Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of three works of short fiction: Her Other Mouths, Liberty’s Excess, and Real to Reel, as well as a book of literary criticism, Allegories of Violence. She is also the author of a memoir, The Chronology of Water. Her work has appeared in Ms., The Iowa Review, Fiction International, Zyzzyva, and […]
Two poems by eleonora luongo
July 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Elegy for a Cardinal It’s a loud smack against the windshield and a flutter of red and grey and gone before the shock of feathers and a faint absence of song tumble as quickly against memory. Already it’s disappeared miles behind us on I-78, this strange bird migrating across lanes of traffic at rush hour. […]
“Repairs” by Gareth Spark
July 20, 2011 by 1 Comment
Grit dust lifts in a dry wind blown over the ruin’s stones, Corkscrews in clouds of white pepper, rattles into the closed van And my eyes as I work at the repairs. Everything in the yard is broken; engines cracked like finger bones, Locks twisted like the snapped necks of birds, Even words on the […]
“(…)” by James Tadd Adcox
July 20, 2011 by 2 Comments
(Clearly one could take any story more or less at random and put it in parentheses, in which case the parentheses would serve as decoration, distraction, childishness, a ‘cheap trick.’ If there were a basis for a story told in parenthesis, it would involve [naturally enough] finding the connections between form and meaning. The first […]
“Inferno” by Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet
July 18, 2011 by 2 Comments
This is the latest in Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet. To go to the column page, please click here. The sun blazed up bloody Mary red and sucked its way back down at the end of the day in the same violent hue. Pearl watched it every day and imagined she lived on Mars. She resided […]
Reading the Groove: Chris Offutt
July 15, 2011 by 1 Comment
This is the latest in Robert Stapleton’s Reading the Groove. To go to the column page, please click here. Chris Offutt is the author of No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home, Out of the Woods, The Good Brother, The Same River Twice, and Kentucky Straight. He has received awards from the American Academy of […]
“The Place I Come From” by Sara Habein
July 12, 2011 by 1 Comment
Lillian hated washing her tights. The dance company’s per diem only allowed thirty dollars, and it needed to last. After meals and shoe maintenance and stage make-up, new tights every night were out of the question. Regular wages came at the end of the month. Aching over the sink full of Woolite, she watched the […]
Talking with Furniture: Michael Kimball
July 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Michael Kimball is the author of four books, including Dear Everybody and, most recently, Us. His work has been on NPR’s All Things Considered and in Vice, as well as The Guardian, Prairie Schooner, and New York Tyrant. His books have been translated into a dozen languages—including Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Korean, and Greek. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story […]
Three stories by Vallie Lynn Watson
July 7, 2011 by 1 Comment
Grace is Wasted They left town for the day, for the night, left work, left husbands, left wife, left town for city, a clean city where they could walk long blocks. It was supposed to be their last time together and it was, though they’d said that several trips before. They made out in a […]
