The pop star asks her father to do her a favor during their family’s annual ski trip. He does not understand what for or why, as she has previously never expressed much enthusiasm for his hobby of skiing but did enjoy drinking hot chocolate and making snow angels, but he lugs a tripod and his…

The tea witch knows that watched pots do, in fact, boil. She knows because she watches them now, all ten of them, full of nettle and barley and sugar cane. Plumes of steam rise and heat her face and pain her fingertips. She breathes in deeply and smells the rosemary and the spearmint and the…

After Personal Rorschach #2 & #3 She is kneeling on the beach. It is brisk and the wind nips at her dress, the hemmed ends snapping like the pedipalps of some insect. Next to her is a five gallon bucket, sitting askew in the wet sand. She thrusts her fingers into the small pebbled stones,…

We’re going to kidnap my mother. Tamara and I.  My mother would say, “Shell, don’t go getting your friends into trouble,” before turning back to watch the World Series of Poker, a deck spread out on the coffee table to play along with. Maybe the mutter of, “And don’t disturb me,” as she juggles her…

Mike Tyson gets into a horrible car crash in Las Vegas on his way to a buffet at the Bellagio. He wonders if this is karma for biting off Holyfield’s ear, even though he felt justified at the time. At the hospital, he’s told they need to amputate. Both arms clean off. Mike Tyson can’t…

These are excerpts from The Book of Jim, texts written in homage to the poet Ray González, my former poetry teacher at The University of Minnesota. I imagined both what would make Ray slightly smile or what might make him write a very large exclamation point on the page as a response to a prose…

People call to give us their cats because we are a shelter. People call to give us their cats because they are moving to Oregon. People call to give us their cats even though they are not the kind of people who give up their cats. People call to give us their cats because their…

At three in the morning, the redheaded skater from LA who lives in room 307 gets back from a party. He goes into the bathroom and wrinkles his nose; there’s the usual piss and Clorox smell but also the unmistakable waft of puke. Standing at the urinal, he thinks he hears something, a hitched breath,…

He knew it was her the moment he entered the park. She sat on a bench, her back straight and legs crossed, holding a knee with both hands. The park had once been a wealthy family’s private rock garden.

Something is killing people. We noticed them missing too late, pretending as if all our friends and coworkers had decided to visit their childhood homes, far off in foreign-sounding cities, but forgot to tell us they were leaving. Except no one’s on vacation. They’re gone. Our newly developed neighborhood is nearly empty now. Sometimes cars…

In these days between solstice and the new year we bring you a gathering of writers responding to the turn of seasons and time. Today we are pleased to share writing by Rachel M. Hollis, Bethany Bruno, Gabriella Navas, Caroline Clark, Vaughn M. Watson, Elodie Ashcroft, Gideon Leek, Kathryn Reese, Emil DeAndreis, Michael Hyde, and…

In these days between solstice and the new year we bring you a gathering of writers responding to the turn of seasons and time. Today we are pleased to share writing by Tom McAllister, Candice M. Kelsey, sid sibo, Kathleen Hellen, Philippa Bowe, Kathryn Edie, Chris Scott, Michael Colonnese, David Capps, and Sarah Starr Murphy.