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The Replacement by Paul Rousseau

By Paul Rousseau | Flash Fiction, Fiction | March 10, 2023

4. It is prom night. A group of us are out to eat at The Urban Hive, on the rooftop. Couples sit in pairs around a table forged of meteorite. Smoky black, with a network of tiny bubble cells,…

Walkable City by Miriam Gershow

By Miriam Gershow | Flash CNF, CNF | March 8, 2023

Image shows multiple intersecting walkways in front of glass skyscrapers; title card for the new flash creative nonfiction essay, "Walkable City," by Miriam Gershow.

He was standing at the corner where we met every morning to walk to work because we were young and carless. I had gotten on a train and moved 2,000 miles for a walkable city. He had always lived…

Hybrid Interview: Priyanka Kumar

By Guest Author | Interviews, Craft, Classroom, Critical Essays | March 1, 2023

Image is the book cover for CONVERSATIONS WITH BIRDS; title card for A. D. Carr's new hybrid interview with Priyanka Kumar.

Essay by A. D. Carr • “Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.” —Priyanka Kumar I didn’t start to have an interest in birds until my midthirties. No doubt this shift coincides with the transition from…

Intrinsic Spin: A Story of Vertigo by Anna Leahy

By Anna Leahy | Longform CNF, CNF | February 22, 2023

Photograph depicts a wooden spiral staircase framed by a white banister; title card for the new creative nonfiction essay, "Intrinsic Spin: A Story of Vertigo," by Anna Leahy.

Here’s a secret about movement: speed cares only about distance, but velocity is aware of direction. Here’s another secret about movement: every living creature on this planet is moving fast. But the body tricks us into not noticing the…

I Saved You in Every Life by Lucy Zhang

By Lucy Zhang | Fiction, Short Stories | February 17, 2023

Photograph depicts a white rat sleeping inside a wicker shelter with a blurred human figure in the background; title card for the new short story, "I Saved You in Every Life," by Lucy Zhang.

In David’s previous life, he was a mad scientist. According to him, I was a lab rat. I’m chopping the remaining half of a watermelon and am more concerned about the ant infestation I had eliminated yesterday because I…

Belt Buckles and Sad Songs: Manifesting the Past in Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain”

By Guest Author | Craft, Classroom, Critical Essays | February 14, 2023

Photograph depicts grassy hills where cattle stand in a row; title card for the new craft essay, "Belt Buckles and Sad Songs: Manifesting the Past in Annie Proulx’s 'Brokeback Mountain'," by Daniel Abiva Hunt.

By Daniel Abiva Hunt • When I first began writing seriously, I was obsessed with character histories. Nothing would make my character feel more real and fully formed than a detail-oriented past, I felt, and I would turn over…

There Are Hundreds of Beautiful Asian Women Waiting to Meet You by Tessa Yang

By Tessa Yang | Flash Fiction, Fiction | February 10, 2023

The image is a photograph that depicts sharp corners of industrial rooftops with a crow flying between them in a background of white sky; title card for the new flash fiction, "There Are Hundreds of Beautiful Asian Women Waiting to Meet You," by Tessa Yang.

Later, you’ll claim there were warnings. Unusual bird calls. That double rainbow you snapped for Instagram. A knowing gleam in the eyes of the hibachi waitress. To make sense of a thing is to make it your own, and…

Interview: Sarah Blake

By Guest Author | Interviews, Craft, Classroom | February 6, 2023

Image is the book cover for CLEAN AIR; title card for Melanie Pierce's new interview with Sarah Blake.

In Sarah Blake’s sophomore novel, Clean Air, the cause of the climate apocalypse comes as a surprise. It’s not rising oceans or wildfires or air pollution. The trees release enough pollen to suffocate humankind: a drawn-out, mass-casualty event known…

Interview: Nicole McCarthy

By Guest Author | Interviews, Craft, Classroom | February 3, 2023

Image is the book cover for A SUMMONING; title card for Leslie Lindsay's new interview with Nicole McCarthy.

All spaces are haunted. In a way, all spaces are about memory. In A Summoning, “a conceptual, psychological experiment focused on memory,” Nicole McCarthy invites readers to sit and feel and think and remember. Throughout this fragmented collection, McCarthy…

Home Like This by Amanda Whitehurst

By Amanda Whitehurst | Flash CNF, CNF | February 1, 2023

Image is a photograph that depicts a silhouette of a mountain and two palm trees in front of a stormy background; title card for the new flash creative nonfiction essay, "Home Like This," by Amanda Whitehurst.

Content Warning—self-harm and/or suicide attempt When I visit from the states my cousin Marco becomes wind. In the car to the restaurant where our mothers wait he’s all curls dancing, all cheeks stretching, speeding so fast I’m sure…

Author’s Note

I’ll never forget when a coworker returned from vacation to Puerto Rico and said, “I can’t believe they exist in such poverty. They have so little and yet still possess so much joy, it felt like they were rich,” describing a place so unfamiliar to me it was as if I’d never been.

In writing this flash I wanted to disrupt the narrative that those living in places with disproportionate strain possess some kind of magical quality that enables them to enjoy their circumstances. To me, the assessment that people in Puerto Rico or other underresourced communities overcome their struggles via superhuman gratitude and perspective reduces their humanness. I wanted to illustrate how the people in my family are people: flawed, beautiful, sorrowful, with weird laughs and mental illnesses and complicated relationships with one another. I wanted to represent the reality of their difficulties while also depicting their fierce love for where they live, which are two unrelated, simultaneous truths.

As Marco’s cousin, observing him mentally struggle without adequate resources in a place he loves so much produces a particularly salient tension for me. This moment in the car with him struck me as it was happening because it felt both exhilarating and terrifying, and in that way it reminded me of how I feel as I witness Marco’s life. I chose to focus on the imagery of wind not only because it was a present physical sense in the car but also because I felt it would adequately capture this thrill and danger. Wind can destroy and take life, as it did in Hurricane Maria, but wind can also uplift, waft a breeze, and fill lungs. In this flash, I associated wind with both immeasurable delight and monumental strife to parallel Marco’s risky yet euphoric existence.

I can’t seem to close this note without adding that as I write this, it is eight months since this scene with Marco in the car, and less than forty-eight hours since he was admitted to the hospital unconscious (not as a result of self-harm). Marco does not have health insurance. I am still so far away.

I know that when he’s fully conscious and able to speak, the first thing he’ll tell us is some ridiculous joke.

AMANDA WHITEHURST lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned a BA in Sociology from William & Mary and an MSW from Columbia University. Most recently, her flash “I Could’ve Been Your Reflection” won first place in Exposition Review’s Flash 405 multigenre competition. Find her on Twitter at @mandawhitehurst.