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 […]

Fiction: “How We Play It” by Shelley Stack

We are in a small room in the attic of the church. Most of the time it is used for Bible study, but once a week it’s where the support group meets. We talk, we compare symptoms, we complain about drug reactions, we cry. Like each one of us at this meeting, Sandy has a […]

Fiction: “When We Are Gone the Light Is Alone” by Michael McCanne

The women departing slip of their chemises of light All of a single sudden not a soul remains When we are gone the light is alone Paul Eluard Predawn. In the city, a factory burned. Luisa paused, her brush frozen in the air, touching her lashes. The transportation workers are out […]

Fiction: “Grace” by Jason M. Jones

Then turning to the spirit once again, I said: “Francesca, what you suffer here melts me to tears of pity and pain. But tell me: in the time of your sweetest sighs by what appearances found love the way to lure you to his perilous paradise?” –The Inferno, Dante, Canto V, Circle Two I. Francesca […]

Sneak Preview: “Against Elegy” by Adam Tavel

We know you’ve been waiting, and soon your patience be rewarded: The Winter 2011 issue is off to the printers and will be available very, very shortly! Watch out in the next couple of days for the release of the PDF on this website. In the meantime, enjoy a sneak preview from the issue, the […]

Fiction: “I Thought I Was Going to Die” by Raphaela Weissman

i. In The Elevator I heard a rumbling. I thought the other guy heard it too, the old man with the shopping bag, wearing a sweater vest and a hat that used to have some kind of special name when he was younger, before my time— fisherman’s cap. No, sandcatcher. Something like that. It was […]

Fiction: “The Dead Men in the Bushes” by Lisa Burdige

There are dead men in the bushes, she thinks, right by where I walk the dog. Dead rich men killed by goblin boys. Thin, wiry boys, strung out on greed and miscellaneous wanga. Breath burned by that crazy smoke. Lips, cracked and dry, marked with tender pipe sores. Smelling a sweet, plumy scent like a […]

Fiction: “May the Road Rise Up to Meet You”

I sent my guinea pigs ahead of me with the friend of a friend. He was going to Portland and came to pick them up on Friday afternoon in a corroded green station wagon that was missing a fender. There was barely enough room in the trunk, on account of the mountains of old books, […]