CNF 3/6

Sep 17, 20237 min read

"Living on the Edge" by Louis M.

CW: Eating Disorder I slid into his DMs with a burning fire at the tips of my fingers. I rushed to type a message that would remain...

"Me and Vinnie from New Jersey as told by Google’s Oxford English Language…" by Lisa Thornton

Sep 3, 20232 min read

CNF

"Me and Vinnie from New Jersey as told by Google’s Oxford English Language…" by Lisa Thornton

Me and Vinnie from New Jersey as told by Google’s Oxford English Language Dictionary want v. have a desire to possess n. a lack...

"Showers in the Dark" by Kevin Edward Reed

Sep 3, 20239 min read

creative nonfiction

"Showers in the Dark" by Kevin Edward Reed

About three years ago, I began to take showers in the dark. In part to wash away the grime and filth of the day, but also to feel...

"Grief for the Glistening and the Grisly" by Patricia McCrystal

Aug 20, 20234 min read

flash

"Grief for the Glistening and the Grisly" by Patricia McCrystal

Like so many others, Cormac McCarthy was profoundly influential to my literary practice. McCarthy’s prose left me aghast. Devoured....

Aug 20, 20237 min read

CNF

"Naked Man Walking" by Dustin Michael

I. Amsterdam has many open-air public urinals, but I can recall only one. It consisted of a semicircle of vertical 2x4s enclosing a...

Jul 23, 20231 min read

flash

"The Question" by Virginia Foley

Brian is handsome under moonlight: black shirt, grey jacket and peppered hair. My husband and Brian’s wife have stepped away from the...

"The Pied Piper of Mediocre Cringelords" by Cody Sexton

Jul 9, 20233 min read

CNF

"The Pied Piper of Mediocre Cringelords" by Cody Sexton

Meet (insert name here) the latest sensation in the world of transgressive fiction. With his shocking, provocative, and downright...

Jul 9, 20235 min read

CNF

"Therapy" by Mather Schneider

I dreamed I was washing my hands and the skin started coming off my fingers until my finger-bones were exposed. I cried for my mother,...

"Me and my boy watching the dead comedian on the Channel 4 panel show" by Lucy Goldring

Jun 25, 20231 min read

CNF

"Me and my boy watching the dead comedian on the Channel 4 panel show" by Lucy Goldring

When the dead comedian does his bit, I always laugh too hard. Secretly I’m welling up, thinking of his wife and kids; thinking of myself....

"How to Be a Winsor Girl" by Tricia Elam Walker

May 28, 20239 min read

CNF

"How to Be a Winsor Girl" by Tricia Elam Walker

Some self-labeled “patriots” and other conservatives rage against truthful and complete history and access to books that explore and...

"If You Go Into the Woods Today" by Donna Vorreyer

May 13, 20231 min read

flash

"If You Go Into the Woods Today" by Donna Vorreyer

The forest preserve rumbles with the deep-throated song of frogs, holed-up in fallen trees or testing the frigid indigo of the lake. The...

"Libations for the Metal Gods" by Steve Passey

Apr 30, 202317 min read

creative nonfiction

"Libations for the Metal Gods" by Steve Passey

The Gods of the Riff are inscrutable. They hear neither prayer nor plea. They brook no rebuke. They bestow their favor where they will,...

Apr 2, 202320 min read

CNF

"An American Study" by Anna Nguyen

1. I wore the same green, sleeveless jumpsuit two days in a row. We had landed in another temporary home, this time in a small rural town...

"Billy Made My Crotch Tingle" by Elaina Battista-Parsons

Apr 2, 20236 min read

CNF

"Billy Made My Crotch Tingle" by Elaina Battista-Parsons

A perfect storm happened in 1990 for the sensory-me. I was beginning to understand what being horny meant. There’s no need for me to be...

"Who Cares About Choi’s Tacos" by Jennifer Jeanne McArdle

Apr 2, 202313 min read

CNF

"Who Cares About Choi’s Tacos" by Jennifer Jeanne McArdle

In 2011, you couldn’t find many places in Seoul, South Korea selling Mexican food, authentic or Americanized. Choi’s Tacos, a small,...

Mar 5, 20231 min read

creative nonfiction

"Nagasaki Sky" by WA Hawkins

Despite the burns on his face and forearms, his ruptured eardrums, Tsutomu Yamaguchi navigated shattered buildings, melted flesh,...

Mar 5, 20235 min read

CNF

"Sick for Shakespeare" by Noah Good

The summer before my senior year of high school, I was in a youth production of Measure for Measure (one of the Shakespeare plays that...

"Safe spaces with sharp edges: lessons in fearing the worst" by Jane Ayres

Feb 19, 20236 min read

CNF

"Safe spaces with sharp edges: lessons in fearing the worst" by Jane Ayres

Dorothy, my paternal grandmother, was a worrier. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70 when folk who had anxious tendencies were simply called...

Feb 19, 202313 min read

CNF

"Reps" by Steve Passey

The gym I went to was old-school. No internet/wireless. No air-conditioning. It had racks and plates and bars and dumbbells that went to...

Feb 19, 20235 min read

CNF

"A Time Not Now" by Janet Clare

A month ago, I was in Los Angeles and my husband was in New York on his way home from Madrid and Paris. He’s a writer, fancied himself a...