EXCERPTS
The Diviner’s Daughter by L.D. Oxford
Mailin knew it’d be a bad day when Carr told her to take care of the dead dragon. “Muskin’ thing’s picking up flies. Take care of it. And don’t feed it to the sows, last one made ‘em sick.”…
Basma by John Kaufmann
When Ty pushed Vergil in his wheelchair out to the cement pad that Ty called their patio on the empty lot that overlooked the river, Vergil said, We’re like the blind man and the cripple. From the corner of…
Excerpt from 1989 by Vince Omni
Order 1989 here! Red Mare Press Barnes & Noble Bookshop.org Amazon Leave a review! Goodreads Church called me a pussy six weeks before tryouts. That’s what I tell his granddaughter, Raquel, who’s sitting across from me in the apartment above…
Water Baby by Amy Widmoyer Hanson
CHAPTER ONE — MIMI You might think I came to Africa as a humanitarian, dispensing medicine to babies so malnourished their delicate rib cages threatened to snap, rib after rib, in a glissando of tiny broken bones. You wouldn’t…
As the Lord Hangs Around Her Neck by Lauren Barbato
Notes on This Manuscript The following manuscript, printed here for the first time, came to light on the eve of November 4, 2024. While on a self-directed silent retreat at the Riverdale Center in the Hudson Valley, a Franciscan sister…
The Drowning Mothers by Aishatu Ado
CHAPTER ONE — INTERMENT The sky should hold its breath while we give you back to the ground. Instead, it breaks open, spilling a gray so heavy our heads bow without meaning to. Rain stripes the casket, beads along…
Happiness House by Hadley Franklin
Preface We almost hit a deer, the night we drove up. We had the high beams on, and they broke through the darkness of the long dirt road that led to Happiness House, but we mostly saw encroaching leaves…
What Empties as It Fills by Taylor Leatrice Werner
Chapter One I. At dawn, Mom says not to wake the others, but I don’t think anyone’s sleeping. We crouch beneath the low tarp shelter that’s tied to a fence post with the wire of someone’s earbuds. It is…
A Tremendous Thing by Susan Morehouse
Chapter One When Lena climbs off the bus in the predawn dark of a small mountain town she doesn’t know the name of, she’s not thinking about her home now some seven hundred miles behind her; she’s not thinking…
Excerpt from Landing in Andonia by Philip Anderson
Order Landing in Andonia here! Barnes & Noble Amazon Red Mare Press 18. Lily’s Ghost She doesn’t know why she’s attracted to him. He’s not bad-looking, he’s just a big guy with small-guy energy. Nervous energy. He’s combustible, she feels…