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FICTION

Image is a color photograph of a pile of mail; title card for the new flash story, "Landscape Grown Cold," by Carolyn Mireault.

“Landscape Grown Cold” by Carolynn Mireault

March 15, 2024

  On the settee, and smoking, Susan Dunn watches out the glass door to the yard, where one squirrel rapes another. She feels no need to stop it, hasn’t creased a brow or pursed a lip, and goes on smoking…

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Image is a color photograph of dimly lit pews; title card for the new short story, "Churchgoing," by Jenny Feldon.

Churchgoing by Jenny Feldon

March 8, 2024

  I go to churches because they’re quiet. The world is too loud. The first time I went, I was hiding. I’d been paying for a flat white at the café near my old office when my ex-fiancé and his…

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Image is a color photograph of a foggy pier; title card for the new flash fiction, "Riverine," by Ladi Opaluwa.

Riverine by Ladi Opaluwa

February 16, 2024

  Over the phone, I urge my sister to recount the event of the morning, several years ago when we were kids and our mother was away in nursing school, that she, being the eldest, woke up early as usual…

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Image is a black-and-white photograph of the binary signage for man and woman; title card for the new short story, "The Dress," by Tim Raymond.

The Dress by Tim Raymond

February 9, 2024

  It was raining that day, and when Daisy came home early from work she found me not only in the sundress I’d bought in secret from the underground market at Sadang Station, but in her bra and a pair…

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Image is a color photograph of two pairs of garden gloves on a weathered wooden deck; title card for the new flash fiction, "Sweet Knife," by Dana Brewer Harris.

Sweet Knife by Dana Brewer Harris

January 19, 2024

  When Ford made love to Calla, she felt something in him fight. It wasn’t against her ugliness. That matter was settled business, though Calla, in her youth, had held onto the idea that she was a winter-apple sort of…

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Image is a color photograph of foggy mountains through the windshield of a car; title card for the new short, "Stick Shift," by Jawziya Zaman.

Stick Shift by Jawziya Zaman

January 12, 2024

  After the texts fizzled out with the fifth guy in six weeks, Naz finally gave up and changed her app settings to full-on gay. Self-cannibalism would’ve been less painful than having a conversation with these one-neuron fools and she…

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Image is a black-and-white photo of a coming storm; title card for the first-place winner of the CRAFT 2023 First Chapters Contest, "The Bad One" by Sonny Buttar.

The Bad One by Sonny Buttar

December 15, 2023

  Prologue   There is a story our parents told us, only once. When they received their immigration papers from America, they considered leaving one of us behind in Pakistan to live with relatives, believing that one child would be…

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Image is a color photograph of a notebook with a pencil and pencil shavings; title card for the second-place winner of the 2023 First Chapters Contest, "The Golden Suicides" by Melissa Yancy.

The Golden Suicides by Melissa Yancy

December 8, 2023

  “It is possible to control Los Angeles by being the one with the most vivid fantasy about it.” —Theresa Duncan, The Wit of the Staircase   1992 My brother joined the world’s smallest cult. There were precisely two members:…

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Image is a color photograph of an NYC subway car pulled into a station; title card for the third-place winner of the CRAFT 2023 First Chapters Contest, "My Demons" by Jill Rosenberg.

My Demons by Jill Rosenberg

December 1, 2023

The night before I start treatment at Harrington, Raffi and I go to Foxy Night at the Cock in the East Village. We have to wait in line to get in. It’s eleven, and it’s dark, but it’s lit-up city…

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Image is a color photograph of a landline next to a couch; title card for the microfiction stories "Sacrament", "Living on Stilts" & "Oh my god your voice sounds so haole" by Melissa Llanes Brownlee.

Sacrament, Living on Stilts, & Oh my god your voice sounds so haole by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

November 17, 2023

  Sacrament Pua shifts in the pew as the water and bread are passed out by the chosen boys, her mu’umu’u scratchy and stiff against her skin. She wonders if it will be white or wheat bread. Her mother pinches…

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