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Channeling by Tyler Dempsey

June 10, 2026 · Creative Nonfiction

Samuel Peters Brown—a stereotypically thin dude with disheveled hair and that beard-with-no-mustache combination of the late-1800’s—was a descendant of the Mayflower and what you might call “uber successful.” But it wasn’t his severe look that got him places. It was a history in ship-building and time in the House of Representatives for the state of Maine that led to his appointment from President Lincoln as Navy Agent in Washington D.C. And it was through Mr. Brown, millions of dollars’ worth of ships, guns, and naval war materials were purchased during the Civil War. He founded a town in his lifetime….

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Ted McLoof Recommends: Nicholas Montemarano’s “If the Sky Falls” and Anna Dickson James’ “Boys Buy Me Drinks to Watch me Fall Down”

June 9, 2026 · Interviews & Reviews

Nicholas Montemarano, If the Sky Falls (Yellow Shoe Fiction, 2005) I was 24 years old when I first encountered Nicholas Montemarano. He was reading for a class I was TAing for, so I dutifully picked up his then-latest book, If the Sky Falls, a collection of short stories. You have to understand that this kind of thing happens a lot: reading the books of visiting writers is part and parcel of academia, and unfortunately the books are often at best easy to get through and at worst a chore. I was as a result not only pleasantly surprised but gobsmacked…

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Reply by Sam Lamplugh

June 8, 2026 · Fiction

I haven’t talked to my father for thirty years, and this news doesn’t change anything (it’s impossible to talk through three decades of life; the silence is too full – (though I should preface this by noting he has tried to talk to me during this time (very recently, in fact, for obvious reasons (via the usual channels on social media et cetera (which channels, incidentally, were a big part of why I broke off contact in the first place (in that they facilitated his transgression (though there was more to it than that, of course (the ‘more than that’…

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Cheese Drawer by Kate Catinella

June 4, 2026 · Fiction

There’s about seven inches of grated parmesan piled onto a side plate. The waiter said Say when, and the guy never said when. Just watched the waiter shave more and more of the block until finally they say, “Sorry sir, that’s the rind.” And the guy says, “That’s good then, yeah.” “So I guess you like parm,” I say. He says, “It’s okay.” I want to push, but he starts telling me how he took his niece to her first baseball game. About getting ice cream in a plastic hat. Tomorrow he will do some weedwacking. Will weedwack his neighbor’s…

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Kelly Krumrie Recommends: for ‘Concentric Macroscope’

June 2, 2026 · Fiction

The theme for this list is CONCENTRIC MACROSCOPE, which is the title of my latest book. Concentric Macroscope (Crop Circle Press, 2026) contains several themes itself, and running ideas. It also contains everything I read, watched, heard, and experienced from 2021 to 2023 when I was writing it, and likely also everything before that. Perhaps even after? Such is a macroscopic vision. Macroscopic means not microscopic. That is, you can see it. It is large scale, the stuff of the naked eye—or one big eye, or all of our eyes. I was thinking about concentric circles as one big eye,…

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Air for Baby’s Breath by Chris L. Terry

June 1, 2026 · Fiction

The news site blurred the photo. A two-year-old refugee, drowned and washed ashore. At his desk, the new dad clicked to see the picture. He was feeling bigger things than ever and wanted to press the corners of his empathy. After work that day, his wife and baby were a cozy little unit on the couch. He knew that cozy could be confining, that a little unit has walls. The couch was by the front door, making for a sitcomish “Honey, I’m home” moment when he walked in. The baby gave him a gummy grin. His first. That smile of…

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This Is Where You Are: Anna Vilner Interviews Nicholas Claro

May 27, 2026 · Interviews & Reviews

Catastrophe—often in the form of an accident, illness, or injury—is either witnessed or implied throughout the stories of Nicholas Claro’s debut collection, This Is Where You Are (Roadside Press, 2025). His characters tend to sound even keel, despite it all. Claro’s dialogue, in its spare and restrained expressions, strikes a delicate balance that reveals how traumatic events ripple through our daily conversations and actions. Instead of slipping into melodrama, his characters seem to wonder what they are supposed to say to each other in the wake of grief or violence, what they are supposed to eat. I found myself lingering…

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Night Blues by Rae Callahan

May 26, 2026 · Creative Nonfiction

I had been told not to work night blues. There were about thirteen party boats lined up in Belmar then, and I loved every one of them. I had spent the summer with Garafano, scrubbing boats in port until the decks came clean and the blood smell lifted. The other captains had seen enough. I could get on anywhere. That was the rule. The other rule was don’t work night blues. So I worked night blues. I pulled in with my yellow VW Bug, fresh off the lot, paint too bright for the dock. The guys noticed. They notice everything….

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Diplomats by Matt Rowan

May 25, 2026 · Fiction

This was a town that got really excited about a Bigfoot sighting the winter before, but whose residents were crestfallen to learn that it was only a mound of old wigs someone had dumped out there, in the brambles, where a bear could get into them. Then some bear had gotten into them and started slinking around with a mound of old wigs on its back. The bear had yet to be captured, and for all anyone knew it was still roaming the wilderness as some kind of indomitable mound of hair with razor-sharp teeth and claws. A scary thought…

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Adolescent Nesting Disorder by David Scott Hay

May 20, 2026 · Fiction

Mandy screams her son’s name as pine needles crunch underfoot. Missing for thirty-six hours, the Park Service worries. You can go days without water, she remembers, more without food. Her son is lean, but resourceful. So many mornings he’s helped his younger brother get ready for school. Still, she takes an ogre’s swig from her flask and screams into the forest and listens for a response, a rebuttal, an echo. Anything. Nothing. A pine cone lands at her feet, and then a stick. Her heart now the thrum of a hummingbird. She cranes her neck and sees a large shadow….

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