Joy Castro grew up in Miami, London, and West Virginia, and lived in Texas and Indiana before settling in Nebraska, where she is the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and directs…
He sighted down the barrel. He could see her legs moving, her arms pumping. She was wearing a billed cap, probably her 49ers hat, and she was running down a road on the other side of the forty-acre cleared…
By Kim Lozano • I’m a slow reader. I sometimes pluck a book from the shelf based not on whether its subject matter appeals to me, but whether or not it’s skinny or fat. So when I recently read…
There’s an air-raid shelter in the backyard. It was built in the fifties, back when such things were fashionable, back when, if your neighbors didn’t have one, you made it clear to them that at the sight of that…
They thought I’d be the best kid on the team, made plans before the season started, me at striker or wing—using my speed to split defenders, Inside Scissors to a Step-Over, moving that ball from heel to toe like…
“Which is harder: the first sentence or the last?” Several years have passed since the 10-Minute Writer’s Workshop ended, but this podcast series still feels fresh, thanks to its punchy format of lightning-round Q&A with authors that briefly yet meaningfully…
By Deirdre Danklin • In the morning, the cat puts her nose on my nose and meows. My husband gets up, feeds her, and makes oatmeal. I stare at the ceiling and don’t think anything. Then it’s: Get up, brush…
It’s Time to Push and the next contraction bears down on her. Nora tries to breathe like she was taught during birthing classes, but the pain separates her into jagged pieces. She’s only her tight swollen stomach. The nurse…
Abbreviated Since entering middle age, I sometimes fear my time is running short. I could use the word “manopause” to explain the changes men face at my age, but I need to save time so I just say…
Essay by Kristin Tenor • Virginia Woolf writes in her novel Orlando: A Biography: “Nothing thicker than a knife blade separates happiness from melancholy.” Perhaps the same might be said by the characters inhabiting Tara Isabel Zambrano’s debut short…
