A New American Prophetess

by Pam Jones

In Criticism

4 Min read

A

The art of taking the divine throne is in its grandiosity. The question asked of a new messiah is, “How big can you make yourself?” In addition, perhaps, “How colorful are you?” “How much are you willing to suffer?” “For how long can you keep the narrative going?” And, foremost, “How will you survive a mutiny?” For Petra Caldwell, these queries are not posed outright, though they are necessary in...

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Language Is Power When Repurposing Twain

by Paula Bomer

In Criticism

7 Min read

L

In James, slaves speak in slave language in front of their masters to appease them or—as said on the first page, and a theme repeated throughout the novel—to “give white folks what they want.” When slaves are alone together, they talk in erudite English. In this way, they have their own secret language, one they perform for white people. (. . .) This hiding of their true selves, and the...

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Dream Stranger, Dream Stranger

by Simon Skrepek

In Fiction

25 Min read

D

>> Simultaneously they describe it as a commodity among others. So what is it now? The supreme magic erotic energy life force of change, or a currency paid in orgasms? It exists either suppressed under dogma and taboo, or owned and sold in free-market equivalence <<

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Excerpts from “My Women”

by Yuliia Iliukha

In Narrative Non-Fiction

6 Min read

E

The woman suffered. Her soul ached from this slow-paced life that used to be so familiar and dear to her. The woman felt guilty for not having seen the war, not having heard its sounds, not having sensed its smells. She blamed herself for living as if nothing had happened, as if that February had not divided the life of the whole country into a before and an after.

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Six Poems from “The Ruins of Nostalgia”

by Donna Stonecipher

In Poetry

9 Min read

S

If nostalgia is primarily aesthetic, then it is also unstable, and if we get attached to beautiful images today, we might spurn them tomorrow. We might love the beautiful images because we can’t apprehend them, “the beautiful” always relocating itself, unrecognizable as the city outside, which is why we keep trying to rebuild the city in our minds.

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Two Boys, Their Mother & The Face

BY ADEDAYO AGARAU

In Poetry

2 Min read

T

two boys are throwing stones

into  the  river—their  mother

is   beating   colored   dresses

against a small rock—there is...

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Three poems

BY MELISSA HOTCHKISS

In Poetry

2 Min read

T

I have a hostage code, a panic button, motion detectors, sensors

The dryer has run all day, I can’t find my checkbook

The new light bulbs (so I am told) will last forever

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Elegy

By Alfred Corn

In Poetry

7 Min read

E

“If only.” Said only if a mixed-media retrospect

is also being salvaged, the herringbone chevron

a swimmer inscribes on the mirroring lake.

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How to Do a Dead Bug

BY ABBY FRUCHT

In Essay, Narrative Non-Fiction

14 Min read

H

Not the worst of all chauvinist prigs, I’ll concede, he seemed affronted by the wrongs my little handful of words and lines had done him, their very innocence, their youthfulness, rebuking him. The Pretty Child Can’t Write, She Shouldn’t, She Mustn’t, She Dare Not, She Will Not, The Skinny Co-ed Won’t Write, he seemed to pledge to himself as he drew forth my packet of fledgling verse and...

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Wrestling the Angel

by Victoria Gosling

In Essay

12 Min read

W

When I think about the famous crazy writers, I suspect that they didn’t start off crazy. They were very sane to stand as much of it as they did for as long as they did. It is where all the best work comes from.

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Forgotten Night: Andrea Scrima Interviews Rebecca Goodman

In Interview

16 Min read

F

As she attempts to trace the increasingly portentous-seeming name in her grandfather’s WWI journal chronicling his time digging trenches in France, the narrator of Forgotten Night is haunted by the absence of Jewish life in the villages she travels through, by the desolation of the scattered traces remaining.

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Battles of Memory: Pam Jones’s “The Arizona Room”

By Eric Z. Weintraub

In Criticism

5 Min read

B

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen once said, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” One half of Pam Jones’s newest novel The Arizona Room (Spaceboy Books, 2023) takes place during the World War II; in the second half, its protagonist reconciles with her experience in old age. While we never find ourselves...

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