art pieces on social media. And I saw one that had two figures in shrouds, with smoke swirling around them, in a desolate place. It was such a mood—albeit one of predation and despair—and I immediately exclaimed I needed to write something inspired by that. So, I did.

In Dec. 2021 (Issue 111)

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