From the Archives: “Mixed Blessings” by Stephen David Glover

My friend Kate makes fun of me because when we go to the grocery store together, which is often (since she has a car and I don’t), I’m always smelling things. I smell the marshmallows through the bag. I smell the circus peanuts and the maple nut goodies and the Necco wafers in the candy […]

Fiction: “No Man’s Land” by Nancy Ford Dugan

“I had a dream I was sitting in a car in a mini mall and my tooth fell out. Unusual for me, right? As a city gal to be in a car, much less a mini mall? I was holding the tooth cupped in my hand in my lap. Then somehow I spotted a dental […]

Fiction: “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” by S. Frederic Liss

April awoke to the hemming and hawing of an electric tooth brush whose battery was running low. The sound reminded her of the spinning top her daddy had given her for her third birthday, a top with airplanes which took off and landed as it jiggled along the pitted linoleum floor of their double wide. It had been […]

Fiction: One Glove by Stephen Delaney

1 She must have dropped it coming out: one of a pair of black satin gloves. She remembers holding them as she rose and clapped gingerly, glimpsing Dan’s frown, his glassy green eyes fixed in front of him, and thought crossly, he looks the perfect spectator—though what she’d meant she couldn’t quite say. Outside the […]

Fiction: “The Revolution” by Ling E. Teo

Tired of the male machismo and sexist attitudes, Ms Delacruz dresses differently. Today, Ms Delacruz wears a cowboy outfit, complete with bolo tie, a departure from her peach-colored dresses with floral prints. She stands up in front of us – one hundred and thirty middle school teachers – as the female Assistant Principal’s indispensable school […]

Fiction: “Good Neighbors” by Kristen Hamelin Tracey

Over breakfast, Jillian refused to go to the funeral. “It will be boring,” she said. Her brown hair was messily escaping from yesterday’s ponytail and dipped into her cereal. Colette allowed herself to be distracted long enough to minister to the errant hair with a bobby pin, grabbed from a basket of trinkets she kept […]

Fiction: “Weight” by Woody Skinner

It’s your birthday. You sit in your room finishing your homework and listening to music while you wait for him to come over. The television is on the Disney channel, but the volume is down. Your room is very small, and all of the furniture in it is made of wicker. You’re beginning to feel […]

Fiction: “These Are the Eyes of Norah Jones” by Phillip Gardner

Adam’s Rib was located near the office where we spent our days cursing the stock market and counting down the hours, where Robert, Peter, Wess and I no longer sold high-end real estate. Wess referred to the bar simply as “The Chain” although to my knowledge it belonged to no franchise. “Nooo,” Robert said—this was […]

Fiction: “The Disaster” by Amy Savage

Henry had put on a few pounds as he aged, but he maintained them intentionally, believing the fat storage would come in handy when The Disaster struck. He knew that soon, any moment, there could be a plague of pests, glacial flooding, and drought. He did his best in everyday life to prevent these things. […]

Fiction: “Somebody’s Boy” by Diane Lechleitner

It was a sweltering day. August hot. Carpenter bees hovered in the still air. Flags hung limp and field crickets chirped in the tall dry grass. The boy was farther from home than he should be, more than a mile away, tromping through an unmowed hayfield. A small black dog ran alongside him, tongue drooping […]