August 31, 2025 | fucked up modern love essays
The R Word
Fionna Farrell
I suggested we arm wrestle as I did with every boy. I was a pick me and for my spreadsheet.
August 28, 2025 | Fiction
The Misses
Grace Robins-Somerville
The room smelled like beer and sweat and crushed velvet. The air seemed to hum, hot and full of dust particles and guitar feedback.
Language, Infidelity, and Gender Fuckery - Andie Blaine Interviews Arielle Burgdorf
Andie Blaine
Tempestuous is the language we carry in our head, the music of new words and lovers, the cities we dip into on a lost weekend. Jeanne, the eponymous narrator of Arielle Burgdorf’s novel Jeanne,
Poems, Playlists, and Prizes: A Late Summer Night with Ashley D. Escobar
KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ
While many struggle to adapt to the largeness and complexity of NYC, Escobar thrived and used it to inform her work.
NEVER DATE A SOBER PERSON
Dayna Troisi
It is the night before I will meet my future ex wife. Neither of the mirrors are skinny.
Breaking Character
Marie López
She wasn’t cruel. She smiled when he refilled her water glass. She asked about his mother. They had sex with the lights on.
Over the Top: The Dramatic Upsurge of Siena Foster-Soltis
Jack Skelley
I’m talking to Siena Foster-Soltis on a patio overlooking the lights of Los Angeles. The hillside home, in the ultra-luxe enclave of Bel-Air, is an apt location for Siena’s latest play, Over the
Semantics, Darling
Liska Jacobs
That sudden clarity pierced through her: the baby’s soft blanket; the Frappuccino sweating in her hand, the grocery list in the diaper bag. All of this could change and when it did, she would cease to exist.
A Woman Like Liz, a Man Like Richard, and a Girl Like Me
Kelsey Kirk
Some girls become Liz. Some girls want to be her. Some just want her. A fictional short story about Liz, Richard and an anonymous anti-hero.
A Former Maid Reflects
Kate Jayroe
Ten years ago, my work bestie at the job I had and the life I had at the time, Tedrick, rubbed me down in cruelty-free coconut oil. He said, “You’re a beautiful mess.” I shone in holiday light.
I
Santa Clarita
Jaden Power
It was summer heat
And the breath of living someone else’s life
Excerpt from 'Spur'
Robbie Coburn
The glass always refilling / and fracturing his life
The Bay Arena
Nicholas Wilder Forman
I have been waiting to become a better writer so that I can understand them.
Harris Lahti: Foreclosure Gothic
Filip Jakab
Known for editing Fence fiction and co-founding Cash 4 Gold Books, Harris Lahti’s debut prose, Foreclosure Gothic presents itself with highs and lows, the underside of the once-coined-and-believed
Mood Stabilizer
Peyton Gatewood
(Checking texts over lunch) Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon. That’s how my brain works.
New York Taught Me How to Love
Finnegan Schick
I remember listening to you play “Ashokan Farewell” on the violin, your head bowed, the notes clear and sorrowful
The Power of Panic: A Review of Michael Clune’s ‘Pan’
Danielle Chelosky
If I read Pan before I started taking Lexapro I would’ve cried.
The Great Scalping of 2024: A Love Story in Buzz Cuts
Tara Hashagen
Sisters remain sisters even when one is going through nuclear-grade poisoning and the other is directing a DIY haircut through a phone screen.
Person Under Train
Elizabeth Ellen
The last thing she remembered was Marty getting up to vomit. She considered, momentarily, getting up to help. She was still on her knees, her head turned sideways, in profile, on the couch, her arms dangling at her sides.
Savior Complex
Belinda Cai
I was a woman obsessed, before and after the overdose.
Late Capitalism, French Philosophy and Dad Rock: Author Emily May on Some Girls
Carmen Cornue
"We all live in that space of self-doubt, and that’s what makes us real people."
Leaving New Russia
Maxfield Francis Goldman
Liam refuses to speak to me now. Because, for once, I took action. Non-violent-action. Well, a series of actions, actually, the first of which was to invite him out for drinks when he came home for winter break.
Adiós, Eurydice
Juan René
It still bugs me that I never understood why she’d seen Hadestown eleven times (our first date was her twelfth).
The Regular
Lydia Barnes
At this remark, her forehead crinkled, and it was clear that she hadn’t remembered their previous meeting. This should have come as no surprise to Lyle, who had lived forty-three-years of un-memorability. His style of dress unremarkable, his height medium, his face neither handsome nor ugly...
Double Fisting
Emily Atwood Kendall
The thing about being a lesbian in New York City is that on the third Thursday of any given month you’ll have to stand in a hot Brooklyn bar that is absolutely teeming with gay people. At least four




