Fiction
Fiction Introduction by Edwin Riddell
Contributors from England, Georgia, Wales, Kentucky, Ireland, and Virginia help to make this a truly international edition. With that welcome geographical spread comes a wide range of voices, showing some of the enormous diversity of the English language today. One of the acid tests for any literary work – for some, perhaps, the ultimate yardstick [...]
Fiction
Curtail Not Your Yearnings by DJ Tyrer
The Tatterdemalion walked towards me across the tesseracted sands of the sun-abandoned shore, saying, “Curtail not your yearnings for unprincipled morality.” I fixed his blank face with an anxious stare and asked him to explain his presence there, upon the shore. “Cease your babblement,” he told me and proceeded to repeat his words of greeting, [...]
Poetry
This is Not a Poem of the Articulate Rain by William Doreski
Narrated by William Doreski Today the rain speaks in French, the French I failed to learn in high school. Also, the French I failed to learn in college. Also, the French I failed to speak in Paris. Also, the French I failed to speak in Lyons. Also, the French I almost spoke in Marseilles. The [...]
Fiction
Jill Against the Unicorns by Lara Kristin Herndon
“Unicorns,” said the ghost of Jill’s father -- though she tried not to think of him as a ghost. The staff at Eternal Life encouraged the term "Post-Life Resident" instead, and the nameplate next to her father's door simply read Saul Stiefel, in a tasteful sans-serif font. But if he wasn’t a ghost, why did [...]
Poetry
Narrated by Rekha Valliappan the staggering beauty of the earth, edge-blown, lithe, a-flutter; bathe in sakura. languish to a pinking sky, every bud the ghost of a moment movement, leaf bud, shifting in shades, magenta, carmine, cherry blossoms, rose pink of dianthus, blush peach in branches, wind stirs around fuchsia, amaranth, we will pass [...]
Fiction
On March twentieth, the day before the spring equinox, I bought a box of six free-range eggs from Asda, unpacked my shopping onto my kitchen worktop, and was about to distribute it into the appropriate locations when the egg box wobbled. I stared at it. It wobbled again. This was a mystery. Get a grip, [...]
Poetry
Narrated by Heather A Davis I. When you’re so sick you can’t hold your head up but the doctor finally listens, tells you that you’ve had thyroid cancer for five years and you rage and scream the world down around you When you’re swallowing a pill full of radiation in a hospital room next [...]
Fiction
Jack and the Pouch of Plenty by Lee Blevins
The festival was all but over. A stream of sunburned, mud-baked hippies churned out the stage area and rolled down the dirt roads that splintered into tributaries and wound onwards to the campground. Jack watched three girls ahead of him, shoulders close, somehow talkative, as they journeyed out. They sported matching yellow bandanas. He was [...]
Poetry
All the Worlds There Are by Robert Ronnow
Narrated by Robert Ronnow —After the Wikipedia entry, “Omega” Just watching raindrops slapping leaves is better than anything requiring electricity including fame and posterity. Monday morning I walk over to the art museum, stand before Homer. I’m imagining life in ancient Greece, the land largely deforested to build a navy, white as bone, a tourist [...]
Fiction
Floating, Dancing by Ken McGrath
Eric stared out at the endless black which spread like ink across an infinite page. Space, there was so much of it. He felt it resonate in his chest, amplifying the emptiness inside. But the problem with space was it wasn’t empty. Eric closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. Slowly he turned [...]
Poetry
Cataclysm Days: Arizona Conservatives Revert to Old Forms of Worship by Chuck Von Nordheim
Narrated by Fay Richardson Laura plays with her Barbies in the corner of the cave next to our ammo crates Offerings need setup, so Dad left me in charge, to include sister surveillance By the signal fire, I melt bullets from lead while I keep watch Shots sound from near the slab of sacrifice, three [...]
Fiction
A Prayer Meeting by Padma Prasad
Stacey Franser always went along. For anything. She went along at thirteen, when her big brother, older by eighteen months, said, “Let Dustin kiss you for a dollar.” In freshman year, she went along with Marylou when she wanted to go bungee jumping. Then at twenty-three, she went along with Jack Franser when he said [...]
Poetry
A Postcard to Janice by William Doreski
Narrated by William Doreski At the market the man who works the meat counter remembers you after forty years. The ruddy smile that toppled men in their tracks. The childish figure powerful as a question mark. I explained the night by the river, the reek of dead perch, slobber of current. In a parked [...]