FICTION

Shannon Cain CULTIVATION
She grows weed and she grows children, but the weed doesn’t talk back. The children make noise and messes. The weed is reliable.

Joshua Ferris UNCERTAINTY (complete story)
He was waiting for me when I walked in, standing in the middle of the living room.

Luis Jaramillo THE PACIFIC WAR
“If I pass out, I need you to help me,” the doctor says to his son.

Shawn Vestal THE FIRST SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS FOLLOWING MY DEATH
In the cafeteria, people sit with others of their age and era—tables full of bald old men from my century, children from flu epidemics in the 1800s, young soldiers from every time.

Dan DeWeese ACACIA AVENUE
It was as if the lion’s share of my lifetime—marriage, parenthood, and career—had become nothing but a vivid dream that had dissolved to traces and shadows as each day I awakened to find myself not just in my family’s old house, but in my parents’ old room.

Caitlin Horrocks GOING TO ESTONIA
Through the damp, streaked spaces he hollowed, Ursula could see nothing but pine forest, dark and relentless. She was already as far from home as she’d ever been.

Charles Baxter McQUEER, an excerpt from the novel The Soul Thief
In his most recent phase, he decided that he was gay (he is now almost twelve) and that we were all to call him “McQueer,” which, he said, would be his trademark.

POETRY

Elaine Equi
CANCELED FLIGHT

Bruce Smith
REDISCOVERING BRUCE SMITH

Peter Kline
MINOTAUR

William Wenthe
FROM THE TRAVEL JOURNALS OF BASHO: AUGUST 1684

Matthew Lippman
NO MORE BEES (complete poem)
NAKED FLOWER

Stephanie Anderson
THE MULE SPINDLES

Lori Shine
COVE

Kathleen Winter
THE GENDER OF A COW

NEW VOICE—POETRY

Adam Fell
DICHOTOMOUS KEY FOR SELECTED
FAMILIES OF ADULTS

ESSAYS & FEATURES

Yiyun Li IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO TELL A STORY
Although Yiyun Li is from China and William Trevor is from Ireland, they share an unexpected common literary space.

INTERVIEW

A CONVERSATION WITH DEBORAH EISENBERG
Anna Keesey talks with Deborah Eisenberg about whether one can be ethical and an American, the great fun of playwriting, the vision quest of fiction writing, and the outrageous richness of diction in her “inhospitable” stories.

PILGRIMAGE

Frances McCue IN PURSUIT OF WISDOM
All roads lead to Philipsburg: when McCue set out to see the desolate Western towns of Richard Hugo’s poetry, she eventually ended up in a car with Charles D’Ambrosio, Bill Kittredge, and Annick Smith, following the poet’s path.

LOST & FOUND

Suzanne Dennice Guillette on
Unica Zürn’s The House of Illnesses.

READABLE FEAST

Kim Adrian RED CURRANTS AND “GOOSEBERRIES”
Two children, a bucket of tart berries, a ramshackle house, and Chekhov’s paean to sense and memory.

BLITHE SPIRITS

Sara Roahen SAZERACS
On lost innocence and whiskey: post-Katrina New Orleans is still a boozy town, but not quite in the same festive way as before.

to top