Fiction

Reply by Sam Lamplugh

June 8, 2026

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’

Cheese Drawer by Kate Catinella

June 4, 2026

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

Kelly Krumrie Recommends: for ‘Concentric Macroscope’

June 2, 2026

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,

Air for Baby’s Breath by Chris L. Terry

June 1, 2026

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

Diplomats by Matt Rowan

May 25, 2026

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

Adolescent Nesting Disorder by David Scott Hay

May 20, 2026

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.

Narcotics Anonymous by Jennifer Ostopovich

May 18, 2026

I’m not quite old enough to stay home by myself while my mom works, so I tag along to my dad’s NA meeting with him. I snag a ball from a large plastic bin on wheels and bounce it off the wall in the opposite corner of the school gymnasium where the meeting is held. No one seems to mind. The men are focused on their meeting and barely acknowledge I’m there. I pretend not to listen while each one details his struggles with addiction. Darren “No-Nose” Gibson is the first to speak. He rubs at the bridge of his

Slug Life by Matthew Dexter

May 14, 2026

I blow blunt smoke of Unicorn Poop in the shape of brontosauruses through my tracheotomy hole. My son Connor is a gangsta rapper. Connor rocks relentlessly on our rickety porch swing, guzzling cans of Coors Light, spitting rhymes to the beat of the squeaky double-loop chain. His Mormon friends listen intently, bopping their skulls with the wizardry of worldly tweakers. Connor can catch a sunburn from the refrigerator lightbulb. His flow is smoother than a baby-oiled boob and colder than a clew of earthworms. Connor’s rap name is Cocaine Cul-De-$ac. His YouTube channel bankrolls cases of Coors Light, gaudy gold

A Day In the Life by Kaylee Howard

May 13, 2026

I am watching men kill pedophiles in Walmart online while my mother cooks dinner. I guess they don’t kill them directly — a self-inflicted shotgun spray to the skull will do them in after two thousand comments about his texts with minors and allegedly small penis appear in the comments. It doesn’t make the local news because they aren’t allowed to put suicides on the news. My mom got the recipe for the pasta she is making from a blog that insisted on inserting ten paragraphs of the creator’s life story before mentioning a single ingredient. I’m not sure if

Miracle on Route 45 by Owen Harrington

May 11, 2026

There was only one way things could end. I was trying to find something else to think about and he emerged, covered in red clay mud like the first or last man, right onto state route 45. The ride back to State College was just long enough to fixate on something, but not long enough to work up the nerve to turn around. It strung together Mifflinburg, Harleton, and Milheim like the dim lights of a dying civilization in the heart of darkest Amish country, and had few features to catch the wandering eye. But just past Mifflinburg, a man