November 1, 2010 | Fiction
It's Going to Be Okay, I Love You
Kristen Iskandrian
The first time I got in trouble for telling the truth it was a Monday when I was seven and my teacher asked us what we had done over the weekend. I told her that I’d spend it in bed with my dad
November 1, 2010 | Fiction
So Many States from Home
Anne Valete
Bridget stands close to the speakers, too close, feels the bass of them pound through her chest, a drumbeat, a makeshift heart. Owen stands next to her, tall pine, a foot above her. She feels the
November 1, 2010 | Fiction
He Maketh Fire Come Down
Jared Yates Sexton
He was on the TV again. That pudgy-faced man strutting up and down the stage. Preaching about the downfall of the species. Working himself up again until he got down on the balls of his knees and
November 1, 2010 | Interview
An Interview with Shya Scanlon (Part 1)
Matthew Simmons
Once upon a time, there was a journal called Monkeybicycle. There is, of course, still a journal called Monkeybicycle, but there used to be one, too. And way back when, one of the guys editing that
Antoine is Not Here
Tom DeBeauchamp
We'd survived the rope bridge, the dangling, the torn muscles in Miriam's shoulders. We'd survived and dusted off our luggage and laid our fine things in their cabinets. We held open the door
Russians (from The Book of Freaks)
James Iredell
In Russia there are so many Russians! It’s like one of those neighborhoods where a bunch of Russians live, but way bigger. This place is big. It’s like they took a country the size of Russia and
An Interview with Grace Krilanovich
Gabriel Blackwell
One of the things that initially got me excited about The Orange Eats Creeps, before I had any notion of what it actually would be, was the incredible list of “inspirations” you compiled in
Suffolk Downs
Kate Petersen
A man on the blue line inbound from Wonderland scratches a lottery ticket. He stands, holding it cupped in his palm like a compass, uses a nickel from wherever. Here is my life, he thinks, flicks
Blue Fish Apocalypse #12 & #35
Nick Kocz
Outside, it’s raining fishes. The clouds are as black as cauldrons and tree branches are collapsing from the weight of all the fish gob-smacking into them, and I’m just thinking something’s gone
I Bet I Can Find a Million People Who Hate Slab Cakes
Heather Clitheroe
The drought has been going on for so long that there's a separate number to call for grass fires. You can't call 911 anymore, so you dial 411 and instead of asking for an address or a phone number,
An Interview with Justin Taylor
Matthew Simmons
Is the world ending? Do you know something I don't?
I'm not sure what I know that you don't, but certainly nothing in re this. And yes, the world is absolutely ending. It's just a question of
Do You Know Jesus Christ?
Lauren Becker
Jed needed beer. It was late and we had driven by three closed liquor stores. I had a sore throat. I said we should just go to the Walgreens near his apartment.
“Really? You can’t buy
We Figure the Leaves
Kristine Ong Muslim
We figure the leaves will find a way back into the house, where they take more than their share of furniture. The smell of ruin and the lack of rain outside has not permeated the house yet. That
Arion Resigns
Matt Mullins
Mutiny is the last I remember. being pitched over. only to awaken here. drowning in an Aeron chair. typing my own ransom memo for the corporate pirates who pay me in somnambulistic days.
Giant Panda Monster
Craig Renfroe
I am a fifty foot and two inch panda monster. It’s time for my sacrifice. If it’s not there, then it’s time to rampage through the village. I live out in the woods, a deep ancient forest, trees
The Whale and the Waterslide
Rachel Lyon
A waterslide in the middle of the ocean’s a big project. I mean, it’s a pretty enormous project. It was the board of trustees’ idea to situate the thing out in the Pacific Basin, where Canada curls
Who is to Save Us From Western Civilization? Andrew Ervin in conversation with Bayo Ojikutu
Bayo Ojikutu
We have a protagonist who traipses about Budapest with a copy of Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth; we have the chord pulled on a jukebox playing “Strange Fruit” in a bar called Eve and
A Reimagining of Five Calamitous Dutch Soccer Defeats
Karl Taro Greenfeld
1. The Netherlands 0 – Argentina 16
July 18, 1978 World Cup Final
The Dutch side were hamstrung when they were informed just minutes before the game that a new equal rights ordinance passed
Stop Thinking You Own the Forest
Matthew Salesses
We were in the middle of an epidemic of extrasensitive hearing. We walked around with our ears swollen and red, or lay in bed trying not to hear. We only whispered anymore, an ear-shaking whisper,
Three Shorts
Travis Kurowski
Since Cape of Good Hope
Terry was here with the AIDS people, but I was just visiting. I didn’t know I needed a break until the phone calls from Terry began, calls about native African pussy and
Not Hearing the Jingle
Brian Allen Carr
In the old yard adjacent the high school sat a green-metal box that housed an emergency generator. At least we always said it did, though I’ve unlearned plenty since those days. Used to we’d hang
Cownose Ray
Sara Bohannon
The beach is crowded and a handful of other vacationers see it: a flash of white just past the waves, then overturned quickly; a dark diamond shape, a splash as the stingray falls back to the
489 Points
Andrew Borgstrom
I bought secondhand hunting attire that I only wore around the house. You corrected me when I called our apartment a house. We howled until we were gender tired. You howled when you stubbed your
Sunsets Unlimited
Stephen Graham Jones
Riding through the desert I came across a cowboy in the narrow shade of a saguaro. He was doing stomach crunches. I crossed my arms over my saddlehorn and watched him for a few reps but ended up
The Weirdest Thing
Grant Flint
The weirdest thing happened to me just now, which is weird in itself in that nothing weird ever happens to me. I, being on the surface at least, not weird.
Why should I lie? I've done nothing.
Space is Our Future
Michelle McMahon
I was behind the mint green Toyota pickup on the way to work this morning, again. It didn’t matter if I was running late because Tommy flung his breakfast on my blouse, or if I was early because I