Fiction & Poetry
Jonny Kubecka
(PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATED)
(BEST SMALL FICTION 2022 NOMINATED)
With no warning, life got to changing, fast. Dads left, dogs died of cancer, kids went to college, whole families moved for new jobs.
Read at Ghost Parachute Literary Magazine
It Was All About The Same Damn Thing
It was about how far the train could take you, and how far you still had to go.
Read at No Contact Literary Magazine
Georgina Willis
(SELECTED FOR THE WIGLEAF LONGLIST 2022)
The boy mentioned—but don’t repeat it—was in our pre-calc class, sometimes napping, with his scuffed-up Vans and messy hair.
Read at The Forge Literary Magazine
Quiet Rushing
I turn towards the creek and wander over, the quiet rushing, the stones on its bed bending through the water’s lens, its icy touch creeping over my flip flops…
Read at Bending Genres Journal
The Trouble With Bob
Bob killed the cat on a Tuesday, following a fairly routine day at the office.
Read at Schuylkill Valley Journal
Slow Motion
Our first evening, giddy on East London gin and anticipation, she gave me her lilac belted coat, bit my lip, and walked me home to her flat.
Chamomile Tea, Undrunk
(BEST SMALL FICTION 2022 NOMINATED)
That’s the dead mother thing. The un-nurtured’s desire to nurture is a force as strong as love, as deep as loneliness.
San Marzano
The parakeets are a peculiarity to our north-east town. No one knows if the first of them escaped or were released, but somehow, they have thrived, and a colony now resides in our local park.
Dry Heat
desert air and broken glass underfoot—
tiny colored lights strung up
on a weathered wooden fence
The Mussels
Clark’s mom Dee is known for being lazy and a gold digger. I know this because I heard Old Lady Bess at the General Store say, “Clark’s mom Dee is known for being lazy and a gold digger.”
Read at Hobart Literary Journal
All of God’s Money
I read that when a woman is pregnant, the baby’s cells transfer to her body and remain there for the rest of the woman’s life. Knowing that feels like validation.
What I Remember
(BEST SMALL FICTION 2021 NOMINATED)
I heard the swish of the water lapping at the wood and her grating giggles that manifested as an uneasiness deep inside me, while something like gravity kept me watching.
Cuttings
Petra, my precocious preteen granddaughter, is smarter than her mother. Neither are interesting people.
Between the Eyes
(SELECTED FOR THE WIGLEAF LONGLIST 2021)
He escaped being beaten and paraded for dumb children and dumber parents, he swam in the moonlit vastness of the purple Pacific and then chose the most famous hotel in the east for his final sleep.
Santiago
We had spoken bravely that night, proofing ourselves from future tension by laundering our histories at that early stage, when newness and desire absolve so freely.
Slake
Slake won second place in Versification’s Battle of the Punk contest.
Where We End Up
Through my window I see the diners and the big budget stores making way for open land, sparse grass in the dawn’s muted tones.
The Opposite of a Worm
I saw on the Internet that a man in Russia had his unborn twin’s teeth growing in his lung.
Read at Rejection Letters Literary Magazine
Two Moons and a Hummingbird
(PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATED)
Tess and I were a hummingbird, at times darting into life with agency, at others beating our wings furiously with no progress made.
Read at Ghost Parachute Literary Magazine
Published in Ghost Parachute’s Anthology
Sanctuary
Eddy’s in the kitchen when I come home from school, shoving fistfuls of goldfish crackers through the horse mouth, into his own. Orange cracker dribble slides down the square lip and onto his chest.
Read at Okay Donkey Literary Magazine
Dog
(PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINATED)
He chews, loose lips smacking, bubbles of Slim Jim juice at the corners of his mouth. “He’s big, looks okay, he’s just a loser.”
Raw Meat
She was eighty when being eighty meant being eighty.
Read at X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine
I Might Get a Monkey
It would wait for me and I might come home and feed it right away or I might be late and it would be left hungry, in need, at the mercy of me.
Read at Drunk Monkeys Literary Magazine
Hurting in the Dog
We sat on a flat rock, our legs dangling. I was moving my feet in the water and knocked his accidentally. He knocked mine back, a little harder and I laughed.
Unblessed
His apartment was large and bare and smelled of nothing.
This is Connection
feet wet from fat dew on
patchy grass,
I leave and leave again
Looking Glass
There was no great splash. Time didn’t stop. He simply slid into the water, and it enveloped his little body.
Life
I like certains: recess, bullfrogs croaking, lists with gaps for check marks—done or not done.
Liminal Space
Did I tell you I wanted this –
us?
Read at Cathexis Northwest Press
The Lake
Lakes keep secrets, she once said, you’ll feel them on a winter’s morning when it’s just you, the wind rippling the water’s skin, and the quiet melody of the birdsong.
Bobby Briggs and the Wrong Ryan Miller Collection
As I stood among the small neat granite headstones, the larger sculptures, the old solemn trees, and the incongruous brazen red 15 mph signs, he had told me, ‘I’ll be leaving this weekend,’ and I had let his words go unanswered.