Issue #5
Sundress by Robert Shapard

She hadn’t seen her children or grandchildren for so long she sometimes forgot she had them. Then Child Protective Services found her.

read more
TWA Wine by Josip Novakovich

While teaching a writing workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center, I invited a friend of mine to join me as I had a whole cottage with three rooms to myself, and to be my guest in the workshop of nonficiton.

read more
Elms by Dawn Raffel

I might have known her anywhere: the wreck of a cheek, the loose lid of an eye, the broken vein, felled breast, the burst cloud of the iris.

read more

Fulfilling by Fiona McKay

Kate is not ‘imagining it’. There are small tufts of pale fluff on her neck, and no, it’s not ‘just a tissue in the washing machine’ as John suggests. There’s nothing drifting off his shirts, nothing clinging to Ella’s favourite black top, Josh’s Minecraft t-shirts. It’s more solid than tissue, just on her clothes. And only she can see it.

Electric Storm by Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

It’s been twenty minutes since the first bolt of lightning ripped a scar through the purple night sky. Since my mother said to swim in the rain ― it’s fun. Since her boyfriend Colin said he’d join us― to check we’re ok.

Bog Iron by Shane Larkin

We make stops on the way to our bog plot to look at the little skeletons. Dad tells me about them. Curlews and skylarks in dancing poses. Tiny skulls.

The Storyteller of Aleppo by Donna Obeid

In the barren cold camp, you wear a dusty cape and top hat, wave my cane as if it were a wand and tell me your dream-stories, one after the next, your words spun and tossed like tethers into the air.

Amelia Earhart Knew Seven Latin Words for Fire by Joe Kapitan

Ignis, the flaming wreckage, bubbling rubber, liquified cloth, her skin charred and blistering, acrid smoke, the tiny thunders of survival’s kicks