“Teen Wolf Too” by Rion Amilcar Scott

Hank and Mo ran along the muddy strip of field that separated their neighborhood from The Wildlands. It was also the don’t-you-dare-go-past boundary their mothers set and they unfailingly observed it, but past that strip was where the wolves were and it was wolf season and they were wolf hunters. A radio station offered  $25,000 […]

“Suburban Happy Hour” by Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet

This is the latest in Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet. To go to the column page, please click here. It’s not every day that a peeping Tom was actually named Tom. Isabella sashayed in front of the kitchen window, wearing hubby’s threadbare T-Shirt and nothing else. Alfie lounged, as usual, in the adjoining family room, the […]

Review: Dora: A Headcase

The Reviewed: Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch The Reviewer: Judy Clement Wall *** Last year, in a post titled “Writing Brave,” I referenced Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water. I wrote that I loved it “for its determination to look squarely at the wreckage of a truly broken heart and not make it pretty or poetic […]

Five poems by Stevie Edwards

Vertigo The floor wants a new angle to trip me into a pile of broken furniture—what is left of my body— which is tired of walking into swimming rooms. I want to not scald myself pouring coffee in the morning, to point my feet toward work, steady & capable, and know nothing in me is […]

“Persuasion” by Alisha Karabinus

Early August in Wichita is sticky-hot, drab, would be boring except I’m dressed for adventure, wedgie sandals and tiny terry shorts, a camisole that should be underwear, but in summer the rules all change. In summer, I can pack light, so when Parker meets me at the dorms, I’m not too sweaty, not too weighed […]

Time Consuming, Complicated Cooking!: Rattail Radish Pods for Dinner, Again?

This is the latest in Corey Sabourin’s Time Consuming, Complicated Cooking! To go to the column page, please click here. Remember when cookbooks had back pages listing retailers selling hard-to-find ingredients? How pre–“acai on Aisle 6.” It’s an understatement to say that nowadays once exotic (or simply unheard of) items show up all over the […]

Two poems by Heather Foster

Rockaway Beach, Oregon The drive takes hours in grey turbid mist. Around each curve of these mountains are milk cows in fields. It’s the season for cherries and we can smell the sea, its salt. A dark- haired girl sits at a roadside stand, smiles, waves us toward boxes of cherries red as blood. We […]

“I Wanted to Write You A Letter Because I Got Bored” by Taylor

Below is an exact transcription of a letter from a 10-year-old named Taylor, which she recently sent to her older sister.  *** Dear Katy, Hi! I wanted to write you a letter because I got bored. BoyCat is gone, so I’m assuming he’s dead and the cat at the other apartment is eating his food. […]

“Merrily, Merrily” by Lauren Becker

We went to the lake to rid ourselves of our pasts. The things that would not leave us, that plagued us with shame, anger, regret. The things that clung to us like cats with too-long claws, tangling in our sweaters, pulling threads that could unravel the whole. We had secrets. Some of the paper boats […]