There are funnel cakes. There are deep-fried Kit Kats. There are even deep-fried sticks of butter. Sam’s feet sink into the mud that’s covered with straw because it rained ten inches in forty-eight hours and it’s probably going to…
By Gwendolyn Edward • I’ve often battled with how to better develop secondary characters in short stories that use a limited, third-person point of view. While I’ve learned how to use my main character’s memories and current thoughts to…
The wind’s at it again. When this happens, I can’t sleep. There have been nights when it felt as though I was awake every minute, staring into the darkness and listening to the howling, swooshing, relentless sound. It gets…
Welcome to 2020! Most months we roundup our most-anticipated new fiction releases. January has a bounty! Megan Angelo, Followers “If anyone is going to explore a future version of our high-tech, internet-obsessed culture, please let it be Megan Angelo.…
“Can you get to Heaven with broken teeth?” Louis asks Margaret. “Sure can,” Margaret says, as she yanks his dresser drawer, derailing the shelf and spilling clothes onto the floor. Two hours into her shift, already exhausted and dreading…
By Jesse Motte • When I read Dustin M. Hoffman’s first collection, One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, during undergrad, it felt like I’d been suddenly gut-shot by some invisible, benevolent entity. The shock excited me. I prefer my writing like that: unforgiving…
Inspired from a photo by Mary Ellen Mark Lisa’s sitting in the baby pool with chubby Annie even though they aren’t babies anymore. The plastic green pool is in the driveway of Annie’s Aunt Jean’s house. Lisa is nine…
By Amber Wheeler Bacon • In the third draft of my novel, I’m still messing with structure. It feels like I’ll always be messing with structure. To experiment, I’ve tried copying the frameworks of different novels I love: Purity…
Fred was a runner, so it’s been hard to keep him still. Now we’re both still, save for his tremors. A once-in-a-lifetime athlete, they called him. And not that he didn’t run fast, he did, but Brewster was a…
Welcome to the final 2019 roundup of new fiction we can’t wait to read! Howard Fast, The General Zapped an Angel, with a new introduction by Mark Harris “Fantastical, oddly endearing stories rescued from the ravages of time…A collection of…
