by Carla Botha It always starts like this: with coffee somewhere — coffee shops coffee trucks ice coffee on breezy summer days on lush lawns hot July days it always starts like this it never ends like this. Carla BothaCarla Botha completed her MFA in creative writing at New York University. She currently lives and works
by Madeleine Beckman I was at the Mudd Club you were too probably watching or with another young artist high (most of us were) on something potent but not as potent as youth. I was probably dancing (what I did back then). Music was my drug, movement my master – every muscle, tendon taut, tantalized in
by Jordi Alonso Had I but world enough and thymeand leisure too, to pass the timewhile buying—I would window shopthe newest pans; the freshest cropof lavender from France, flown inlast night would fuel my only sin.Extravagance in cooking makesfor novel drinks and tastier cakes;I’d, by the checkout counter finda tool to grate an orange rindin
by Jo-Anne Rosen Though we’d known about each other over twenty years, we didn’t meet until that afternoon in the hospital when Alice burst into the room and dropped into the chair opposite mine. On the bed between us lay my husband, Frank. His jaw hung open and his breath was raspy. “Why
by Niles Reddick for Jerry and Ruth Ann Jimmy lived and breathed Rotary in Augusta, Georgia. That’s how he’d met his wife, Virginia. She was a Miss Georgia contestant, and once a year they paraded the young ladies through the club, partly to increase ticket sales to the beauty pageant among the wealthiest men in
by Gina Yates As I rinse my paintbrushes in the bathroom sink, I make a forlorn James Dean face in the mirror and try to recall when 3-day stubble became my signature look. Seriously though, at what point did I become so mired in angst that I succumbed to this half-assed grunge aesthetic? I don’t
by Cynthia Allen I’m suddenly a housewife like my mother, procuring groceries at different markets, cleaning dog hair off the kitchen floor, and promptly serving dinner weeknights at 6:00 pm. At first, I welcome the busyness, but as three weeks roll into four and six and eight, my patience wears thin. I’m doing what my
by Clive Aaron Gill In the spring of 2019, my good friend, Nicholas, texts me, Come to a cool party. With cool women? I text back. You’ll see. I’m known as Jay. I share an apartment with a friend in Oceanside, California, and I’m twenty-eight years old. I have a long
by Wayne Rapp I am the Director of Photography for a large Midwestern film and video production company, and how am I spending my time? Not that you’d have reason to know, but I’m redesigning the crew section of our budget forms. And this for the second time in the last quarter. I should have
by Andrew Sarewitz New Year’s Eve, 2013. Early, around 9:30 p.m., I sauntered into the bar in Hell’s Kitchen as if I belonged there—which I suppose I felt I did. My brother-in-crime and owner of the bar, Sasha, hugged me hello. With the crowd being far from overflowing, he was concerned the lack of cash-carrying