Poetry by Katie Johntz

“Healing / comes in the smallest of strokes. / I am stretching my arms out / towards order, towards elegance.”

Golden Shovel Poem by Jordan Trethewey (from the serialized chapbook There Is More)

“No / one knows how to properly dress / for the final rehearsal— / this / danse macabre to Death’s violin…”

Fiction by Peter Sipe

“There were a lot of jokes about Bill doing a disappearing act. I even chuckled, thinking of him flinging open the lid and shouting “Ta-da!” But when the guys marched down the aisle with their horns, I got teary-eyed along with everyone else.”

Flash Fiction by Michael Ranfone

“The woman kneels beside the body. Her dress rides up, gravel biting at her knees. The mermaid’s hair fans into a slick crescent, tangling with a gray Walmart bag and a half-smoked cigarillo…One nipple is scabbed. The mouth slack and sweet, maybe holding the shape of a lie told too well.”

Poetry by Allister Nelson (from the serialized chapbook Jethro’s Daughter)

“‘Aging is death romancing / the body.’”

Micro CNF by Magda Lynne

“The danger, unmistakable. Without a word, I duck low. At six, it isn’t far. Another dinner plate breaks on the kitchen floor.”

Poetry by David Calogero Centorbi

“The waiter sees pigeons holding machetes or lighters. / He never knows, but he accepts his fate.”

Flash Fiction by Elizabeth Sundstrom

“The family photos are gone from the walls. Sylvia’s noisy Yorkie is nowhere to be seen. Nor is the dog’s bed and vast array of squeaky toys normally scattered throughout the room.”

Flash fiction by Alexei Raymond

““He delivers death to legions—whence, he does not know, and why never crosses his mind.”

Serialized Novel by Tom Stuckey (Writer-in-Residence)

“The nun lay on the stage floor and closed her eyes as Thomas stood over her and put his hands out over her body, which began to drain of life; she went white as if all the blood had been removed by gravity, and suddenly a white shadow began to rise from her, as if her aura or spirit.”

Fiction by Saee Motling

“I  sold  emotions.  More  precisely,  I  sold  two  emotions:  Love  and  Happiness.  There  were  other  emotions  too—Inspiration,  Confidence,  Hope,  Peace—but  I  chose  these  two.”

Digital Art by Robert Fleming

“Before my blood series, I believed that blood flowed uncontained under my skin: wrong! Blood flows through the body in containers (arteries, veins).”

Poetry by Blair Nelsen

“Long, cloud-like ropes of branching white, / holly-dotted with persistent, / scarring, indelible red./ Two caws, and silence again.”

Fiction by Alex Pugsley

“…he would certainly remember, when, in passing clumsiness, he set fire to the entire box and all the matches exploded in his hand, alarming him, harming him, but at last charming him…”

Poetry by Mykki Rios

“An angel falls from somewhere / and the astronomer / calls it a meteorite / and the birdwatcher / calls it a meadowlark / and isn’t it interesting / that we all see something / different…”

Flash Fiction by Kathryn Kulpa

“‘You should have seen me on the dance floor in this,’ she said, showing me something glittery and poufed. ‘When I twirled everything sparkled.’ Like a human disco ball, I thought, but didn’t say. I liked to keep the peace.”

Fiction by Jonas David

“i sat in the metal chair at the metal table outside the starbucks and i was contemplating the birdshit stain in the center of the table which had somehow splattered in the shape of a crescent moon.”

Poetry by Marty Shambles (Writer-in-Residence)

“the / gristle of God gets stuck in the teeth.“

Fiction by Karl Nykwest

“Everybody’s got to have a thing. At least, that’s what my buddy Cheddar Romero used to say. Mine’s wearing a tire.

CNF by Chel Campbell

“A white egg cracks. Death’s indifferent eyes cloud over with the golden yolk of time.”

Poetry by Naomi Bess Leimsider

“The dentist says being a dentist means he’ll never run out of work. Never age / out. For him, the mechanics of fixing, filling, are forever. What a / life!

by Wesley R. Bishop (Writer-in-Residence)

“…why not build a microscope for Hell? What Southern ghosts, what Titans of Industry, what fathers and mothers scream in those shadows?”

Micro-fiction by Foxx Hart

“Contrary to what most people believe, Death cares. It has to. If it didn’t care, it would just be…cruel.”

Fiction by Cooper Clarence

“Behind me at a distance of thirty yards stood the man with the briefcase. I was used to seeing backpackers…but this man was no backpacker.”

Poetry by Tempest Miller

“A donkey bites my hair / a bear hides in a tree / a bear hides in a tree / but the donkey kicks back legs into a woodburner / and lets go…

Micro CNF by David Henson

“I’ve heard of people who eat in their box, curl up and sleep in it…almost never leave. Don’t let that happen. The box isn’t for living in. The box is for living out.”

Poetry by KG Miles

“…Robin Hood riding through the glen / Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men / Feared by the bad / Loved by the good / Funded by The Communist Party Of America / Robin Hood…”

Flash Fiction by Brendan Todt

“Sarah still writes poems on the Sabbath, but she does not allow herself to write poems about snow, autumn, hair, poems, tulips, leaves, city pools, private pools, freshly dug graves, or giraffes (don’t ask).”

Fiction by Michael E. O’Reilly

“…he could run his other business out of the old grocer’s office inside. He needed a new security guard though. The first guy worked out great for a while, but he was too chatty. And way too nosey.”

Poetry by Devon Fulford

“it always comes back to our teeth— / --DNA merely suggests you share time / sometimes, that’s uproarious amusement… / …other times, it’s handcuffs, a hospital bed, / and the tears that came when you saw me.”

CNF by Lorette C. Luzajic

“In that moment, he had vowed to become the greatest artist who ever lived. Picasso, as epic and brutal as God.”

Poetry by Annie Williams

“unlovable - unfuckable - untamable - untouchable…I have been named - all these names - I wear them like big shiny buttons on my skin - creating pure metallic gore - becoming an angel - cenobite…”

Micro CNF by Sara Hutchinson

“After enjoying the dish you may experience a nausea, anxiety and sleeplessness.  However, if you make the dish and survive, you will feel better. Safety warning: this recipe may cause divorce.”

Poetry by Brad Rose

“I’m liable to be drafted by the secret police who are always recruiting new informants. As for me, mum’s the word.”

Fiction by Blake Christian

“His mouth yawned open and moved further into hers, then he placed his hand on her waist. She felt his tongue then, too, and all at once the fermented blend of copper and beer was unavoidable.”

Poetry by Prahi Rajput

“…I didn’t have the chance to know the difference between / the skulking lesbian, the galled lesbian, the malfunctioning lesbian. / I have been de-fetishising as capably as the toolbox / I never had the pleasure of knowing.”

Fiction by Jason David

“…only before me in that pool of light with the witches and the goat, only there could I see a kind of peace, and I heard the crackling of the flame…and the witches laughed and murmured among themselves as I entered their circle of light.”

Poetry by Hailey Paetzel

“Men destroy their bodies delicately. Why can I not chain smoke with dignity?”

Flash Fiction by Miles Efron

“Little cramp. Some pressure. Then, as I wok us a stir fry, it slides out of the cuff of my pants leg. Splat! The baby stares up at me with its water-colored eyes. And as I admire my first-born, I feel a pang of awe.”

CNF by Daniel Bailey

“I finished the coffee even though it tasted terrible. The app still wanted data. I put the phone face down. For a second nothing happened. No lesson. No insight. Just me in the kitchen breathing like it still belonged to me.”

Digital Art by Howard Skrill

“These works are a meditation on effigies’ impact on the erasure of public and private memory and identity including rebellion against these impositions.”

Column by Michael Templeton (from Wander Lines)

“We were compelled to speed up in order to produce for others. Slowness offers the space for us to create ourselves for ourselves.“

Poetry by Allister Nelson (from the serialized chapbook Jethro’s Daughter)

“I, Greensleeve’d Anne, / Reign. / Know my name! / Know my name.”

by Hugh Blanton

“A reader may get the idea that Gerstler loves to write about women behaving badly (there's even a Mae West sonnet in here), but she says what she's really writing about is women behaving boldly.”

by David Estrinel (feature)

“[Ripped Backsides] not only fulfilled its promise to deliver a dopamine-laced travel log/urban anthropologist shadow diary but also an erudite commentary on societal decay and disconnection that rings true today, as much as it did decades ago, if not more.”

Column by Michael Templeton (from Wander Lines)

“We were compelled to speed up in order to produce for others. Slowness offers the space for us to create ourselves for ourselves.“

Book Review by David Estringel

“At their core, despite the sense of loss and chaos and alienation one perceives through their reading, Cvencek’s poems convey an optimism (if not in glimpses and glimmers) that promise the reader a hopeful release from his or her own demons.”

from Wander Lines by Michael Templeton (column)

““Now that AI is taking hold of the general intellect and the human capacity to think and create, the homogenization of all life will be complete. All will be a form of mediocrity and there will be no one around who is capable of recognizing mediocrity as mediocrity.”

by Timothy Petkovic (book review)

“The Emperor of Gladness is so overwhelming in its brilliance, so full-bodied and ambitious, you have to submit to it. Bloody hell. Shit, he’s good. Piss off, any critics. All hail Ocean Vuong.”

by Christie Chapman (book review)

“In this pressure-cooker world, where so many seem to be chasing after the top dogs, the glitz and clout, the Big Five, the “template for success”—Take It Personally, in its unbothered originality, is refreshing. “A+.”

from Wander Lines by Michael Templeton (column)

“The world in which we live is so deeply sick, so inherently insane, that what appears to be normal or sane is the real insanity. Only a sick, insane person could exist in a world of such monstrous cruelty.“

by Eric Vanderwall (book review)

“The Sugar Kremlin presents another fine entry in the catalogue of Sorokin’s works available in English. Although The Sugar Kremlin is a sequel in a loose sense, it is not a bad entry point for readers new to Sorokin, and Joshua Cohen’s interview with the author…is especially illuminating.”

by David Estringel (interview)

“I am now in phase where I’m slowing down and trying to craft things that are a little more challenging for me.”

from The Comfortable Apocalypse by Robert Dean (column)

“I wish some hooded dudes would come down on horses, ready to fuck everything up. I’m down for that. We could use the break from continual genocide, class war, and a stagnant economy lurching toward depression.”

from Wander Lines by Michael Templeton

“The city and its pedestrians are now that mass of empty souls who form what the Invisible Committee describe as living in the grip of a specific kind of mood of distance, a mood best named in the Nietzschean term of the Stimmung, a void mood of the void soul.”

from “Beneath and Beyond the Art…” by David Estringel (column)

“I love painting about sex and trauma. These are subjects that every human being can relate to. I’m not afraid to explore them. Sex has brought a lot of joy, while trauma has brought sadness. The combination of the two makes for powerful, meaningful artwork.”