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If Piccolo

If Piccolo

POETRY By Heikki Huotari some animal con­cate­na­tions were more prob­a­ble than others      as intel­li­gent as any echo mech­a­nism my accelerom­e­ter at odds with my thought process­es the problem of hard solip­sism was not solved      I did not think to ask I…

The News

The News

POETRY By Kyle D. Craig If any­thing must fall on us, let it be morning. Tonight’s stories strike like knives through thick bone. I still cannot name half the places where bombs knelt last night. I know not every­one has access to ocean views, for many no forest waits to wander through, not…

LaVelle’s Heart

LaVelle’s Heart

FICTION By Michael Oatman and Jackson Smith Because every brother man’s life is like swing­ing the dice, right?   Pearson stretched out at the hos­pi­tal picnic table. His eyes forward. His hair slicked back. His new heart pumping, pumping, pumping. He had done well over this handful…

Staff Spotlight: Ruth Towne

Staff Spotlight: Ruth Towne

What do you write?  I’ve worked in Poetry, Cre­ative Non­fic­tion, and Fiction, but I con­sid­er poetry my genre. Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?  Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, and Louise Glück are three pro­found influ­ences of mine. Each has an unmistakable…

Ode to New Mexico

Ode to New Mexico

POETRY By Sheila Black The rattler your husband impaled by bring­ing down his shovel, the body split in two, those twitch­ing parts. Frost killed the but­ter­fly weed and the orange tree. The prickly pear sprawled into slime, the wood splin­tered into apart­ment houses for ants and…

The Tavern and the Pulpit

The Tavern and the Pulpit

GENRE FICTION By Alan Cliffe Part One: Church­go­ing Men, 1945 Antoinette Timrod Tony didn’t seem like the other white guys at the El Dorado. I mean,  not just the obvious thing of being younger than his dad and uncles. He’d been over­seas for a few years, including…

Staff Spotlight: Anthony Gutierrez

Staff Spotlight: Anthony Gutierrez

What do you write? I write poetry and graphic novel scripts. Although I don’t stick to a spe­cif­ic genre for my poetry, if I had to pick one, it’d most likely be pop fiction or fiction-based poetry. That is, poetry that tells a story either as…

The Fruit

The Fruit

POETRY By Jessica Cohn A woman could forget herself, staring at pome­gran­ate in the produce section. Juicy red arils, peddled in see-through cups. It’s invol­un­tary. The mouth makes room for a sweet bite of seeds. A woman could remem­ber when pome­gran­ate was hard to come by, a strange…

Staff Spotlight: Ron Bel Bruno

Staff Spotlight: Ron Bel Bruno

What do you write? My non-fiction and aut­ofic­tion (short stories) explore the prac­ti­cal fan­tasies of daily life: the per­sonas we create online, fam­i­lies inter­act­ing with demen­tia, and the con­stant­ly mor­ph­ing fan­ta­sia that is the Amer­i­can Dream.    Is there an author or artist who has most profoundly…

Temptation

Temptation

POETRY By Lucia Cherciu Temp­ta­tion: I find sandals for me when looking for gifts. Con­fu­sion: I buy two dresses for me when shop­ping for canning jars. Some claim gold has healing prop­er­ties; right, money helps. I research claims about the ben­e­fits of silver. Kissing of icons, silver chalice, silver…