December 3, 2023 | Rejected Modern Love Essay
The Curious Case of Dumbledore, Transplants, and God
Ethan Kahana
When reciting the Ten Plagues in Hebrew, we customarily dip our knives into our wine glass for each plague and set a drop of wine on our dinner plate.
December 1, 2023 | Fiction
Dead Man Brilliant
K Hank Jost
There’s not a thought in the throb. Not an inkling in the coppery clatter of his mouth. There’s only the turn. Only the fist: fast, everything behind it.
November 30, 2023 | Fiction
Territory
Franz Jørgen Neumann
She thought he was going to kill her this time, but that was one of the unspoken rules: no killing each other. Also: no kitchen knives, no purpose-built weapons of any kind. No screaming, either. Neighbors, the police—they wouldn’t understand.
The Biggest Ball In the World
Robert McCready
In late July, in the mid-nineties, I begged Mom and her fiancé Paul to buy me a big ball at Roses department store.
I Love You, Showboat, and I Decline: Healing from Abuse in the Wild West
Amanda Bloom
Showboat said he'd like to take me out sometime. I asked why.
“Because I think you’re attractive, and so we can hang out somewhere other than the coffee trailer,” he said.
It was October, ten
Excerpt from NIAGARA FALLS, NY
Ric Royer
I'm sure a terrible something has occurred at every inhabitable coordinate.
WHO STOLE MY TAMPONS?????
Chelsea Martin
I got my period the moment we got to the hotel. Getting my period wasn’t going to affect any of my plans, and was no big deal, really, aside from the fact that I refuse to pay attention to my body so am always completely surprised when my period comes. As such, I had brought no supplies to Miami with me.
luv letters
tori canning
in the middle of the night i will sit on your leg on a swivel chair, watching your favorite music videos, galvanizing our similarities. we transport ourselves into the future.
How I Stopped Loving Dave Eggers and Stole Your MFA
Elizabeth Ellen
One morning on McSweeney’s there was an announcement about a new literary festival in Philadelphia organized by Neal Pollack. It was going to be called the 215 Festival (named after the city’s area code) and would feature readings by Dave and Zadie and Matthew Klam and Neal, as well as other young, McSweeney’s type writers.
4 Poems
Kathleen Radigan
Do we keep our husbands’ secrets,
or distribute them like sweets
amongst ourselves?
Getting Oral
Emma Burger
I stand just a couple inches from the mirror in my grandma’s guest bathroom at her house in New Mexico, my breath fogging up the glass. As I brush my teeth, I give myself the once over and tug at the
The Dead Things Club
Michael Robert Liska
I borrowed my mother’s car and went to the mall a lot and stole things, which I then threw into the dumpster outside. One time I drank an entire bottle of Nyquil and almost died, but nobody noticed.
You Aren't Canceled! Lexi Freiman on The Book of Ayn
Anna Dorn
Australian author Lexi Freiman’s second novel, The Book of Ayn, is the funniest book of the year. In it, a writer named Anna struggles to find meaning after being canceled for her “classist” book. To
Excerpt from I HAVE A GUN
Graham Irvin
but at no point
does God say
to a golden calf
“eat lead bitch”
2023, The Men All Make Pozole
Leslie Anne Mcilroy
For, indeed, posole shows you he can cook. He fancies an air of the quixotic.
He must be a feminist.
FICTION ISN’T REAL: Elizabeth Ellen Interviews Dennis Cooper
Elizabeth Ellen
“He couldn’t decide if he wanted to draw David, fuck him, beat him up or fall in love with him.”
-Dennis Cooper, Closer
When I first began earnestly wanting to be a writer,
BEHEAD ME TWICE
Z.H. Gill
For two years I worked in the office of a famous Christian singer as he approached the end of his life.
Screed Master
Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon
I didn’t like him at first. Seemed like a motherfucker. Girls-dripping-off-him-type, but rough. Scared me & pissed me off, how he looked me up & down. That force, that asshole face, eyes like daggers daring me to see what would happen if I didn’t.
This is a Not Love Letter: My Response to Unrequited Confessions
T.A. Morche
This isn’t the first time someone I considered a friend has confessed their love for me.
Booze, Bullshit & Buttfucking: A Review
Jay Velarde
Booze, Bullshit & Buttfucking is one of those books you can only describe with negative adjectives, despite your enjoyment of it. It’s quick and easy and invigorating in the way stimulants often
PHILOSOPHICAL ACTIVITY
Brittany Adames
I think I’ve lost the practiced falseness of what it means
to be impossibly young. The fingernail moon
hangs over the welt on my goosepimpled thigh. Where
does the world go when not inside me?