When had he stopped wanting her? She knew this wasn’t quite right. He did want her. When had they stopped wanting each other in the same way?
POEM OF THE WEEK
Vernal Equinox
By Amy Lowell
The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies between me and my book; and the South Wind, washing through the room, makes the candles quiver.
FINAL DAY TO ENTER
Deadline: Thurs.,
Mar. 28, at midnight, PDT.
We’re looking for short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, and excerpts from long fiction and nonfiction.
Please see the Guidelines.
A NEW ANTHOLOGY
Wartime Anthology
By Various Authors
These unforgettable stories, poems, and essays ask us to confront war and to acknowledge all that is destroyed by it.
FALL CONTEST WINNER
FICTION
FICTION
FALL CONTEST WINNER
The Spectacular
By Renée Thompson
Con held Glacier close to his chest and inhaled the scent of her feathers—a mix of mountain air and high-desert sage, of dust and bark and willow.
FICTION
Yokai
By Ron Hansen
No one had seen it of late, but the hoary legend was that the cougar prowled the forests at night, being nocturnal, and ate whatever was in front of it.
FICTION
Baby in the Pan
By Jill McCorkle
Candy was wearing those short shorts she’s too old to be wearing with that scaley green dragon tattoo looking like he’s breathing fire on her you-know-what.
FICTION
FICTION
NONFICTION
FICTION
The Rooms
By Susan Minot
What she wanted, she found herself saying before the sob choked her, was to be able to live—not just with another person, but with herself.
FICTION
Flash Flood
By Tina Nettesheim
Everything was gone between them and the mountains, everything, the way the ocean devours even the most majestic sand castle.
NONFICTION
The Measure of All Things?
By Hal Crowther
There are mornings, not few enough, when I feel like burning my birth certificate and resigning from the human race.
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
CARTOONS
CARTOONS
NARRATIVE OUTLOUD
Rhythm & Sound
By Donald Hall
Every time you write free verse you are improvising your way toward a conclusion that will bind everything together.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2024-02
By Various Artists
New laughs while job-hunting, with teenagers, clingy socks, a modern parenting book, and a tandem bicycle.
CARTOONS
Cartoon Art Volume 2024-03
By Various Artists
New laughs with fresh recruits, advances in workplace technology, an embarrassing tangle, a location mixup, and desire’s stormy impact.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
My Opera
By Kim Addonizio
The staging is difficult. Exploding stars are involved, high-redshift galaxies, interior chambers, a little country blues, a little jazz guitar.
POETRY
Dead Horse
By J. P. Grasser
The plan was, lean way out over the edge to be shaken into smaller selves. We’d see ourselves caught by a net of stars. That was the idea, anyhow.
POETRY
Cocaine & Flowers
By Brian Gyamfi
When the gods came to America with a bag of cocaine and flowers they were beheaded. Their death had nothing to do with the president.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
Exercise
By Ted Kooser
Nine day-care children are out for a walk on a winter morning, under a gray sky, led by a girl in her teens walking sideways so she can encourage them.
POETRY
Old Friend
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Spring billowing, I navigate my daily pool of gloom. Arrange your five deflating basketballs under the lonely net. I always loved the honesty of old friends.
POETRY
Reading Sebald and Other Poems
By Sharon Olds
When I’m reading Sebald, then dozing, then dreaming that I’m reading, I feel myself come closer to you than usual.
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
POETRY
At the Museum of Empress Livia’s Garden Room
By Pimone Triplett
The nouns pile up. Umbrella pine, oleander, quince. Or go missing as anything else.
POETRY
The Loneliness of Fireworks
By Zhai Yongming
Fireworks and bar girls all dance in revelry before they subside, in the end, into loneliness. Anyone can go wild in this moonlight.
POETRY
Home Is a Verb of Motion
By Grace H. Zhou
On a bald knoll, circled by on-ramps and overpasses, weathering and weighted is a concrete behemoth for the gods of want.