The Intriguing Metal Sculptures of Madeleine Lord
A ten foot giraffe. A ballerina on tiptoe. A gyrating rocker. The Angel Gabriel and an Artist in the Time of Covid. These are but a few of the playful and thought-provoking metal sculptures by New England artist Madeleine Lord. Lord remembers how her love of sculptures began. “In 1983 a widowed friend with poor eyesight wanted to attend the night welding class at the technical high school and needed a driver. I wanted to learn to weld so off we went.” She was hooked, accustomed to creating paintings and woodcut prints. “Welded … Continue reading The Intriguing Metal Sculptures of Madeleine Lord
Still Life by Mark Liebenow
On some days, the world stops moving and I feel I’m sitting on a wooden chair inside a still life painting. I look at the objects around me in my living room—the navy blue fabric recliner, music magazines on the coffee table, the wooden perch near the window where Sophie, my black cat, sleeps. The painting on the wall of the Mist Trail in Yosemite by my mother before she faded into dementia—the rocks, trees, and waterfall dissolving into colors—magenta, light blue, crimson, shades of charcoal gray, and forest green. The red coffee cup, the … Continue reading Still Life by Mark Liebenow
Stone Circles by Moray McGowan
Moray McGowan is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2026 Poetry Contest The waxwings that stripped our cherry tree’s last crop dropped guano’d stones in meadows far beyond the sea From the felled tree’s straight and amber grain we carved our firstborn’s crib From glasses perched upon the stump we toasted her first school day We watched her curl up in her fairy dell the roots left as they rotted back into earth, watched her teach her sisters reading and the facts of life she’d learned from books, her gaze on our disasters and her own … Continue reading Stone Circles by Moray McGowan
Playmaker by Richard H. Kenney, Jr.
Richard Kenney, Jr. has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight‘s 2026 Essay/Memoir Contest “He had a talent for remembering phone numbers and sports statistics.” That was it . . . an obituary’s one-sentence summary of a kid’s life. A kid with a sweet shot and a bucket of promise. A kid trying to find the right touch to life. He is a kid, though, only in my mind. I have not seen him in over forty years. The nine-year-old online obit that I recently stumbled upon said he died at age fifty-five, and that memorial donations … Continue reading Playmaker by Richard H. Kenney, Jr.
Paying Our Respects by Connie Clark
Going to visit a dead body has seemed bizarre to me since my first such occasion when I was five or six years old. Like any good Southern family, we had seemingly countless numbers of old ladies populating the family tree. Most of them were a little scary, I thought. They were somebody’s second-cousin-twice-removed or a great-aunt or Neva’s mother-in-law, someone whose life and death had little bearing on my life. But Mom and Daddy took me with them to the funeral home for the Visitation, an occasion taken very seriously in my family. We … Continue reading Paying Our Respects by Connie Clark
Nine Feet Apart by David I. Hughes
David Hughes is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2026 Poetry Contest This is the silence with a fault line. Not a void, but a region freshly mapped. The sofa’s middle is a no-man’s-land, a treaty’s definition. The air is parceled into spheres of influence: yours, by the cold fireplace, mine, by the window where I watch the rain. A sentence would be an incursion. A glance, a border violation. We have become two different pressures. You, a high front of resistance. I, a low system of conjecture. The weather in this room requires distance of … Continue reading Nine Feet Apart by David I. Hughes
All Out in Beijing by Marcia Yudkin
The shuffling of Zhao Yihe, my boss, down the office corridor came to a shocked halt when he saw me. With his hair wet, his feet in plastic slippers and a towel draped around his neck, he must have come from the bathhouse at the back of the office compound. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were shower days for men, and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for women. “Did you miss the bus?” he asked. “No, I’m eating lunch here now, downstairs,” I replied. Foreign experts like myself normally took a private bus back to our hotel … Continue reading All Out in Beijing by Marcia Yudkin
I tell my wife we are all drawn to sadness by Casey Killingsworth
Nothing changes after the year we spend our Sunday mornings offering tea to the homeless in the shadow of the Mission, you know, fashion philanthropy. No paradise, no floats in the parade, no graphs moving up or down. We still wake up to the same mornings, our hungry souls staring at their hungry souls staring at our breakfasts through the television set. The last time I looked the world doesn’t operate according to serving tea on Sundays. It just keeps turning and spitting out more sadness, and we stick around for those few occasions when … Continue reading I tell my wife we are all drawn to sadness by Casey Killingsworth
Spring Gables Wolf Attack by Andrew Friedman
I took the cheeseburger out of the bag and started eating it while I walked to my car. Harold was in the parking lot. They were beating his ass again. Chuck and Dave and Brian and maybe Roger and Rick were there too. Harold crouched in the circle, his twiggy arms over his head. Reuben, Chuck called. Give this thing a kick. I gave him a good kick. He was like a bag of mulch with some air stuck in it. I gave Chuck a thumb’s up and finished my burger in my car. … Continue reading Spring Gables Wolf Attack by Andrew Friedman
2026 Flash Fiction Contest Winners by Erika Raskin and Mary Esselman
We were privileged again to read a vast expanse of small worlds through our flash fiction contest. And once again, the different structures and backstories and characters made the subjective task of landing on overlapping favorites difficult work. There is no scientific formula for evaluation. Just two hearts touched in one way or another. All of which is to say we are honored to announce that “The Cat and The Man,” by Laura Halpin was awarded first and Daniel Lowe’s “Mosaic,” second. They are both wonderful. Thank you, thank you to all who sent in … Continue reading 2026 Flash Fiction Contest Winners by Erika Raskin and Mary Esselman