SKATE HAVEN by Amy R. Martin
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thwack
EVEN IN THE DARK by Cristina Trapani-Scott
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A POEM WHEREIN I TRY, AND FAIL, TO IDENTIFY MY TUESDAY GENDER by Quinn Rennerfeldt
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WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN WHEN YOU’RE STUCK by Louella Lester
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THE CONTENTS OF MY EXES’ REFRIGERATORS by Michelle Ross
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RUNNING ALONE AT NIGHT by Charlotte Moretti
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LEAVE NO TRACE by Robin Neidorf
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DESPINA by Jennifer Hayden
Jennifer HaydenDESPINA: a visual narrative Jennifer Hayden is a graphic novelist based in New Jersey. She is the author and artist of The Story of My Tits, a graphic memoir about her life and her experience with breast cancer, which…
WHEN YOU’RE THE CONTORTIONIST by Candace Hartsuyker
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DON’T KICK THE DOG by Philip Schaefer
Philip SchaeferDON’T KICK THE DOG Just last week doves glued to the beach, stuck between physics and chemistry. Beneath the Puget Sound. No guns, no sharks. A simple conundrum. There is a history within history, angles prior to geometry. Names…
EVEN THE DOGS by Ronda Broatch
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ABLATION by Lisa Lebduska
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MEANINGFUL DEPARTURES by Eric Rasmussen
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N ̓X̌AX̌AITKʷ, 1984 by AJ Strosahl
AJ StrosahlN ̓X̌AX̌AITKʷ, 1984 A monster named Ogopogo lived in Lake Okanagan and Sylvester’s father Clyde had once seen it drown a bear, face first. It happened a few years before Sylvester was born, when Clyde was almost a boy…
WALKING ON THE FURNITURE by Jessica Klimesh
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THE OTHER SIDE by Ann Stoney
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TIMOUN, or, LITTLE WORLD by Richard Casimir
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BREAKFAST SOLILOQUY by William Erickson
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WE WERE NOT SO BIG by Windy Lynn Harris
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A CONVERSATION WITH NAMRATA PODDAR, AUTHOR OF BORDER LESS
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GOLD by Rumi translated by Haleh Liza Gafori, reviewed by Dylan Cook
Poetry by Rumi, translated by Haleh Liza Gafori, reviewed by Dylan Cook GOLD (NYRB) There’s no way to talk about Gold without sounding like a flower child spreading the gospel of peace and love, but is that such a bad…
AN INTERVIEW WITH KATHLEEN COURTENAY STONE, AUTHOR OF THE COLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHY, THEY CALLED US GIRLS
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Dreadful Sorry: Essays on an American Nostalgia by Jennifer Niesslein, Reviewed by Beth Kephart
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THE TENDEREST OF STRINGS, a novel by Steven Schwartz, reviewed by Ellen Prentiss Campbell
Fiction by Steven Schwartz, reviewed by Ellen Prentiss Campbell THE TENDEREST OF STRINGS (Regal House Publishing) Steven Schwartz’s new novel The Tenderest of Strings is the story of a marriage and a family in trouble, an exploration of how family…
SINGING LESSONS FOR THE STYLISH CANARY, a novel by Laura Stanfill, appreciation by Beth Kephart
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COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: on Lewis Hyde’s Advice for Creativity, and How I Became an Artist in the Modern World, a craft essay by Geoff Watkinson
Geoff WatkinsonCOSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS: On Lewis Hyde’s Advice for Creativity, and How I Became an Artist in the Modern World During the fall of my senior year of college, I took my first creative writing class and began to think that…
THE NICK OF TIME, poems by Rosmarie Waldrop, reviewed by Candela Rivero
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From KENNINGS, Visual Erasures by Katrina Roberts
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REGENERATION by Brenda Taulbee
Brenda TaulbeeREGENERATION I want to put my head down …………………….and sleep like I used to know …………………….………..how to sleep. …………………….I want my brain to be less like a rained out game …………………….of hopscotch, the lines all running. I never want…
CLEANING HOUSE by Andrea Lynn Koohi
Andrea Lynn KoohiCLEANING HOUSE “Right there,” I say, pointing to the spider on the wall before leaving the kitchen. I’d rather not kill things, so I make my husband do it. My only complaint is that he doesn’t kill faster.…
SHOW TUNES by Julie Benesh
Julie BeneshSHOW TUNES My ex- husband texting quotations, marked: “I know all about your standards…” Because July: ………….Music Man. last month was June’s ………….Carousel bustin’ out all over. (If I… ) Next month: ………….State Fair (Iowa, again, my home state).…
REFLECTIONS by Virginia Petrucci
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PUSHING AWAY THE SCUM by Benedicte Grima
Benedicte GrimaPUSHING AWAY THE SCUM I have no recollection of being bathed before the age of five. Doubtless, long forgotten nannies took charge of that. But growing up in an old farmhouse with a French mother and an unreliable well…
ADULT SWIMS by Christine Muller
Christine MullerADULT SWIMS Someone must have peed in the pool. From the vigor of the lifeguards’ arms waving us out, I figured that someone must have peed a lot. I tried to keep my head above water as I made…
I AM LOSING MY HANDS. by Kelley White
Kelley WhiteI AM LOSING MY HANDS. The right hand middle finger middle joint swollen. I can almost see it. And hurt. Three times I try to open a bottle and hurt. Struggle. Will I need to ask for help? And…
THE UNDERSIDE by Eric Scot Tryon
Eric Scot TryonTHE UNDERSIDE It was an exceptionally hot Saturday in April when my sister and I zombied our way through the tedious chore of packing Mom’s house. A twisted, cruel part of the grieving process, but we refused to…
HOOPS by Maggie Hill
Maggie HillHOOPS We’re going to jail for Christmas. Sing Sing. Ossining, New York. My brother Bobby and I ride in the back seat, the both of us held captive by images of branch, stone, sky going in the other direction.…
SHELTER by Bree Smith
Bree SmithSHELTER First, the wound has to clot. In the hemostasis phase, blood vessels constrict to stop blood flow. Platelets fuse together to form a seal. Coagulation binds the wound on a molecular level. If a wound doesn’t clot, it…
A PLACE OF COMFORT by Eliot Li
Eliot LiA PLACE OF COMFORT Dustin, whose adolescent spine curved gently to the right. He hardly ever wore his corrective brace to school because it was so obvious under his polo shirt. Whose bedroom equaled comfort, Phoebe Cates on the…
ENOUGH by Margaret MacInnis
Margaret MacInnisENOUGH When my infant daughter turns her face from my nipple and stiffens in my arms, I panic, imagining my lungs filling with water. I’m drowning on my living room floor, where I sit topless, still in my pajama…
MAKING A CAKE by Grace Kennedy
Grace KennedyMAKING A CAKE Today is my father’s birthday and I am making a chocolate Guinness cake. I am making this cake by hand because I do not have a stand mixer and do not want to spend two-hundred and…
LITTLE FEET by Gabriella Souza
Gabriella SouzaLITTLE FEET Her mother used a foot mask. The package promised that in five days, the skin on her mother’s feet would molt, bubble white, and peel off in shreds, ziiiiiip. The daughter swore her mother’s eventual demise began…
TEENAGE ASTRONOMY by Karin Wraley Barbee
Karin Wraley BarbeeTEENAGE ASTRONOMY Men watch her from her ceiling, Cepheus and Hercules, pressed there by a girl on the top bunk. Their luminous hands connect the dots of her now teenage body. The screen glows like the Northern Lights…
PAS DE DEUX by Lori Sambol Brody
Lori Sambol BrodyPAS DE DEUX Alexander calls me to the front of the beginning pas de deux class to demonstrate positions. A tour de promenade: he coaches me to grip his hand and lift my leg in an arabesque, then…
BEND AND TOUCH THE GRASS by Peter Grandbois
Peter GrandboisBEND AND TOUCH THE GRASS Though the house is quiet another day nearly ………….snuffed out Shadows slipping through a bear’s skull, ………….half-buried Deer prints breaking the blossoming mud ………….at the water’s edge The cricket’s chirp limping through ………….the undecided…
THE TRUTH by Cassie Burkhardt
Cassie BurkhardtTHE TRUTH When I was in eighth grade, I had a terrible eating disorder and was hospitalized for most of it. When that didn’t work, I was admitted to a treatment center in Utah called The Center for Change,…
SPONTANEOUS BUNGEE JUMP IN SWITZERLAND by Cassie Burkhardt
Cassie BurkhardtSPONTANEOUS BUNGEE JUMP IN SWITZERLAND Twenty-six years old. Pink cutoffs. Barefoot. Day trip to Lugano with friends when we see a sign with an arrow: James Bond Golden Eye Cliff Jump. No one else wants to do it, but…
WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP, WHY DON’T YOU SPEAK UP? by Amy Savage
Amy SavageWHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP, WHY DON’T YOU SPEAK UP? “What do you call the men? Ballerinos?” Sophie’s mother asked at intermission, frowning. “Some of them need another layer down there. You can see all their parts.” She ran…
MASQUERADE by Dhaea Kang
Dhaea KangMASQUERADE We’ve just arrived at prom and already I want to leave. Should we take a photo? Chris asks. I clock the long line, my classmates barely recognizable without their signature Hollister t-shirts and hoodies, skin-tight low rise jeans.…
CONCERNING RITA HAYWORTH by Kim Magowan
Kim MagowanCONCERNING RITA HAYWORTH “So what do you do?” George says, then winces. “Sorry! Reductive question.” “At least you waited until we each had a glass of wine.” Cora examines her hands, the body part she used to be most…