Authors
Nonfiction
Our visions of the world fade like the morning star, lost in the light of day.
Story of the Week
I don’t know who he wants to be, and it’s not because I haven’t asked.
Story of the Week
In medical school they forgot to tell me about caring and feeling.
Poem of the Week
She’s coming back, her arms full of the flowers I gave her once a year.
Story of the Week
Lorenzo and me, we’d squat our own building. It was the new frontier.
Poetry
It is music opening and closing, Italia mia, on Bleecker, ciao, Antonio.
Poem of the Week
Enough with the stranger, their transcendent experience of art.
Poetry Contest Winners
Death is a lack, I suppose, and love more so. But I will not falter.
Poetry
What I really meant to say is that I am tired. Beauty can demand so much.
Poem of the Week
By Wednesday morning I’d fallen in love with someone else.
Poetry
God was surrounding the chair, leaves flourishing from a sickly tree.
Poem of the Week
We fed our dreams inevitable sins, the kind you lie about till you grow mean.
Narrative High School Writing Contest
When I meet his gaze, he’s frowning, a hint of anger flashing in his eyes.
When saw the fury in his eyes, I thought he was going to kill him.
Poem of the Week
The horse is beautiful and would rather be doing anything else.
Poetry
“You need me,” says the mind. “I just want what’s best for you.”
Story of the Week
In your postpartum state, your best hope is to bluff your way through.
Graphic Stories
In search of the life we all agree is so desirable—art, romance, freedom!
Story of the Week
Your bookself will appear to find you trivial, its nose deep in some tome.
Poetry
All the bears in the zoo look pathetic. Their eyes glazed, bodies lethargic.
Poem of the Week
A plastic Kroger’s bag caught in the chinking—Spelter’s only banner.
Poem of the Week
Euclid stands in front of his lover’s door, open to the last hours of light.
Poetry
After you have read all you possibly can there may be a few lines left.
Poetry
She regarded the world calmly without the filter of her suffering.
Poem of the Week
Your image is on my credit card, you and the old red, white, and blue.
Poem of the Week
He hadn’t meant to hurt her. Drowning people will do anything for air.
Poem of the Week
Tears sometimes come in a bottle. Open and apply several times daily.
Story of the Week
I yanked him halfway out of his car and punched him in the nose.
Poem of the Week
The purpose of all rules of piety is to extend revelation into ordinary life.
iPoems
I light fires in the dark wake of space where you have tarried. Or died.
iPoems
Oar blades, vast swirls of cirrus at dawn. The dead move within us.
Fiction
The barman emanated paranoia, the male customers sat introspecting.
Story of the Week
In chess as in love, openings could be only so original. But this was uncanny.
Poetry Contest Winners
Rays burst from behind the mountain, sweep the broad beach.
Graphic Stories
I bought chips from the one open store, but can’t figure out how to eat them.
Graphic Stories
On June 23rd, activists set up camp at New York City Hall.
Story of the Week
Chuck had a grin, but Mike kept his eyebrows raised, very curious.
Poem of the Week
& I said let there be dark pouring from your mouth at daybreak
Poetry
A man drunk on the damage he made to a boy’s young mouth.
Poetry
A father peeled the night / from another midnight & begged / me to lie
Poem of the Week
You said cilím-xayqin, the very whites of my eyes you pluck out.
Poem of the Week
Everyone is talking about the end of the world. Why now? Why today?
Poetry
Where will we go and how will we steer when the cars are gone?
Fiction
Stopping it, Cye knows, is like stopping a tsunami with a tennis racket.
Story of the Week
Miss Moses smiled, I could take you, buster. Don’t try anything with me.
Story of the Week
I was under a spell, those days. I had been ever since I’d first seen her.
Story of the Week
The window washer smiles a little and licks his lips. Nadine smiles back.
Story of the Week
Definitely believe what you hear about the problems with painkillers.
Story of the Week
Dr. Zee knows his son is struggling up out of some chemical fog.
iPoems
Everything white is a white spider. The spider spins regardless of color.
Poem of the Week
I should look at what I’ve done. How loosely she let him come to me.
Poetry
The pupils are toothpicks. The lake is a sky with a circle beneath.
Poem of the Week
I live for now in the second house of having asked a favor from a friend.
Story of the Week
The problem, as it turned out, is: Forever can be surprisingly short.
Story of the Week
The shapes called them bastard loads. The lazy creations of fools.
Story of the Week
Let him search, Tricia thought, who knew what he might discover.
Poetry
I walked that land with him, one and mingling, breaking into breath.
Poetry
I try to believe that even when cords are cut or people die we connect.
iPoems
You have your apron on under your coat. We’ve got each other.
Poem of the Week
You move rocks, run water, check the path of mouse and rabbit.
Poem of the Week
I lean I stumble toward you hoping you’ve not turned away yet.
Story of the Week
Even in death, my mother had to make things difficult for me.
Poetry
Royal baby George is tucked in the crook of his mother’s elbow.
Poem of the Week
Now the scalpel is slippery; how will I know where to make the cuts?
Story of the Week
At first my dad was optimistic that he could be a one-armed farmer.
Poetry
Another year another almanac, a washed-out castle in the sand.
Story of the Week
Bad luck, like the white-scabs disease, can infect others.
Story of the Week
I think she’s too comfortable with humans to stay in the wild.
Story of the Week
We agreed: no hearts, no flowers, just courteous, no-strings sex.
Poetry
Small valleys and veins give way to a lifted ridge like a rib or an arm bone.
Poem of the Week
The citizens of Aunay believed Pierre Rivière batshit, dimwitted.
Story of the Week
One felt all the poor lady’s barriers were falling save her manner.
Story of the Week
Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands.
Story of the Week
It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent.
Story of the Week
I became a symbol of freedom, a miracle who had escaped the Devil.
Story of the Week
His flannel sleeve dangled into the flame. Pretty soon, I was on fire too.
Story of the Week
“I’d like to talk to C about her personal statement,” Blattman said.
Story of the Week
“I’ve already submitted the course grades,” Costa said warily.
Fall Contest Winners
The woman perused Irwin’s request form. “You can’t go there.”
Story of the Week
I felt that Teddy occupied a range below acceptability, even among boys.
Story of the Week
This is a place where young girls are butchered in old-time songs.
Poem of the Week
Will you bless us, who are so in need of blessing? The world tires.
Poem of the Week
We want no truck with death. Not now while we’re busy feasting on figs.
Fiction
So that’s what I’d look like if every beauty parlor in the world shut down.
Story of the Week
You’re safe here. A prison might be the safest place to meet a man.
Poem of the Week
I reach in, blind hand finds what I’ve already seen, only one front foot.
Story of the Week
I saw it on her face that day, a look like her heart would drift into the sky.
Poem of the Week
Bees kill wasps by gathering around and tightening in the middle.
Poetry
Song where a house becomes a dandelion in a puff of savage wind.
Poem of the Week
Have two children to keep around the house in case one goes missing.
Nonfiction
Horses in those days were celebrities in their own right.
Poem of the Week
I decide it’s as good a place as any to stop, pant & smell the roses—
iPoems
To get the job, always stay starched, creased to death.
Poetry
Then I graduate to a four-digit mortgage inside an ornate gate.
Story of the Week
If you hear your name again just say, Here I am. Maybe it’s the Lord.
Poetry Editor's Note
The act of poetry most often begins and ends in solitude.
Story of the Week
He hit all of us sometimes, but he hit me hardest and the most.
First & Second Looks
A raucous voice I raise in praiseful song, but it’s myself I praise.
Poem of the Week
At Pompeii the little dog lay curled and did not rise but slept the deeper.
Poem of the Week
All the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring.
Story of the Week
My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature.
Story of the Week
“The secret to happiness is not wanting,” Lars told the Buddha.
Short Shorts
He doesn’t have to lie about oatmeal. That’s the way things are for him.
Story of the Week
“Well, it’s a dark world, Suzanne. She’s old enough to know that.”
Fiction
It lay slumped where they’d dragged it, a fright of an animal.
Fall Contest Winners
Where my mom was wasn’t never far from the Myrtle Beach Days Inn.
Story of the Week
He shot a spear into a boom timber and pulled the boat to it.
Story of the Week
“It means,” Stoner said again, and could not finish what he had begun.
Story of the Week
“I’m looking for a Mr. Miller,” he said. “I was told I might find him here.”
Story of the Week
I looked up how much everything would cost. Giving birth: $9,000.
Poetry Contest Winners
When I dream of lovers, I rarely see faces. It’s better if we never touch.
Poem of the Week
Play hero, sunburned protagonist, awake in our dream.
Narrative Outloud
Sue Williams tells a pitch-perfect story outloud, about devotion.
Narrative Outloud
We’d open our mouths and sink, trying to make an ocean of ourselves.
Narrative Outloud
The moths were the things that invaded, like a bad man’s touch.
Classics
I lost myself in their minds: for the moment I actually became them.
Poem of the Week
The blackbirds in the rain upon the dead topbranches notate the dawn.
Poem of the Week
Wanderer moon smiling a faintly ironical smile at this summer morning—
iPoems
Afterward, it was nature that was blind, and she who was wild.
Poem of the Week
Grant had a lot of buttons on that coat—when he wore it.
Poetry
Those trees—each an epoch with its origin and history, rising into night.
Short Shorts
It’s like his bottom half is not man but a strong horse.
First-Person Winners
Dad was blind until six months ago, when he bumped his head in the fire.
Poem of the Week
Our bed a garden of the littlest sighs of our waking. Our room, abstract.
iPoems
An expansion into light, or we could have been, or were for a moment.
Poetry Contest Winners
through the trees, breathless, the grouse leads us steady as a rope.
Story of the Week
Not long after Christmas, the smoke really hit Melbourne.
Poem of the Week
The world smells brand-new crisp the way an ax cuts fire wood.
Poem of the Week
He took off his clothes and left them on the living room floor.
Poetry Contest Winners
You try to confess your crime of turning the world into words.
Poem of the Week
My stepfather has gone out with a blanket to place over a doe’s body.
Story of the Week
You’re going to have a difficult life if you can’t figure out where to stand.
Fall Contest Winners
I hear myself giving advice in my father’s voice: Take the emotion out.
Story of the Week
We backed up and I kept ripping it at his face, trying to knock his teeth out.
Fiction
Here’s the part where you pledge devotion until death, I told myself.
Fiction
“You’re great with people. Ever since you got over the drooling problem.”
Fall Contest Winners
The students usually didn’t look up to see who was serving them.
Spring Contest Winners
I believed in department stores the way I believed in Germany.
Six-Word Stories
Here's a great way to tell the comedy of sex in only six words.
Poem of the Week
It’s true, I killed my husband. I had my reasons. He was a hunter on the trail.
Poetry
Having held down the past applying pressure to its sacrum . . .
Poetry
Yes, Sweetness, a white shadow shimmers on the X-ray of the future.
Story of the Week
I thought that proved he blamed me. I thought they all did.
Story of the Week
My desire to be in sync with him had nearly been my undoing.
Story of the Week
“We don’t feel like a couple. Haven’t felt like a couple for a very long while.”
Story of the Week
The division of the community had become more marked than ever.
Story of the Week
The King’s affair was supposed to be a secret. But you know how it is.
Fiction
Another girl like an origami crane, given to a reckless boy who unfolds it.
Fiction
Cory only hires stoners so he has something on them if they try blackmail.
Story of the Week
There was something in her voice, some awful, enduring fire.
Story of the Week
I tried mightily, but no longer could I ladle those ancient words into the air.
Story of the Week
These men don’t ask me to remove my scarf, even though it’s mid-July.
Interviews
It was a horrible place because it wasn’t exactly horrible.
Nonfiction
The talk was heady, but the conversations were dead-ends.
Story of the Week
Our remarks must be tempered by a sense of cooperation.
Fiction
I repeated the name thoughtfully, then said no, I didn’t think I knew her.
Narrative Outloud
Tobias Wolff reading two stories aloud: "Say Yes" and "Her Dog."
Nonfiction
The appetite for self-surrender is nothing new in our makeup.
Story of the Week
I could shoot you and nobody would say boo. I’m within my rights.
Narrative Outloud
Betrayal was written on my face, in my eyes, and I knew it.
Poem of the Week
On a jet stream, unearthly, air can travel at hundreds of miles per hour.
Poem of the Week
Lucy Liu, you show me I can come to fruition and yellow on my own terms.
Poetry
so easily impressed when wet / so easy / to see through when turned / off
Story of the Week
The elevator inside him begins to fall with dizzying speed.
Fiction
He’d been lost and tripping vividly on some speckled acid for days.
Fiction
The night was clear, a fat kingfish moon in the sky with stars.
Fiction
You could take your pick from an array of rebellions to consider.
Story of the Week
How shocking it was to discover these real things were not real.
Story of the Week
The heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then bares them.
Story of the Week
No one perhaps has ever felt passionately towards a pencil.
Classics
The great season for reading is between eighteen and twenty-four.
Story of the Week
She came from the most worthless of all classes—the rich.
Story of the Week
The success is deserved, I think: certainly it was not lightly gained.
Story of the Week
Pushing by the man, he ran down the street towards the station.
Fall Contest Winners
Overnight, somebody had dumped a dead pit bull in the trash bin.
Fiction
Cerberuses ran in packs, terrorizing drunks who fell in the snow.
Fall Contest Winners
He pushed aside a photograph of a man with a knife stuck in his eye.
Story of the Week
When the population was whiter, they fawned over the Korean.
Fall Contest Winners
Who cared about a whiff of male exertion and motor oil? Not Lana.
Fall Contest Winners
More and more whiskey was required to knock out the elephant.
Story of the Week
His voice was wrung with panic as he spit curses like spoiled milk.
Poetry
Since the day the bell was cast I have sat in the bishop’s carved chair and waited my turn.
Poem of the Week
We cannot leave it to the forces to rub out the color of the world.
Poem of the Week
Such longings: Errant. Verdant. To have a good time. And dream.
iPoems
He pretended he was in his boat, his cellmate’s flushing, Arctic Ocean.
Poem of the Week
This was his sky, his clouds rucked up over the fields. His country.
Poetry
One spent the better part of this life writing in the dirt with a stick.
Narrative High School Writing Contest
My brush dissects her slick-back black hair to expose ugly white.
