FICTION
Happiness House by Hadley Franklin
Preface We almost hit a deer, the night we drove up. We had the high beams on, and they broke through the darkness of the long dirt road that led to Happiness House, but we mostly saw encroaching leaves…
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What Empties as It Fills by Taylor Leatrice Werner
Chapter One I. At dawn, Mom says not to wake the others, but I don’t think anyone’s sleeping. We crouch beneath the low tarp shelter that’s tied to a fence post with the wire of someone’s earbuds. It is…
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A Tremendous Thing by Susan Morehouse
Chapter One When Lena climbs off the bus in the predawn dark of a small mountain town she doesn’t know the name of, she’s not thinking about her home now some seven hundred miles behind her; she’s not thinking…
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Excerpt from Landing in Andonia by Philip Anderson
Order Landing in Andonia here! Barnes & Noble Amazon Red Mare Press 18. Lily’s Ghost She doesn’t know why she’s attracted to him. He’s not bad-looking, he’s just a big guy with small-guy energy. Nervous energy. He’s combustible, she feels…
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Particulate Matter by Rigel Oliveri
It is the one-year anniversary of the day your husband’s body was cremated and you are at the Jefferson Middle School Fall Orchestra Concert. Here’s a fact: The funeral home people don’t normally tell the bereaved when a cremation…
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Abecedarian by H. B. Asari
Zones of your brain affected: frontal, temporal, parietal. The doctor points at them in turn on the scan of your brain. Those traitorous parts, shrivelling out of existence, threatening to take pieces of you with them. I look from…
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Hold On by Toni Martin
I should have noticed when my wedding ring fell out of my pocket. I should have heard it strike and plink on the concrete floor in Big Willie’s dressing room behind the bar when I slung my jacket over…
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Pretend by Mary Williams
Pretend I am your mother. Pretend you love me the way you did when you were small, and the world was big, and you could still feel, in some deep primordial way, that not so long ago, my body…
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Island Girl by Shivani Manghnani
The Marine said his name was Dusty. She said hers was Laila, which was the name on the fake ID Kareena presented to the bouncer at the Wave Waikiki. If Crystal hadn’t led the way in a tube top…
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Some guilty pleasures on this side of the border by Moisés R. Delgado
Nearly two decades in this country and Ross would make it difficult for our mom to leave if she had to leave tomorrow. It’s where she found her favorite purse—plum purple, faux leather, a simple yet elegant tulip print.…
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