STORY OF THE WEEK

A Happy Marriage By Grace Bianchetti

A Happy Marriage

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

Vernal Equinox

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

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

Wartime Anthology

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

The Spectacular

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

Yokai

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

Baby in the Pan

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

The Rooms

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

Flash Flood

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

The Measure of All Things?

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

Rhythm & Sound

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

Cartoon Art Volume 2024-02

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

Cartoon Art Volume 2024-03

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

My Opera

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

Dead Horse

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

Cocaine & Flowers

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

Exercise

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

Old Friend

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

Reading Sebald and Other Poems

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

At the Museum of Empress Livia’s Garden Room

The nouns pile up. Umbrella pine, oleander, quince. Or go missing as anything else.

POETRY

The Loneliness of Fireworks By Zhai Yongming

The Loneliness of Fireworks

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

Home Is a Verb of Motion

On a bald knoll, circled by on-ramps and overpasses, weathering and weighted is a concrete behemoth for the gods of want.