“And in this room: The love letters we wrote to each other in the months of our courtship, aflame,” by Matt Bell
Fiction
How to Fix Your Life
“My best friend’s father died. I went on eBay and tried to buy a new best friend, but all the best friends on eBay were too expensive.” By Mark Baumer
The Last Perfect Day: An Excerpt from ON SAL MAL LANE
“Mr. Niles’s words rang in his ears: Long ago, he was just a boy like you.” By Ru Freeman
Foreign Bodies
“Eddie said partly why he left was her goddamn nerves.” By Sara Lippmann
Break Me Off A Piece Of That Funk! An excerpt from the Steamfunk Anthology
An excerpt from the short story, “The Sharp Knife of A Short Life” by Top Cow Talent Hunt winner Hannibal Tabu.
Viewing Medusa
“Josie became a lot like the jellyfish she studied. She could by turns be prickly, stinging, even deadly, yet still soft and elusive, floating along on currents not of her own making.” By Mary Akers
Three Parables from FUN CAMP
“Why did the chicken cross the road? Where do bats get their energy? Knock, knock, who’s there, the interrupting cow. How do you know when a blonde has been making chocolate chip cookies?” By Gabe Durham
Funeral
“Quinn has booked a flight to Connemara, County Galway. But first, this funeral. This director. What is her name?” By Joey DeFrancesco
Left and Leaving
“Loneliness, poverty, homelessness—these don’t seem to bother him as much as having to announce that he doesn’t have what it takes to keep his marriage going.” By Christopher Ross
An Excerpt from THE REEDUCATION OF CHERRY TRUONG
“Until they moved to America, Sanh never realized how rarely he spent time alone with his son.” By Aimee Phan
New New Salem
I drew my saber and he aimed the rifle at me. “Don’t shoot,” I said. “It’d be too depressing to die today.” By Brian Allen Carr
Excerpts from ALL ABOUT
“Their disagreements were primarily of a semantic nature. They disagreed on the difference between foyer and anteroom, between cellar and basement, between love and affection.” By Gillian Devereux
From THE ALLIGATORS OF ABRAHAM, by Robert Kloss
This weekend, we have an excerpt from Robert Kloss’s striking new novel, THE ALLIGATORS OF ABRAHAM, a Civil War epic unlike any other.
Frequent Fliers
“Folks, this is your captain. Kindly take your seats. I illuminated that fasten seat-belt sign. In a few minutes, me and my girl will be shaking us out some rough old turbulence.” By Matthew Pitt
Due Home Any Time Now
“Dale’s bloody hump ass sprawled in the street is my form of negative advertising: Don’t Hit Mommy.” by Martin Barkley
The Earliest Model
Sometimes the scary story turns out to be about compassion.