‘Once again, reading kept me going this year. I started the year recovering from an operation and seeking somewhere new to live. I was then made redundant in February and spent a good few months searching for work. Professional losses and personal losses have combined to make the year something of a tumult, and reading has been an anchor. Except when I read something I hated.’
Category: Poetry & Fiction
[Fiction] Under Control — Kyle Wagner
“She’d been flying the Bush before she could drive, and her father’s caution had become her own. ‘Your problems aren’t out there,’ he’d say, and then point to his head, ‘They’re in here.'”
[Poetry] — Elliot Engelsbel
“Driving into some pole/because a ditch seems too final,/too obvious, too ironic”
[Poetry] — Michael Salcman
“At the end of my dream he coughs on the tube in his throat/
and my team steps back into the silent past,/
the wish to pronounce him gone at last.”
[Fiction] The Best Version of You — Cal Massey
“Marcus Lord is not Louis Gaskin or is he. Killing old people looking at him terrified with their old faces not believing this is happening was just a thing to Gaskin.”
[Fiction] La Pipa — Jon Doughboy
“I’m in love with Karla though I still think of her first and foremost as Fabi’s wife, apostrophe s, as part of that unit because I met Fabi first, fell in love with Fabi first, my friend, my best friend.”
[Poetry] — William Thompson
“Yes, here / the year is ending / like something no one has the heart to say.”
[Fiction] Franken-sense — Mark Thomas
“I have personally nursed Victor Frankenstein from the moment we plucked his body off a shattered fragment of sea ice.”
[Fiction] Garden — Matt Cantor
“And there was Amelia. She sat across from me in Social Studies, and that was the class I really couldn’t pay attention in, that’s where I was a problem. Was I paying attention now?”
[Fiction] Bakersfield Breeds Outlaws — Matthew O’Brien
“As the lights of Jean, Nevada, approached like a far-flung galaxy, Ray—eyes still closed—started counting using his fingers. He stopped at seven—the number of people he’d stabbed in his life.”
[Poetry] — DS Maolalai
“I was just tipsy – could feel myself trying / to keep up with his depth of feeling”
[Fiction] What We Are Talking About When We Talk About What We Talk About When We Talk About Love — Nile Arena
“Some frank words were exchanged. It became clear I would be going to the cineplex alone.”
[Poetry] — Alex Tretbar
“in one of these backrooms all of my selves convene/to weave a hushed conspiracy of place/and we find we cannot turn/our backs to the gadwalls on the stream”
[Poetry] — Mark J. Mitchell
“There’s no map/ for you here. You’re not meant to find your way./ The bitten moon leads you—only—right here.”
[Poetry] — Hannah Linden
“Anyone can turn off their feelings./Turning them on again—that’s the tricky part./I wanted to miss my mother. I wanted to feel the sun once more.”
[Poetry] — Cori Howard
“I swipe right/with the courage of a woman/who hasn’t been touched in seven years”
[Poetry] — Jeff Gallagher
“Ulster, Gaza, Vietnam/were anthems beyond all words:/the world played tunes unknown/to us. We all stopped singing.”
[Poetry] — Ace Boggess
“There’s me & the pizza,/a mournful tenderness shared/between devourer & devoured.”
New Critique 