Excerpts

From Issue 22: "The Ice Cave" by Gabriela Denise Frank (Nonfiction)

From Issue 22: "The Ice Cave" by Gabriela Denise Frank (Nonfiction)

  1. In retrospect, one can piece together the progression of a midlife crisis. Predicting the moment of explosion before the cinder cone blows is an imprecise science.
  1. Could the metaphor be more plain? If I survived the ice cave, I could change my life.

From Issue 24: "There Is Smoke in Brooklyn" by Shannon Huffman Polson (Nonfiction)

From Issue 24: "There Is Smoke in Brooklyn" by Shannon Huffman Polson (Nonfiction)

Washington state, fire evacuation levels: 

Level 1: get ready 

Level 2: get set, and 

Level 3: go. 

All of us have “go bags” to grab as we run out the door, filled with what matters most for immediate survival. Evacuation levels can and do change on a dime, sometimes in the middle of the night. We drive away from our home perched on the hill above a gentle curve of valley just ahead of receiving notice of Level 3. I do not permit myself a glance back. 

From Issue 20: "Let It Go" by Joanna Manning (Flash Nonfiction)

From Issue 20: "Let It Go" by Joanna Manning (Flash Nonfiction)

 

On one sweltering, late-summer afternoon in Pennsylvania, the kind of day that invites a certain dreamy idleness, my grandfather taught me how to make clouds disappear.

From Issue 18: "Early Work," by Carolyn Williams-Noren

From Issue 18: "Early Work," by Carolyn Williams-Noren

We thought the chestnuts—on the sidewalk of Steele Street—were going to waste. “I wish,” I’d said to Alison. “I wish we could do something with these.” The clacking handfuls.

From Issue 18: "Vamos," by Emily James

From Issue 18: "Vamos," by Emily James

But when the smallest girl reaches into her Cheese Doodles and the plastic bag cracks into a cut then a sliver and then rips in two, the powdered curls falling out into a sad orange pile, she looks at me, lip turning inward, about to give way. I reach for her, but in this moment, she needs him—the man who gave her those lean legs and left dimple and kinky curls and skin the color of autumn leaves.

From Issue 15: "Sex Ed" by Mathilda Wheeler (Nonfiction)

From Issue 15: "Sex Ed" by Mathilda Wheeler (Nonfiction)

New work, from Issue 15: Mathilda Wheeler's "Sex Ed"

If Daddy listened, he would put down his paper. He would turn off the TV. He would look me in the eye. He would take off his reading glasses. He would not joke. He would not say, "For crying out loud." He would say, "What is it, Tilda?" And his voice would not be impatient. It would be caring. And if I said, “Nothing," he would say, "No. Tell me." He would know to ask, to keep asking. And then I could tell him. I could ask him. About boys. About rules. About Ted Sayer.