by Chachee Valentine

“No tap shoes until you show me that you’ll stick with it…Deep down, I knew that one day a pair of black shoes with toe plates and heel taps would be mine. There was something about the sound of tap - its percussion, its rhythm - that resonated.”

by Rachel H.

“Now I watch this man, razor gliding across his jaw, and wonder if, when he is finished, I’ll recognize him at all.”

by Travis Turner

“When the lights grow dim for me, I hope someone will do me the honor of picking up my books from the hall and placing them on shelves of their own.”

by Clayton Eccard

“Months earlier, he had shown me a photo of his house. A weeping cherry near the sidewalk, its branches curved toward the earth. I remember wishing it had been in bloom.”

by Sara Caskey

“I watched its skin peeled off like my cuticles sometimes do, and made a sound like pain, and I realized I was still hungry…and that I am no better than a no-shirt man, or his father, or you, and no worse than I was yesterday.”

by Jennifer Jenkins

“Because suddenly my dad. Because suddenly my dad died and my heart was consumed by a wailing, unending tornado of pain, I took my child and left.”

by Jen Bryant

“We pucker up to bathroom mirrors after showering, leaving ghostly lip prints in the steam. We French kiss the insides of our elbows because Kristi’s cousin swears it’s just like the real thing.”

by Natalie Marino

“By the 1980s quilt-making had become a multi-million dollar business. There are now a lot more people interested in making quilts than those interested in purchasing them. Places like the Iowa Quilt Museum promote appreciation for the history of quilts, before automation took over ingenuity.”

by Sara Caskey

““Like a little deer.” There is nothing I like better than being bloodied, crawling beneath the couch, .waiting for some skinning knife to shave my legs.”

by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff

“One day waves will break through the walls, rush up and over the prom, crash through the glass, and carry the seals back to the ocean. They will float on their backs and bark and clap, toss their balls into the air like confetti, celebrate the win of which their ancestors could only dream.”

by Ellen White

“My cousin and I have been looking for Bridget Reynold’s grave for twenty years. Lots of Reynolds. Just one Cornelius. On the headstone: Bridget, his Wife cut sharp beneath the date of death.”

by Nicholas Schmidt

“We saw them from across the plain. We were up on a hill, green grass tufted around our ankles, walking a ridge. A big ole mama bear and her cub.”

by Maxim Volk

“The pastor begins his weekly exegesis, and before he reaches the first mandate from the Most High, my teenage mind has slipped away, floating over the congregation of parishioners, each there for a service that I care little about.”

by Patrick Johnston

“I seem to spend half my time thinking thoughts on the back of motor scooters. Juddering past ancient Wats and Temples and Mosques and Cathedrals. And open front stores where wiry, tanned mechanics fix bikes.”

by Danielle Rufrano

“I elbowed him in the stomach, rushed through the rows of students, cautious not to trip over my laces, the feet of other students, picked up my violin, tucked it under my chin, and played “Blue Danube”.

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.”

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.”

by Chel Campbell

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

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.”

by Alex Palmatier

“I wonder if you were put away for longer, things would have been different. Or if they gave you a guitar. What I would give to hear you play again.”