Narrative Magazine | Writers, Fiction, Poetry, Storytelling, Nonfiction, Art

STORY OF THE WEEK

Why Don’t You?

By Emily Russell

She thinks about their arrival. They’ll unlock the door. She panics a little when she can’t quite picture the apartment.

POEM OF THE WEEK

Sonnet, After Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca

By Jenna Le

You get a hankering to be the portrait: to wear the ruffled off-the-shoulder gown the lady in a painting wears, to drown in tulle.

NARRATIVE PRIZE—FINAL WEEKS

The $5,000 Narrative Prize is awarded annually for the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction by a new or emerging writer.

Deadline: April 30, at 11:59 p.m., PST.

PAST NARRATIVE PRIZE WINNER

Chechnya

By Anthony Marra

After her sister, Natasha, died, Sonja began sleeping in the hospital. She returned home to wash her clothes a few days a month, but those days became fewer and fewer.

FICTION

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

FICTION

Boulder City

By T. C. Boyle

Four words—Your mother passed away—coming at him from the realm of anonymity, the lips of a stranger speaking through the inert slab of a phone hundreds of miles away.

NARRATIVE OUTLOUD

Bullet in the Brain

By Tobias Wolff

“I just think it's a pretty lousy way to treat your customers.” “Unforgivable,” Anders said. “Heaven will take note.”

FALL CONTEST WINNER

NONFICTION

FALL CONTEST WINNER

Suzuki Method

By Jen Lue

“I heard she hits her when she misses a note,” Madeline says. “That’s where she got that funny-looking blotch on her face.”

NONFICTION

Tilting at Windmills

By Dean Rader

There was a structure off on its own that I would pass from a distance. I could not see it well, but from what I could tell, it was the ugliest sculpture in the history of art.

POETRY

Hard-Boiled Mystery

By David Grubin

This father who found pleasure in hardboiled dicks, half-clad dames, and misogynist jokes, which my mother shrugged off because she was the boss and he knew it.

POETRY

That Spring

By Lo Naylor

spring came all the same. announced itself like a woodpecker on bark. my heart barked in my chest. each morning, I didn’t dare go back to sleep—couldn’t bear to wake twice.

OUTLOUD

MORE NARRATIVE

OUTLOUD

Mooncakes

By Helen Gu

What’s forbidden packed onto her tongue like lotus paste: a body waiting for the darling blade, the washed-down moonlight gnawing at her stomach.

MORE NARRATIVE

The Poetics of Place

By Various Authors

Places we have been can evoke rich memories—of a loved one, a period of pain or learning, a whole lifetime. In these poems, the writers evoke the connection between place and heart.

LEARN!

Best Advice

By Janet Burroway

I learned that writing is an enchanted and subversive activity that exempts you from the rules. The enchantment and the subversion are real; the joy of them is real.

Letters to a Young Writer

By Julianna Baggott

I can only truly devote myself to the relationship I have with the page, with my characters. My success or failure there—that is mine. That I own.

RECENT AWARDS

CARTOONS

RECENT AWARDS

Read the works of some of the remarkable Narrative poets and writers whose recent works have received notable distinctions.

CARTOONS

Cartoon Art Volume 2026-02

By Various Artists

A fresh batch of hilarity by Kendra Allenby, Pat Byrnes, Anika Orrock, P. C. Vey and Teresa Burns Parkhurst.