admin7EyZHDb8HNC8btr3, Author at X-R-A-Y

THE ARTIST by Ruby Zuckerman

August 27, 2024 · Fiction

A––––– hasn’t been anywhere, or seen anybody, since her unemployment money ran out. Iron wind chimes jangle when she knocks on the door, and jangle again when it opens. Someone named Sara leads her to a table in the center of the shop. Sara is wearing a cloth mask with a red and white geometric print, which makes A––––– feel self conscious about her own KN-95, like she showed up wearing a suit when Sara is just wearing a cozy sweater. Everything inside of the room is white, everything outside is gray. This makes any small moment of color extremely…

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THROUGH DISRUPTION AND DISSOLUTION: An Interview with Daisuke Shen

August 26, 2024 · Interviews & Reviews

The burden of foresight. With Vague Predictions & Prophecies (CLASH Books, 2024) Daisuke Shen mainlines a generation’s insecurities into fiction that is at once ephemeral and psychically probing. These are stories that present longing, whether that be for a sense of solidity, a chance at connection, or a reprieve from aimlessness. Daydreams of lost days and nightmares of days lost. Shen explores how technology melds with the human, and speculates on where consciousness might reside. I spoke with Daisuke about the book. Rebecca Gransden: The book shares its title with one of the short stories you’ve included, “Vague Predictions…

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THE STUYVESANT BEE by Mike Topp

August 21, 2024 · Fiction

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EXCERPTS FROM ‘AMERICAN AIR’ by Mike Topp, featuring art by William Wegman

August 19, 2024 · Fiction

BUY A COPY OF ‘AMERICAN AIR’ HERE SPOKESPERSON FOR MELLINGER CO., LOS ANGELES, CALIF., DEPT. 54 Friends, you’ve heard me speak before in praise of Barns for Nobles. Well I’m no longer with that company. I’m here today to tell you about a new product I’m even more enthusiastic about called Count Branula. It’s a new cereal that tastes like bran. In fact I can’t even tell the difference. THE EARLIEST SALADS Probably the earliest salads were nothing more than some greens dumped in a bowl. VASE I was at Mom’s and I dropped this…

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TAKE HEART by Sean Craypo

August 14, 2024 · Fiction

The human heart on the street wasn’t mine. It came from the crumpled body thirty feet away. Another thirty feet behind the body was a pair of boots, which may or may not have had feet in them. Just behind the boots was the sedan. The bumper was barely dented from where it had struck the man. A severed vein sticking out of the heart looked big enough to stick my thumb into. Black skid marks streaked the fat on the lower part, as if someone had plucked out the heart and skipped it like a stone across the street….

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CHASING THE MONSTER: An Interview with Matt Lee

August 13, 2024 · Interviews & Reviews

Where lives the creature? The Backwards Hand: A Memoir (Curbstone Books, 2024) chronicles Matt Lee’s experience of growing up and into adulthood. Matt’s hand marked him out as different, and it is the nature of this difference, where it resides, that comes to the fore. Out from the unconscious arises the monster, but once unleashed, even a monster must live in the world. As the monster is seen, is reflected, perhaps even reconciled with, it remains powerful but also hard to pin down. In whose eyes, in what skin, does the monster live? I asked Matt if he’s any closer…

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AN ELEGY FOR COACH by Ravi Mangla

August 12, 2024 · Fiction

We shook on it. If we won the final game of the season, Coach would run fifty laps around the gym. Some time around the eighth lap he collapsed and died. Some of us cried. Others stood in monastic silence. McClusky threw up in the Gatorade cooler. Coach’s death was relayed on the morning announcements after news that the cafeteria was out of waffle fries. This was not, we believed, the memorial Coach would have wanted. He loved waffle fries. We felt an obligation then, a hefty responsibility, to give Coach the send-off he would have wanted. After all, Coach…

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A HOLE TO DIE IN by Sarah Butler

August 7, 2024 · Fiction

The Yucca Valley had plenty of pool cleaners, but none as good as him. Jeb started cleaning pools because he didn’t want to sell meth like his cousins Rob, Kyle, Tyler, and Clay. He liked the roteness of skimming the surface of the water with his net, the reading of pH strips, and the satisfaction of a job well done. He’d cleaned some of the most beautiful pools in the desert – he even did the one at Sinatra’s house once. But what he really wanted to do was own a vintage cowboy boot store. He was born and raised…

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TRANSMISSIONS: Writing The Rapids

August 6, 2024 · Interviews & Reviews

Welcome to Transmissions, an interview feature in which X-R-A-Y profiles podcasts. Joe bielecki is the host of the podcast Writing the Rapids, the author of the novel Tired from Alien Buddha Press, as well as several pieces of flash fiction that may or may not still be on the internet. He currently lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Writing the Rapids can be found at the website, Spotify, Patreon, Instagram, Youtube and X. Rebecca Gransden: How would you describe the podcast to someone who is unfamiliar with what you do? Joe bielecki: Writing the Rapids is a podcast where…

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FRUIT AND FRACTIONS by Taleen V.

August 5, 2024 · Fiction

On the table apricots blush, sliced to their stony seeds. A faded bowl of walnut brains sits untouched and long wet spears of cucumber sweat beside them. Goods grown right here in Fresno, just like you. The professor picks you up by the waist and sets you next to the spread. His beard is silver spangled and his brows touch. He resembles your uncle Varouj who plays the piano at Christmastime, except this man doesn’t smile as much. Until his grab, it had not crossed your mind to be afraid. “You can always trust Armenians, they’re family,” your mom once…

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