Paradise Pawn by Meg Richardson
We make a ton of money off Christmas in July, because customers have too much hope. It’s not their fault. Me and Rubina feed it to them. We decorate Paradise Pawn with tinsel and lights. We smile and hold…
Tag: Collective Voice
Hybrid Interview: Dustin M. Hoffman
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…
After Dinner / Girls in the Woods by Jacqueline Doyle
After Dinner A woman sits at a kitchen table, sipping chamomile tea and reading a book. The dishes have been rinsed, the counters and sink cleared, the dishwasher hums. Outside the window over the sink, the night is…
How Loudly We Dead Howl by Sarah Arantza Amador
The approach is by boat—the passage is narrow. Our steamer slipped through the still, dark water. Us passengers, bewitched, red-eyed and scorch-lunged refugees from the burning south, reached out to touch the icy granite, scraped clean as a birth…
The Warden’s Prowess by Ethan Chatagnier
The warden’s prowess with pastry had improved much over the years. It was all we heard the old inmates talk about. They talked about it the way old men on the outside talked about wars everyone else had forgotten.…
Fire / The Haunting / My Debt Collector by Brenda Peynado
Fire When I was eight years old, I watched a fire leap over the forest in glowing arcs and the men in my family battle it away. The fire had taken out farms on the panhandle for a…
Collective Voice: WE THE ANIMALS
We the Animals, by Justin Torres, is a wonderful example of the use of the collective voice in fiction. There are, of course, many other classic works that use this voice, including the novels The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides…