Interview: Annell López
I had the pleasure of chatting with Annell López, author of the award-winning debut short story collection I’ll Give You a Reason over coffee after work in New Orleans, where we both live and write. I’ll Give You a…
Tag: Setting
Conundrum by Will McMillan
Elvis Presley’s warbling on the overhead speakers as Mom and I browse a warm, wood-splashed Barnes & Noble. She wants to buy a puzzle for my nephew in Florida. She turns to me. “Oh god, the day Elvis died?…
Thin Places by Emily Giangiulio
We fill up on deep-fried bricks of cheese and rib eyes big as our heads at Burly’s Roughrider Bar & Steakhouse. Our neatly laced Merrells and moisture-wicking Patagonias set us apart from the mud-splattered, steel-toed boots under most every…
Wicked Americana by Sacha Bissonnette
I told my mom I loved her at a gas station in Minnesota but I’m not sure she heard. The cashier must’ve been stocking drinks or something so it felt like it was just me and her in there.…
The Devil Alive in Jersey by Catherine Buck
“She cursed that baby—” “Her thirteenth, I heard, and who can blame her—” “You can’t blame her for thinking it, but doing—” “Who among us—” “I wouldn’t—” “That’s you, though, isn’t it?” “You’re better than us?” “You think she’s…
After Skim-Reading Jack London on the Plane by Elissa Field
“The fuck you take your gloves off again?” you growled, never letting up, the oldest. Brother trip, our third in two years, anywhere there’d be northern lights. We hiked out of the frozen Alaskan woods—the black-dark, wraith rider intimidation…
Hold On by Toni Martin
I should have noticed when my wedding ring fell out of my pocket. I should have heard it strike and plink on the concrete floor in Big Willie’s dressing room behind the bar when I slung my jacket over…
Here and There at the Lake by Janice Vis
Content Warning—sexual assault Along the western shores of Lake Ontario, the water splits the land and pools into a marshy inlet webbed with bike trails and bridges. I walk these paths every day, just wandering about, here and…
Interview: Amy Stuber
There’s a tipping point in life when a possibility becomes a certainty, and a metaphorical crossroads becomes a permanent change of direction. Amy Stuber is adept at finding pivotal moments in her fiction, choices that simultaneously disrupt expectations and…
Conversations Between Friends: Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rob Costello
Nora Shalaway Carpenter and Rob Costello met during their MFA program over a decade ago. Now both creative writing educators, they have collaborated on a number of projects, including Shalaway Carpenter’s acclaimed anthology Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Stereotypes…