Fiction

May Contributors

X.C. Atkins, Kendra Augustin, Ioana Barbulescu, Amy Allen, Melissa Llanes Brownlee, Indigo Carter, Catherine Dean, Michael Fontana, Robert John Miller, Mitchell Ny, Brittany Pike, Albert Rodríguez, Nayt Rundquist, Daniel Sheen, Antonio Sodré, Mick Theebs, and Brian Washines

May Highlights

back in the city

Fiction by Brian Washines
“I took the radio out onto the balcony and tossed it. When it hit the parking lot it went into what appeared to be three separate pieces. Someone in one of the other apartments across the street laughed.”
flowers

Micro-fiction by X.C. Atkins
“I’d dump them into the lake just out of town, as usual. I sawed them into manageable pieces, listening to the Cocteau Twins.”
we dance the hula at the hotel luau

Micro-fiction by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
“and we dance the hula and we dance the hula and we don’t tell our stories not the ones you want to know…”
and then there is nothing

Fiction by Daniel Sheen
“‘I’m scared,’ I whisper, my voice trembling as the first celestial streak appears from over the horizon…can still see their polished brightness reflected in his black-water eyes. Painfully beautiful. The boiling sky veined with the fiery tails of a dozen artificial comets.”
long and behold

Fiction by Catherine Dean
“Let’s just say that if Plato’s Republic contained a perfect form for a bad mother, you might be it…A classic filiophage, like in Medea, like in The Brood. At least Medea knew how to create a beautiful table.”

David Estringel 11/29/25 David Estringel 11/29/25

lycanthropy

by Maria Pianelli Blair

“I think it’s modern Darwinism — how would we expect our girls to survive, otherwise? A girl needs a little firepower every now and again.”

David Estringel 11/27/25 David Estringel 11/27/25

I promise it gets better than this.

by Alexander Holcomb

“I crouched under the window, ready to reveal myself to the police. My brother sat beside me. Would they use handcuffs? I hoped not.”

David Estringel 11/21/25 David Estringel 11/21/25

stickler

by Eric Angal

“The kid stands there, shadowboxing in the felt earth. He can hear the creek chuckling to his right. The sky is the color of a ripe persimmon.”

David Estringel 11/19/25 David Estringel 11/19/25

mom’s special

by Erin Dawkins

“I looked down at the newly bloomed flowers that grew fully without attention or care. Without water or seed. Plucked before they’re primed, soon to brown at the edges and wilt.“

David Estringel 11/16/25 David Estringel 11/16/25

the fable of the storyteller and his witch

by Sumitra Singam

“It was never clear who hurled the first stone. The flinty piece of rock hit her on the head, leaving a dark bloom of blood.”

David Estringel 11/15/25 David Estringel 11/15/25

our darkness

by Reagan Davenport

“For a moment, I saw nothing, heard nothing, but I felt her moving again inside me. For a moment, we were both alive.”

David Estringel 11/14/25 David Estringel 11/14/25

the ghost president decides to write a novel

by Mary Grimm

“The ghost president has some spare time and decides to write a bestselling novel. It will, he tells the aide who brings him his Sausage McMuffin accompanied by two Hash Browns, each in their paper envelope, be based on a dream he had last week.”

David Estringel 11/12/25 David Estringel 11/12/25

tough guys

by Myna Chang

“She shoves my tie aside, taps a button mid-chest with the blade, tap tap tap. Who is this bitch? She’s grinning again, all teeth, and she smells like copper, like old pennies…”

David Estringel 11/8/25 David Estringel 11/8/25

waiting

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…”

David Estringel 11/6/25 David Estringel 11/6/25

katabasis

by Elodie Ashcroft

“the ugly traffic lights remain, the lights that stop and start us, that take our choice away.”

David Estringel 10/23/25 David Estringel 10/23/25

the sandlot/event horizon

by Eric Angal

“I met the guru last year at Wildheart: The Mid-Life Retreat For Men. He led the program’s transcendental meditation seminars and worked individually with retreat attendees to prescribe unique mantras to us, and to help us understand the uses and benefits of TM.”

David Estringel 10/22/25 David Estringel 10/22/25

ringing the island belle

by William P. Adams

“Kirby and the Market were so closely linked that no one on Belle Island could remember when there was one without the other. “

David Estringel 10/16/25 David Estringel 10/16/25

clam guts

by Susan Flint

“I LIVED IN A CITY WHERE THE MONEY FESTERS LIKE MOLD. I HUNG AROUND THAT CITY’S NECK. I ATE THE SCRAPS IT FED ME…I ENDURED THE SIGHT OF HOMELESS PEOPLE ON THE SUBWAY AND I THOUGHT IT MADE ME SPECIAL. I SWALLOWED CIGARETTES WHOLE.”

David Estringel 10/15/25 David Estringel 10/15/25

bodies

by Emily Buli

“It starts with a video of two women kissing, which intrigues me in a way I don’t fully understand. Megan watches on the bean bag beside me. Her eyes are like glass—red and distant as she takes swigs of hard lemonade with one hand and pets her dog with the other.”

David Estringel 10/8/25 David Estringel 10/8/25

the work of a queen

by Emmi Khor

“The votes were in; she would soon be Queen and her words finally matter.“

David Estringel 9/29/25 David Estringel 9/29/25

roger lamb

by James Zoller

“I was born into a family of great failures.”

David Estringel 9/27/25 David Estringel 9/27/25

grape covers

by Eray Erkek

“He held the ladder steady. The damp floor with hose water covered his surroundings, green and brown like bruised skin.”

David Estringel 9/23/25 David Estringel 9/23/25

just an idea

by Michael Czyzniejewski

“So, my idea, for down in the station, in the background, is we have the shoeshine booth, yeah, but instead of shoeshines, guys polishing shoes, we have guys polishing teeth.”

David Estringel 9/16/25 David Estringel 9/16/25

woman in the coral

by Rebecca Karas

“Someday I would join her, intertwined on the ocean floor.”

David Estringel 9/5/25 David Estringel 9/5/25

protection from the gods