She stares across the desk at me in a way that makes me feel naked. I button my cardigan right up to the top. “Look,” she says, “It’s either this or the call centre. You’ll be sanctioned if you turn down a job that’s offered to you.” I shiver, despite the buttoned-up cardi. I worked… Read More It’s Either This Or The Call Centre ~ fiction by Alison Wassell
It’s the end of one year and the start of another, and that means it’s time for our Best Small Fictions nominations. It probably makes sense that each of these pieces was nominated for one of the other annual awards: Best of the Net, Pushcarts, and Best Microfiction. To be perfectly frank, I could have… Read More Best Small Fictions Nominations 2024
What’s your child’s name? What grade is she in? What’s her daily routine? Does she brush her teeth every morning? Does she cry every night? What school does she go to? How are her grades? Have you observed behavioral changes? Does she startle at small noises? Flinch when classmates raise hands? Drop her books at… Read More Questions The Caseworker Should Have Asked After My Ex Accused Me of Neglect ~ fiction by Barbara Diggs
Once again, I was delighted to see that we published a number of stories this year that qualify for the Best Microfiction anthology, which limits writers to 400 words. Among the qualifiers were these terrific standouts: When the Cowbirds Come to Carry Your Sister Away ~ Audra Kerr Brown Avery and Jacob ~ Perry Genovesi… Read More Best Microfiction 2024 Nominations
Eliot Li lives in California. His work appears or is forthcoming in Swamp Pink, MoonPark Review, AAWW’s The Margins, SmokeLong Quarterly, Best Small Fictions 2023, and elsewhere. He’s on twitter @EliotLi2.
The flat is a box of green light. Leaves and stems and tendrils tumble from the ceiling, snake along surfaces, shoot up from the floor. In the corner of the room a glass cabinet hums softly, glows with a dim white light. The surfaces are jewelled with beads of condensation and furred with moss. Carnivorous… Read More A Lifetime’s Collection of Indoor Plants ~ fiction by Karen Arnold
The Disappointed Housewife is pleased to nominate the following pieces for the 2024 Pushcart Prizes: ESSAY Expedition ~ Nancy Bell FICTION Andromeda Among the Asphodels, 2005 ~ Spencer Nitkey Like Trees in a Storm ~ Anika Carpenter Blackbird ~ Wayne Mok POETRY Oddly Satisfying: a meditation ~ Mikaela Nyman My Mother is a Contestant on… Read More Pushcart Prize Nominations 2024
My Mother is a Contestant on The Golden Bachelor The first episode is crowded, the names a confusion the women a kaleidoscope of sparkle, bangle, and tit. In their moments on camera, they sing to Gerry, claim aging is an honor, show us their throats, tell him their signs. My mother isn’t the one in… Read More My Mother is a Contestant on The Golden Bachelor ~ poetry by Joanna Theiss
prayer to a boy my worn out band-aid collector of a heart has tricked my mind into believing you are a wasteland god my lover of unresolved and unforgiven screaming matches without oxygen i’ll lay my rotting sentences before your altar a shower head unhurriedly dripping my blood and pray pray pray pray pray in… Read More prayer to a boy ~ poetry by Megan Archibeque
Henry David is thinking about Mrs. Emerson and playing with himself as he surveys his beans. He wants to sojourn into and out of and into and out of Lidian in an act of carnal transcendence but he has beans to tend, ants to watch, an image to maintain. The Dial is expecting another travelogue… Read More Its Meanness to the World ~ fiction by Jon Doughboy
To become a mystical surgeon, there are three texts one must study: The History of Tulips, George Washington Carver’s The Compendium of Moon Silences and The Book of Whale Secrets. From each, one learns about exactly one third of the personal cosmos. In the first third, the undried inks of wanderlust grapple with the shy… Read More The Education of the Mystical Surgeons ~ prose poem by Philip Jason
Good night blue bird, bohemian, bullets over broadway, boudoir banter, Banshee, bicycle rat, Bisquick, big slick, here, pussy pussy, bad bloke, unwoke, dry duck, grey goose, delaudid, die-hard, rhythmic sounding, hulabaloo. Good night ah chu!, the flu, all things one hundred percent too terribly true, dynamic, decrepit, deceased, demanded, fungus, fingernail, finicky up-do, rue the… Read More Night Soliloquy ~ poetry by Mary Paulson
Simona is a mountain. She is tall. She speaks with an accent. Where are you from, Simona? I am the daughter of continental plates. My parents argued when I was born. I fled the desert to go to school. The children laugh. There’s distant thunder. Simona writes an essay. What do you want, Simona? I… Read More Lesson One: Simona ~ fiction by Kati Bumbera
Nomination season is already upon us, and it’s my pleasure again this year to present our exceptional candidates for the Best of the Net competition. It seems like it’s getting harder and harder each year to choose from the variety of spectacular pieces we publish, and I had a ridiculously hard time with fiction this… Read More 2023 Best of the Net Nominations
another existential morning and aren’t we just prayers walking into each other and isn’t the half moon just the other half of everything we need and aren’t we just breathing and blood words and thoughts desire and death and isn’t the sun our imagination come to life isn’t it hope and doesn’t it go away… Read More Two Poems ~ poetry by Anthony George
Standing, Sylvie is ten feet tall, but the photographer wants her seated on her front step, back pressed into the lintel of the doorframe. Sylvie’s limbs are taut as the handles of an overused carrier bag, and creak like trees in a storm. “Does it hurt when your muscles lengthen, when your bones elongate?” the… Read More Like Trees in a Storm ~ fiction by Anika Carpenter
The heart is coated in ribbons and bells, I guess this was always how things would go, crouched in the sandcastle made of hands, you in your mother’s faded Cape Cod sweatshirt and me in your pants, this feeling is an error, half of the day is swallowed by caverns, I have to reteach my… Read More Sugar Tide ~ poetry by Samantha Moe
Day 1: I’ve been secretly studying my neighbors, especially the elderly couple across the street. According to middle class standards, the couple lives in squalor. Their ranch-style home is overgrown with wild grass and weeds. The Salvadoran kiddos next door sneak over and hunt on their lawn for snakes and cats to keep as pets.… Read More I Will Try Harder Tomorrow ~ fiction by Thomas Van Street
Seventeen. Borrowed loafers, tie too long. Shirt, hanging from his wiry frame, mustache trimmed, mouth wide. Counting, as he was taught. Pack up all my care and woe—. To the beat. It’s not one two three four, but one two-and-three four-and-one. Don’t think, listen, and become part of it. Transcend what you think, or know,… Read More Blackbird ~ fiction by Wayne Mok
“In various parts of Missouri, one hears the story of a great hole in the ground, where hunters have heard strange sounds and smelled unusual odors. Some say the Devil lives in that hole …” –Missouri Magic and Folklore by Randolph Vance, 1947 Once upon a time, as absurd as it sounds, the King… Read More Expedition ~ creative nonfiction by Nancy Bell
Three grackles appear to me and as they stare it is impossible to look away, transfixed (transluced) (transpired) by this encounter as though they have something to prove, a message to pass on and I cannot begin to understand the five questions (who) (what) (when) (where) (why) even as I should have at least some… Read More When the Forecast Forgets the Wildfires ~ fiction by Audrey T. Carroll
Dear Kitchen, Congratulations! The Nostalgia Committee is pleased to inform you that you have won this year’s Ambivalence Prize. Your bleached yet cozy atmosphere intrigued us. Your blue and white embroidered tablecloth impressed the judges as the perfect complement to the painstakingly-crafted mocha cakes assembled upon it by a working mother’s aching hands. We appreciated… Read More Ambivalence Prize from the Selective Memory Foundation of Boston ~ award correspondence by Patricia Flaherty Pagan
The explosion of brass, a tsunami: paintbrush bristles staining skin, tickling eardrums; a titanium mass soaring skyward, blocking, encompassing all auditorial perception, absent peripherals, reverberating metallic and hollow; a traffic jam at all four corners of the bedroom, the precipice of a gasp, a ceiling’s pull at the sternum, unrelenting; dive bombers; controlled demolition; uncontrolled… Read More The Myopic Ideation of Frank Shishido ~ fiction by Henry Knollenberg
A man was found with a beating heart at the busy intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue on Tuesday. Authorities arrived on the scene at quite an ordinary time of day and found the man shouting, I’m alive! I’m alive! The man was taken to the hospital, where he was determined to be… Read More Reservoir ~ fiction by Suzanne Hicks
Sunday morning before church; in the blackberry patch. Boys plucking berries, lips smack red; giddy kisses in the thorns, snakes gliding past their shoes. Sunday morning before church; from behind a pine, the Devil files his nails. Sunday morning before church; out pop lizards, green anole, red bib bobbing in robotic threat; mockingbird robs songs… Read More Pink Boys: Sunday Pastoral ~ prose poetry by Kim Salinas Silva
FIFTH So Avery plays the Serenelli, her shoulders bobbing, floating around the living room, hovering over the couch and the TV, up over the roofs of the terraced houses, through the schoolyard, soaring, fluttering, down the slide and between swing set chains. Through the tire in the backyard and then back in. Another tooth pops… Read More Avery and Jacob ~ fiction by Perry Genovesi
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dorothy Corsair! Our housewife finally has a name. First prize (a copy of my novel Parts Unknown) is shared by friends-of-the-zine and contributors Jake Sheff and Liz McShane, who suggested the first and last names, respectively. Jake had no idea that my mom’s name is Dorothy, so his entry was completely… Read More See her name
PROTEST V Flaming shingles fly above the streets outside neighbor’s apartment – playing NBA 2K21, blasting DJ Screw, Wretched of the Earth on the end table, white fist raised, curtains closed. Young folk out walking rawly the expanse of reality. PROTEST IV Sky closes on elm trees and metal-throated birds above street crowd flushed out… Read More Two Poems ~ poetry by Adam Day
Take the loot from the Saturday night knockover and lock it in the box; wash the stash on Sundays at the track and glom a little for yourself and stuff it into the mattress; never leave the house without one of the fellas; fry up eggs in butter, not oleo, and make a lot more… Read More Moll (After Kincaid) ~ fiction by Richie Narvaez
~Friends of The Disappointed Housewife ~ Now that we’re a few months past our five-year anniversary, I’ve been thinking a lot about the lady at the top of our home page—how steadfast she is, how stern but fully loving, just like the kind of mom who turns out a Greta Thunberg, a Michelle Obama, or… Read More Contest: Help name our disappointed housewife!
Andromeda Among Asphodels, 2005 Cassiopeia Nix Oil on canvas In this work, the artist has painted a field of half-bloomed asphodels, flowers that crawl up their spear stems in the hyper-detail-rich style that has become her signature. The features of the flowers are sharp and minute. When viewed from a distance they become so myopic… Read More Andromeda Among Asphodels, 2005 ~ fiction by Spencer Nitkey
Siobhán picked me up from the apartment and drove us into Brooklyn. She sang along with Bowie’s “Golden Years” playing off her iPhone. She turned to face me as we barreled up Bedford Avenue near McCarren Park. “ANNNNGELLLLL.” “Oh, good fuckin’ Lord. Watch the street,” I said. She laughed. “I always keep one eye on… Read More Ourselves ~ fiction by Mike Lee
Oak Ayling is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet from North Cornwall, and Editor-in-Chief of Spare Parts Literary Magazine. Her debut pamphlet With Love from the Curator was released in 2021 from award winning publishers Indigo Dreams Publishing. Her other works can be found in literary magazines and in the print anthologies Light… Read More Mixtape Stax 3 ~ playlist poetry by Oak Ayling
a prisoner spit at me and I stopped and he looked at me like I was a vulture and he was a corpse and I would usually just keep walking but the spit hit my arm and so I looked at it when he was looking at me and I looked up and the… Read More when I was an EMT in the prison ~ poetry by Ron Riekki
Sometimes, when we feel like aliens, which is most of the time (but whatever), we wonder: Do you know us? If not, it’s okay. It’s okay. Who knows us, really knows us? Gets us? The woman with a YouTube music reaction channel, the woman with a slow-rolling teardrop in her voice hearing feeling believing in… Read More The Ones Who Know Us ~ prose poem by Pat Foran
We come out at night to scurry from between the cracks in your foundation. We explore every crevice in search of crumbs, a warm place to rest, or to infest. We never go near the traps your husband placed in the corners, and though we would love to lick the peanut butter he positioned just… Read More We Are the Mice That Live in Your Basement ~ fiction by Sara Dobbie
Wednesday, May 11th, 11:30 I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice. You came highly recommended. It’s just … well, you won’t believe what’s happened. I almost didn’t believe it myself until she popped out. I call her Calvia—because she came from my calf muscle. And I’m not trying to look a gift horse, or… Read More Vestigial ~ fiction by Coleman Bigelow
I inspect floral enamel coating spoons and forks, hand-painted cherries across white porcelain, slices of slouching golden brioche like giant dominoes. I run my finger across the whetted blade. Yellow, uneven circles tumble on laminate. It’s a choice between reading Kafka or covering beech wood with glossy hortensias, poppies and bluebells. In eighteen minutes and… Read More The Not-So-Sudden Walk after Reading Kafka ~ fiction by Isabelle B.L
Anatomy of Melancholy From lapidary inscriptions, from signs, from stones, in the beginning, I try to rebuild you. The sky says, “Take this boot-knife, consider it a gift from a friend.” Was it then I noticed death can be a lesser misery? “It may well be.” quips Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy.… Read More Anatomy of Melancholy ~ poetry by Laurie Rosenblatt
VAGINAL CLAW® PRESS INFORMATION: January 31, 2032 Positive Data Reports for Vaginal Claw® and Development of New Claws Out! Product Claws Out! proudly announces that from 2026–2031, wherever our best-selling Vaginal Claw® is legal and available, reported vaginal rapes and unwanted pregnancies fell by 60% and are forecasted to continue falling. Data also indicates that… Read More Vaginal Claw Press Information ~ press release by Meredith Wadley
The Disappointed Housewife 