Hello NF Readers. Thank you for having me this month as writer-in-residence. I’m very excited to bring you a month of translation-related writing, including fiction, essays, and both traditional and non-traditional translations. I begin today, by way of introduction, with an essay… +++ Unlikely spaces Most people will agree that the best apprenticeship for writing…

in response to xTx’s

in response to “Such a Pretty Little Picture” by Dorothy Parker “Such a pretty little picture!” an old woman called out to us last Sunday afternoon. She never broke stride of her jog-walk, and before I realized what she meant and could reply, the swish of her nylon pants were beyond us. It wasn’t the…

in response to “Night Out” by John Ehrhardt Most people don’t know what they want: I want to be introduced. There was a time when I thought I was going to college. Then I went to community college and thought I would transfer to a four-year program. Then I thought about getting my associate’s degree.…

in response to a nanofiction by Martha Williams Pretty soon the whole room was nodding and, from then on, no one looked her in the eye. She drew landscapes borrowed from her childhood until the voices in the court receded and she was a girl on her family’s ranch outside of Buffalo, Wyoming. They were…

in response to “The Beard” by Kevin Spaide I put it off for another couple of weeks. But when I looked the woman was still on the roof. I slowly lifted the window, careful to make no noise. Her body covered in a white shawl that wrapped up and around her head, wisps of white…

in response to “Fizzle #6” by Samuel Beckett A Flicker Against the Blue No but now, now, simply stay still, standing before a window, one hand on the wall, the other clutching your shirt, and see the sky, a long gaze, but no, gasps and spasms, a childhood sea, other skies, another body. Flickered along…

in response to Monday—Sunday by Colin Winnette Friday was Saturday before we knew it, and Sunday meant a big breakfast, which we ate as we always ate. Chocolate chip and blackberry smattered pancakes, thin maple syrup dripping on the leaf-patterned tablecloth. Father never at the head of the table, always between us, elbows to our…

in response to “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor “Some can’t be that simple,” she said. “I never could.” Girl’s name was Treble, Treble Ann Joiner, and as of one week ago today, she was twenty-three years old, but now sat talking to her mother’s pet, would-be boyfriend, Mister loved-Treble-so-much Ray Adams, who had been…

in response to “Waste Extraction” by AD Jameson The robot is glad to hug back. The robot is glad to listen for hours, and never say a word. The robot is glad to talk for hours, too, but the robot is glad to take turns. The robot is glad to cook dinner or, when you’re…

in response to “Hawaiian Night” by Rick Moody Moments later the hound was back. He’d bounded, tennis ball lodged as if he were a volcano trying to swallow the sun. Here fire is construed with passion, with joy. He hadn’t cared that it landed in the lake. As he rejoined us, we pretended not to…

two opposing endings in response to “Our Organs Would Explode Inside Us” by Matthew Salesses I. We looked in the mirror and saw people we used to know, and the hunger stopped. And the questions began. Why such a constant, rangeless vacuum, our patch of ocean? How long had we allowed our insatiable whims to…