Dear friends, It is a unique task to assume the editorship of a well-established journal. BigCityLit’s diverse community of readers, supporters, contributors, and friends have been so gracious in welcoming us as the new editors, and we are very grateful. We hope to serve you well. BigCityLit—the rivers of it, abridged. While compiling our first […]
Issue: Summer 2020
Battery Boy
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 […]
Damaged Heritage, The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation by J. Chester Johnson (with Foreword by Sheila L. Walker)
Review by Melinda Thomsen https://www.jchesterjohnson.com/Pegasus Books, ISBN, 9781643134666 Call It By Its Name My copy of J. Chester Johnson’s Damaged Heritage arrived on May 27th, the day after reports of George Floyd’s murder at the knee of a police officer. I finished the book in three days because Johnson’s compelling story gave me hope. In […]
The Wholly Separate Sides
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 […]
At the Casino with Two Jacks
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 […]
Rotarian on Vacation
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 […]
The White Dread of Wilshire
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 […]
Everyone Here is Fine
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 […]
Invitation to Dinner
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 […]
Come On Now
Evening stoops under its sodden shawl. A siren broods; its caterwaul snarling over blackened roofs. Someone’s on the run. Wet tires whisper to Avenue C. “I’m lost without you,” they swear. I wanted to be a matador in Manhattan, dancing with horns. I wanted to be a genie smoking in your coat of arms. While […]