Mud Season Review
The Minister
By Eric Barnes
When someone dies in the North End, there is a funeral. Many people attend. It is our only communal act. There are really no other reasons for a crowd to gather. There is a church downtown that still has a minister, an older man I see sometimes near the corner store or near the church itself, where he sweeps the wide steps leading up to the entrance…
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We Have Commandeered Our Bodies to Science
By Jacob Guajardo
We are confined to a room day and night while the doctor runs tests, while we run out of stories to tell each other. We do not remember arriving. We remember only our lives before and not this room. Today the doctor hammers a bottle of lotion against his palm until it hisses, then gives up….
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Brother’s Keeper
By Sandra Hunter
He is walking. He is about to turn the corner. She is at the window waiting since noon, since last year’s announcement on the church noticeboard, last month’s update, last week’s email, waiting for her temporary Sudanese, temporarily in her living room, her kitchen, her guest room, temporarily so grateful to her American family…
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Whacking a Doe
By Alexander Barbolish
It took three shots to kill my first deer. The first bullet hit at the base of her lungs and exited out the left shoulder. With awkward, halting leaps, the doe bounded forward about twenty yards and then stopped. I rose from the weeds along the tree line and walked out into the field, focusing on the dark hole in the middle of her side.
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Get Gregory Out
By Genevieve Plunkett
Patty met Gloria through one of those little paper tabs that you have to try to tear upward, so that you don’t lose part of the phone number. She had never liked introductions by phone—all those disembodied shifts in tone, the liftoff of questions that never seemed to settle—but she had taken the number…
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Say Uncle
by Robert Earle
As my father parked at the strip mall on Germantown Pike, a man walked in front of our car toward Filbert’s pharmacy. He was shorter and heavier and his hairline had receded more, but he looked like my father…
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The Tale of How I. I. Settled the Quarrel with I. N.
by Srđan Srdić
I wished to be left alone, I felt the need to add and subtract, to perform these operations. I felt I could no longer bear it, I packed and left, they didn’t make any trouble. They seemed not to care, one left, another came, as elsewhere….
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Persistence Hunting
by Dave Essinger
My running shoes have hardened into new shapes since the last time I wore them, and they’re stiff on my feet. The half mile to Andrew’s house loosens them a little, but they don’t stop sliding on my heels. Maybe it’s my feet that have changed, though; maybe my shoes are the same….
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Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Michael Minchin
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Michael Minchin, author of Issue #7’s “In the Bodies of Beautiful Fish.” Here’s what he had to say about the roots of the story, his attention to sound and image, and the type of writing that inspires him….Read more
Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Hubert Vigilla
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Hubert Vigilla, author of Issue #6’s “The Goddamned Caped Canaveral.” Here’s what he had to say about finding inspiration, making his own enthusiasm come through on the page, and how he came to write about a motorcycle daredevil…Read more
Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Shannon Reed
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Shannon Reed, author of Issue #5’s The Buddhists. Here’s what she had to say about her process, her inspirations, and what she’s working on now.
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Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Warren Read
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Warren Read, author of Issue #4’s “Somewhere in That Space.” Here’s what he had to say about his process, his inspirations, and the quiet moments and truths he explores through his writing…Read more
Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Edward Boyle
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Edward Boyle, author of Issue #3’s Making Weight.” Here’s what he had to say about his writing, his inspirations, and the way he lets his characters find their ways in his stories.…Read more
Robin Lauzon Parker interviews
Alan Kennedy
Our fiction editor, Robin Lauzon Parker, recently spoke with Alan Kennedy, author of Issue #2’s “Beanie’s Island.” Here’s what he had to say about the inspiration and meaning behind the story—and his overall approach to writing the stories that strike him. Read more