Poetry by Catfish McDaris

“Her freckles were devil’s kisses / showering down from purgatory.”

Flash Fiction by Benjamin Goluboff and Mark Luebbers

“But on this overcast day in the last autumn of the century, among riots and the rumors of riots, the future of the Union lurked invisibly, a fish below the surface.”

Flash Fiction by James A. Knight

“Steven Porter was found dead in an alleyway, during the winter of 2012. He fell from a window of his fourth-floor town house in Kilburn. The fall shattered his skull, leaving a lake of blood. The red lake was covered in a light dusting of snow.”

Fiction by Arjun Razdan

“There is only one Time, and this Montre is its Prophet.”

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

“Always / avoiding uncomfortable mirrors means / never hearing, No.”

Micro-fiction by Roger D'Agostin

“The last two weeks of August were good.  Her grasp on my bicep was gentle.  But on the first night of autumn, Mary covered her ears and complained about the crickets.  Her nails left marks in my arm. “

Poetry by James Fleet Underwood

“…a destination seldom reached where even for the shortest second nothing’s / ever over, where nothing seems to die, where the last I’ll ever learn / and love of you is the glowing purple cactus flowers trembling all around.”

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

“Little flower of Hell, where the clear creek / runs / …I go a witching down in the brine, digging / a stick through the mud.”

Micro-fiction by Nolan Knight

“The detective flashes his penlight over a slick of blood. Eyes the busted back door, scans the yard. Body was moved. That’s three this week. Or was it last week?”

CNF by Jack Coldicott

“…will we simply watch as the pendulum swings again, shifting beauty standards and offering new false promises, while the underlying struggle remains unchanged? Because to me, as a victim of the last cycle…we haven't learned a thing.”

Fiction by Jennifer Benningfield

“When I die, I just hope someone worth a damn gives a damn.”

Poetry by Von Wise

“Off in the distance, the village pervert / watches us making love / in the afternoon heat. We regard him / as harmless, the way we'd regard a dog / or bird and continue with our wet return / into one another.”

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

“by Tom Stuckey

“As he sobered to the disarray, he noticed pictures of Helena all over the walls; there were many of her pussy but also of her looking deranged and vicious…it would be a rough few days of staying sober.”

Flash Fiction by Steve Oehmen

“The hollowness begins in the middle of my rib cage. A pulsating vacuum where once my heart resided is now draining any resolve left in my body. I sorely accept my fate and await the end.”

Fiction by Melvin Sterne

“I deduce from this that he was not popular in high school or especially good at sports – all traits that channel people into police work like here at the agency.” 

Poetry by Patrick Johnston

“A knife can be a tool / A dagger is always a story”

Poem by Rebecca Warlick

“You carried me to the sink / I woke up to luminous columns / And turned into dust“

Micro-fiction by Walter Weinschenk

“The sea is a tumult, a terrifying process, and I’m too scared to venture out, too afraid to move, but too afraid to be alone…”

Fiction by Brandon Yu

“Some of them take severed ears, scalps, and thumbs from dead VC and make necklaces out of them, which—even I have to admit—is a little tacky.”

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

“In the warm light of the new epoch, an Era of Good Feelings unfurled: one party, one voice, not everyone invited.”

Micro-fiction by Sumitra Singam

“Seema and I sit with our backs to opposite walls. As far apart as we can be in this tiny, circular space. She gets the benefit of the breeze from the open doorway – they fan her ankles that have become thick with her swollen sense of status.”

Poetry by Cynthia Atkins

“Now I drive / with death on the passenger side./ A revenant finishing all my sentences.”

CNF by Kimberly Shaw

“Benzo demons lie dormant until ninety proof awakens them…”

Poetry by Marty Shambles (Writer-in-Residence)

“it’s a hungry time of night, / when the stomach sucks juice / from the ribs.”

Fiction by Arthur Aronstein

“There were giant marble vulvas, impressionist fungal stalks with colorful throbbing veins, clitorises crafted with coils and still-life circumcisions. Patrons surveyed these works with hands over their children’s eyes, jaws slack, none stopping to look at the painstaking detail invested in each one.”

Flash Fiction by Kayla Cain

“When no more color remained outside the train window, you watched each tree pass and the mountains approach in shades of gray. You wished for a twinkling river, and realized Kelli almost never bathed anymore.”

Poetry by Mykyta Ryzhykh

“This verse will be picked up by crows in the morning / And they will be thrown from heaven / On icy concrete heart rocks / All in vain”

CNF by Basil Rosa

“I have my deaths, my chase scenes, bouts of paranoia and longing as I lament what I believe to be engineered forms of demise. I have my memories of a day’s work done.”

Flash Fiction by Lindsey Maple

“…in 2014 everyone obsessed over the girls on Tumblr who smoked Marlboro Reds, and listened to Lana Del Rey…”

Poetry by David Hanlon

“I remember this heart, aflame— / a pond of restless red koi, / underwater fire-fish.”

Flash Fiction by Dee P. R. Kay

“He’d drink the bathwater Serena left, if he could, stubble and all, then scrub away her essence with Ajax. Boil notice or not.”

Poetry by Ron Riekki

“My uncle fell and broke his hip / and he was lying on the ground / and his computer was playing / The Rolling Stones / “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

Fiction by Andrew Rai Berzins

“Most of us do things of which we are not later proud. Ghosting a lame date. Prompting an avalanche. Sinking a continent. Or sitting back – beer in hand – dispassionately amused by the antics of idiots…”

CNF by Reg Darling

“What lingers in memory for me, beyond the scarification of grief, is “My bowl is empty! My bowl is empty!” Was that not poetry? Was that not art?”

Poetry by Frederick Pollack

“Our impulse is to build the museum / before we’re sure what it commemorates / or mourns.”

Flash Fiction by K. Uwe Dunn

“He has a dream (pause.) his wife gives birth to a child whose bones show through its skin. (pause.) ..Soon he loses sight of the child through the chaos and comes to realize his wife has given it away. (pause.) He’s relieved.”

Poetry by Mandie Lopatka

“sometimes I just randomly forget where I am / chewing on the straw of my coke / thinking about your tongue in my mouth…”

CNF by Isaac Russo

“Mankind may dream of Icarus until the wax is running down our backs, but a god with paper wings will always fall.”