I I see a land that looks like another world. There is agave and saguaro cactus and desert marigold, all of it brown and gold and dripping silver. The silver is the sun’s light and it bathes a city, pooling like water on waterless highways and dripping from statues of horses that have roamed the… Read More Statues of Horses Seen from the Sky ~ creative nonfiction by Karen Chaffee
His username is among the list of players when I log on the server, with a blue tick at the end. His avatar is gliding across the pixel-terrain, hovering over other users’ multicolored cursors. I don’t intend to play this game again. Not with him. Our broken bodies, battling each other online and off for… Read More Abandonware ~ fiction by Sarp Sozdinler
demise the la fires wolf down homes and buildings in the palisades – 0% containment. i walk outside my home 40 miles away and swallow a chunk of dust and debris that wind carries and deposits into my mouth. my yard looks like the aftermath of the storm in the wizard of oz. i walk… Read More demise ~ poetry by Ken Kakareka
No one knows what it was like, how very dark it was in 1815. The nights were enormous; you couldn’t believe they would ever end. After sunset, there was so little to do that, for amusement, I would linger outside by the stables, testing my bravery, but dusk had way of cowing me: the night… Read More On Seeing Byron ~ fiction by Amber Burke
Thanksgiving SOS Grandpa’s vodka watered down, the only potatoes served. Raised eyebrows & cocked heads after cocktail hour, guns with infinite woundability. Signs passed like cranberries over clicks of Morse code cutlery. Deep-fried turkey fireball a flare signal for help. The kids at the adult table a mere thirty- plus three major tantrums. Divorce… Read More Three Poems ~ poetry by Jennifer Ruth Jackson
What a terrific surprise the other day to learn that two stories we published in 2024 have been selected for the forthcoming Best Microfiction anthology by Guest Editor Dawn Raffel and Series Editors Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke. Celebrate! Congratulations to Barbara Diggs, for “Questions The Caseworker Should Have Asked After My Ex Accused Me… Read More Best Microfiction Taps Two of Our Own!
A little bit wistfully, I conclude the season’s award nominations with these for the Best Small Fictions anthology. As usual, whittling our published fiction down to these five was difficult, since my approach to curating the magazine is to accept material that could win just about any award. That’s why, at times, it seems like… Read More Best Small Fictions Nominations 2025
A night with Fun Guy always delivers. After back-to-back shifts at the pulp mill you need a release. And who better to spend it with than Fun Guy? Fun Guy brings the drinks. Fun Guy knows where the music is playing, how to score tickets. Fun Guy high-fives everyone at the bar and introduces you.… Read More Fun Guy ~ fiction by Claire Fantus
He speaks to the penis to cajole and comfort, to sometimes instruct, to above all else socialize and introduce the penis to a world populated by others. To remind the penis of the broader community outside their townhome and of the warmth and timbre of his voice. “Let me know if it’s too hot,” he… Read More How to Be Happy for Two ~ fiction by Max Paradise
The Lament of Curley’s Wife He said I was a natural for the pitchers and he would write me when he got back to Hollywood. That starlight smile he had. Coulda been in the movies. Coulda had nice clothes and sat in them big hotels. He saw I was a natural. Coulda worn a white… Read More The Lament of Curley’s Wife ~ poetry by Ruth Lexton
And now it’s time for our Best Microfiction noms—stories under 400 words published in 2024. We have some good ones this year, and Dottie and I only wish we could have nominated all of the qualifying stories because they were all excellent. Here are the five finalists: Questions The Caseworker Should Have Asked After My… Read More Best Microfiction 2025 Nominations
There are reasons for recurring dreams, he says. My therapist. He holds the keys to the inside of my head, but he won’t use them. He expects me to manage this alone, with the butter knife I use as a screwdriver. The only tool I ever had. He lists the reasons—anxiety due to unmet needs,… Read More All the Colors of Red ~ creative nonfiction by Mollie McLean
Since the early days of the zine, we’ve featured a DONATE button in the right-hand sidebar. Feel free to use it when you discover something amazing here, and one day maybe we’ll have a jar of cash substantial enough to pay our writers a little something. Humbly, we could also benefit from some help with… Read More Semi-occasional Fundraising Appeal
Here we are again, in the thick of awards nomination season, and it’s time for the Pushcart Prize! I say this with all sincerity, that it’s getting almost impossible to pluck a few titles from the array of spectacular writing we feature every year, and the Pushcarts make it even harder by limiting the nominations… Read More Pushcart Prize Nominations 2025
Case Number: AT 04/05/01 3072 Incident: Foiled hiatus breaker attempt Reporting Officer: Ibrahim Badran, Police Constable Date of Report: 10/2/2020 At about 12:10 on February 10, 2019, I met with Mr. Djinn at Al Majdool Road regarding a foiled hiatus breaker attempt. Mr. Djinn said that he was a suspended djinn. He stated he was… Read More Case Number: AT 04/05/01 3072 ~ fiction by Roopa Raveendra
A man named Yeah chose the daisy box for me. I am already assuming too much. I imagine that Yeah is a man, and that he pronounces “Yeah” the way I do. I believe we all pronounce “Yeah” the same way underground. But Yeah’s mouth may stretch it, bubble gum pink across three syllables or… Read More Yeah ~ creative nonfiction by Angela Townsend
Torch Song His normal identity: Johnny Storm.1 I tell him: Now that’s a hero’s name. The Human Torch? That’s every man2 I’ve dated, who’ll burn you every time after making promises. Doesn’t matter if he’s a hot-headed superhero3 or not. When you don’t have a secret identity, why do you even need an alter ego? But… Read More Torch Song ~ poetry by Ronnie Sirmans
VII. Mother never mentions my brother. She keeps him in a box. He is endless but divided by even perforations. He has so many ears. Mother lets him out when she studies biology and anatomy. I can’t hear whether he volunteers to help mother summarize the key steps in post-surgery infection prevention. A dot matrix… Read More Three Poems ~ poetry by Jason Fraley
It was the time I could and couldn’t (a villanelle) You know how this goes. You knew this was coming. Soon, evening and the filly is in the dirt pit. And my feelings are spiraling out of control I thought I wasn’t my father’s daughter until I disappointed you again. I think I will wear… Read More It was the time I could and couldn’t (a villanelle) ~ poetry by Samantha Moe
You, the consummate gentleman, bring me a paper plate of Little Caesars pepperoni and mushroom, my favorite. It gets me moist when you remember this intimate factoid. I ask, since it’s only us, should we light some candles? You squirm, shake your head, say, “It’s pizza.” Whatever. All I found in the Youth Group’s pantry… Read More Two Excellent People Burning ~ fiction by Travis Flatt
Alright, Listen SCENARIO I We’re naked and playing guitar, writing love songs that don’t quite rhyme while we drink to all the ghosts who haunt our lives. SCENARIO II I heard a rumor you were selfish and self-consumed, suffocating on the leather gags of your own ego. I crave the peanut butter way you lie… Read More Alright, Listen ~ poetry by Hillary Smith-Maddern
or, The Modern Prometheus I see myself, waving at the window, raving with Victor Frankenstein, I see myself, drunk as all hell, me drunk, Victor drunk, Victor ready to sin his way into heaven, I see myself, staggering baby-like towards the operating table, fun fact it was never lightning that brought the beast to life,… Read More or, The Modern Prometheus ~ poetry by Jennifer Jantzen
The Blob (1958, dir. Irvin Yeaworth) It falls to earth. It starts to grow & grow & grow. It eats poor Barney and then Kate and then it eats the stuff inside the doctor’s office then it eats the doctor’s car and then it eats the doctor too before heading downtown and this whole time… Read More The Blob (1958, dir. Irvin Yeaworth) ~ poetry by Rosalind Shoopmann
Spa Day My lips are creased with smoking indents. A patchwork valentine shape. “They’re beautiful,” the aesthetician notes, “but you’re too young for static wrinkles.” Active wrinkles, she explains, are accepted at thirty. “We weren’t built to be impassive,” she winks. We cry at birth. That’s where they come in. Snails. Toffee colored, completely selfless.… Read More Three Hybrids ~ fiction by Emma Raimondo
Dottie and I are happy to announce this year’s Best of the Net nominations. As usual, we don’t take these decisions lightly, and it’s always difficult to make the granular distinctions between one piece and another when they’re all so good. As I always complain, Best of the Net doesn’t make it any easier by… Read More 2024 Best of the Net Nominations
Self-Preservation 101 I was told to never eat while standing, to leave the wood floor hungry. The mop would hunt the crumbs of childhood and the cheese noodles shaped like cartoons. I’d squint to catch autumn’s eye, gathering the ruched orange war. In the backyard I’d make bones out of wine glasses to separate the… Read More Self-Preservation 101 ~ poetry by Nicole F. Kimball
Let us assume that Stuart finds himself somewhere roughly ten thousand feet up, eyelids and Abercrombie blazer fluttering in the wind whistling past him as he plunges toward the copper-colored land below, the sting of ice crystals in his nostrils. How he got there is of no importance. (Though it does cross Stuart’s mind that… Read More The Velocity of Remedial Math ~ fiction by Elizabeth Rosen
Insomnia on a Theme From Brecht My bedroom isn’t big enough. It’s full of archangels —Bertolt Brecht First Psalm They hover—bright, voiceless shapes hunting names. No sleep will take him now. Afraid of dreams that drop simple, small clues. When they first came he asked them to stay. He’d keep his bed clean… Read More Insomnia on a Theme From Brecht ~ poetry by Mark J. Mitchell
Victoria Nordlund is the Poet Laureate of Glastonbury, CT, and lead master teaching artist of the The Nook Farm Writers Collaborative at The Mark Twain House & Museum. Her poetry collections Wine-Dark Sea and Binge Watching Winter on Mute are published by Main Street Rag. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize… Read More I am in a field/or maybe a cemetery/ ~ poetry by Victoria Nordlund
At the cove, my father explained holothurians to me: the sea cucumber. He had been quiet all day, but he was excited now that he had seen one on a rock just under the surface. We looked down into the clear water at the holothurian. It had dots on its cylindrical body like eyes on a… Read More Holothurian ~ fiction by Addison Zeller
Shoving Lanthanides and Actinides to a corner of my head, I recite B, C, N, O, F like a sacred psalm, organic elements swirling in the universe, my brain wrapped in Neon jiggles for you, like Iron flashing its yearning, if I could twist a pair of pliers to change your mind, implacable and inert… Read More Periodic Thoughts ~ poetry by Christine H. Chen
This movie will open with a drone shot that swoops over a dappled body of water towards a glittering urban skyline. Or with its central character facing the camera, answering questions from an unseen interrogator. Or with a traumatic confrontation that will later prove to be a flashback. This movie will explore a flawed but lovable protagonist prone… Read More This Movie ~ fiction by Carolyn R. Russell
Sitting on lawn chairs at the edge of the world we eat sandwiches and watch ancient monsoons rip harmlessly across space, tantrums in exile. I sip cold milk. You swig from a flask, screw the cap closed counterclockwise, how they do things in this hemisphere. You point to the birth of two baby seagulls in… Read More Sound of a Train From A Previous Life ~ fiction by Guy Biederman
The ringmaster holds my right hand as we stroll. A clown galumphs on my left. We parade down the hospital corridor following the double, yellow-taped lines to operating theater three. No urgency today. No gurney or wheelchair either. Because, they tell me, this is a standard outpatient procedure. The questionnaire asked: Have you ever breastfed?… Read More And Now You Will Need a Very Sharp Knife ~ fiction by Catherine Chiarella Domonkos
Claudio reties his apron as he waits for the barbarian to order. When the beast flips a hankie out from under a flap in his leather kilt, he catches the glint of a sword tucked up against the man’s massive girth. “Venti, triple shot, half caff macchiato, extra caramel with whip,” the barbarian says and… Read More Starbucks on the Corner of Appian Way and the Forum, 476 A.D. ~ fiction by Virginia Nelson
No one knows when the baby crawled back to the door and started putting footwear in his mouth again. He’s teething, someone said, they have an urge to do that. A girl ran to inform the mother, who came rushing, stop, she said, I’ve said before, stop. The baby cried, thick tears in his round,… Read More Chewing Slippers ~ fiction by Tara Isabel Zambrano
Follow Ros to the party house, where colored lights churn from the windows into the night sky like a collapsing star. Let her grab your hand, weave you through swaying crowds into a room containing every other person on earth, living, dead, or otherwise. Dance with ghosts. Watch Ros dance. While you dance, close your… Read More Afterparty ~ fiction by Chelsea Bouchard
Safety Bucket Days after the latest headline, the school supplied each room with a safety bucket. Ms. Stevens removed each item one-by-one in front of the reverent class. There was a length of paracord to tie off the door and make a second lock if the first didn’t hold or a window was smashed to… Read More Safety Bucket ~ fiction by Aaron Sandberg
Octavia’s future arrives in a box small enough to fit in her coat pocket. She removes the plastic wrap, careful to tug the scared furball out of its package without getting scratched. Warming the tiny creature in the palm of her hand, she whispers “you’re home” as instructed by the Owner’s Manual. At the sound… Read More Buyer Beware ~ fiction by Phebe Jewell
The Disappointed Housewife 