Dorothy Spears (illustration by Kendra Allenby)
FICTION | NONFICTION | POETRY |
TRANSLATION
SUBMIT STORE DONATE OPPORTUNITIES INTERVIEWS WRITERS WE PUBLISH
Dorothy Spears (illustration by Kendra Allenby)
by Tess Crain
What is the meaning of an imaginary friend? Appearing mainly to children but at times lasting into adulthood, invented companions can signal madness, creativity, both, or neither. Sometimes, they simply serve as company. A writer I know used to have an unreal pal named Zee—“he had a kind of sarcastic jauntiness”—who resembled a wisp of smoke and wore a monocle, like an ephemeral Mr. Peanut: “he was my only real friend for a while.” My roommate had a tiny, bald, blue man who sat on her shoulder and scouted for danger. A college friend once had multiple miniature dragons. In most cases, these familiars erupt from the collision between psyche and environment: reading a fantasy series, watching performance art, loneliness.
by Robb Todd
Black Light is a rare book. Kimberly King Parsons has delivered a work of truth and beauty that will transcend generations. If that sounds too effusive, it is not. This is also the rare book that bears promotional blurbs indistinguishable from critical reviews…
by Zack Graham
You probably haven’t heard of Nick Antosca, but you will soon. He wrote on one of the most psychologically nuanced and visually arresting television series ever in “Hannibal.” In late 2017, Guillermo del Toro signed on to produce Antosca’s feature-length script Antlers. At 36, Antosca is well on his way to becoming a modern master of horror, on par with a Robert Eggers, an Ari Aster, or a Jordan Peele.
by Siena Oristaglio
What are snakes afraid of?
by Tess Crain
Everyone in Oslo has a parquet floor. This is what I’ve gathered, anyway, from reading the crime fiction of Jo Nesbø. While Nesbø has written standalone novels (like the excellent Headhunters and The Son), parquetry is general throughout his Harry Hole (“whoule” in Norwegian; how it looks in English) series, about the brilliant but polarizing Oslo Police detective, distinguished by his alcoholism and hail-mary competence. Two sentences into The Devil’s Star, water leaves “a wet streak over the oak parquet” of an apartment. In Nemesis, a thief’s shoes click loudly on the parquet flooring of a bank. A doctor in The Redbreast gazes sadly at “the worn parquet floor” of his office.
by Harris Lahti
As I drive, the country highway’s pattern of overgrown campgrounds, boarded-up motels, and stretches of impenetrably dark woods begin to resemble a series of horror movie sets, at last punctuated by a white-steepled church illuminated with halogen lights. I pull into the parking lot the church shares with an enormous prefab building of black corrugated steel. Skate Time.
by Robb Todd
An anonymous person posted some writing on a website and asked: "First page of my book. What do you think?"
by Zack Graham
One of the most talented American novelists of his generation, Colson Whitehead’s nine books constitute about as diverse a body of work as any living writer’s. His settings include a post-apocalyptic zombie attack, an American slave plantation in the 1700s, the mid-’80s Hampton’s, and the modern World Poker Tour. He is the recipient of nearly every serious literary award and/or honor known to mankind, and his essays and stories have appeared in every leading English-language newspaper and magazine. The man is a national treasure.
by Siena Oristaglio
What is history to a sheep?
by Robb Todd
There is trouble on the street tonight. Had a premonition that she should not go alone. She caught me stealing once when I was five. I enjoy stealing. It is as simple as that. It is just a simple fact. Because mutiny on the bounty is what we are all about. We are going to board your ship and turn it on out.
by Zack Graham
The author of over two dozen books of fiction, criticism, and work in translation, Brian Evenson is a master of many languages, tones, voices, and forms. His work renders the distinction between“literary” and “genre" fiction trivial.
by J.T. Price
To further the comparison between the two texts, certain thematic valences notwithstanding, Chapman’s debut is an all but negative image of Gessen’s sophomore effort—disjunctive where Gessen’s narrative is straight ahead; knowing and bawdy and essentially unconcerned with portraying human relationships at any great length, while that effort forms the pith of A Terrible Country; over-brimming with uprooted wit whereas Andryush walks, block by block, to discover where he might truly belong.
by Siena Oristaglio
I’m lying in bed listening to the sound of wasps gnawing at my windowsill.
It’s Saturday.
Sunlight sprawls sleepily across my pillow.
I blink into its glow.
I open an article from Harper’s on my phone.
by Tess Crain
America prizes smiling. Companies in client-facing industries have been known to circulate “service with a smile” policies, which require workers to feign happiness, if necessary, to please customers. “Hey Philly, got a smile only a brother can love?” “Give Us Your Crooked, Crowded, and Snaggled Teeth.” “Come in for a lifetime supply of confidence.” So asks, begs, and pledges SmileDirectClub, one of several fix-your-face startups with pandemic advertising. I understand. I got braces freshman year of high school and did not smile with my mouth open for two years.
by Harris Lahti
The first house I ever worked on with my father was a farmhouse with syringes and beer cans ground down deep in the yard. It was my job to rake them out so as not to ruin the mower. But I ruined the mower anyway when a live shotgun round went off and bent the blade. In response, my father handed me a scythe.
by Robb Todd
People complain about the city. There is never not something to complain about. The sidewalks fill with leaves — red and gold — and these critics still complain. Some people complain and never say goodbye but, sometimes, a complainer vacates. The complainer who vacates complains about the city long after she has left. She complains that when she first moved to the city, the city was great. The city was amazing — she never felt so alive. Best thing ever. Never had so much fun. But the city is not great nor amazing nor the best anymore, and it never will be again, she claims. It changed. Forever, she alleges. The city changed. Not the critical complainer, though, just the city doing all the changing.
