2024 Flash Fiction Contest by Erika Raskin   Once again, we had the opportunity to read a (virtual) stack of flash fiction pieces that have enlarged our worlds—and we are grateful. As us […]

Tips For Aging Women by Christine McDowell Tucker Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you’re considering getting old. We don’t recommend this course of action, of course, because the risks […]

Downstairs by Gary Duehr   What’s happening to me? Downstairs I can hear my wife Ann with our two-year-old Isabella, their sounds bubbling up from the kitchen. The […]

Writing For A Generation by Joel F. Johnson We write for a target audience. Readers differ in their demographics as well as their literary tastes. When my novel, Never, was published, I began […]

Writing Through Autocracy by Karol Lagodzki   The one and only time I put a knife in my pocket heading out to church was on Sunday, December 13, 1981. My mother, a single parent, was […]

A Stone by Debbie Bennett It was a flat grey stone, the kind you found in tourist shops, with pre-set words. What a strange gift from Andrea, I’d thought, and plunked it into m […]

Birthday Boys by Will Underland   When he woke it was with awareness that it was his birthday and thus with an ebullience lacking on most other days when waking and rising were […]

The Secrets We Kept in Our Condo Association by I. S. Berry It’s hard to know when it started—the hollow feeling when I entered my building. The unease as I unlocked the front door, like I was entering a str […]

Candy Apple Smile by Catherine Chiarella Domonkos   Kat’s portrait tilted on Wendy’s dresser festooned with effulgent skyscrapers: birds of paradise and stargazers. A spent cork from a New Year […]

Where'd The Idea For That Come From? by Erika Raskin Writers write. Worriers worry. I am quite adept at doing both. You know, simultaneously. I penned my first book, Close, while partaking in a […]

Ian, Who Lives on the Mountain Overlooking the City Where He Works by John Brantingham On a foggy dawn like this, at the edge of the cliff, at the edge of winter when the wind is blowing through the forest, all the ice chips […]

Flowers by William Cass   As I marked another donation box I’d filled with my son’s trach supplies, the doorbell rang. Two men in identical ball caps and polo shir […]

My Inspiring Journey by Sean Nishi Studio City, November, 2016 Had a great time going back home for Thanksgiving. Everyone was there—Mom, Dad, my Sister, our championship horse S […]

No YOU Say it Erika Raskin Someone asked me what a writer’s voice is. I was momentarily tongue-tied. It’s a tricky concept to capture and describe–a little like trying […]

Transference by MaryLewis Meador   Lucy and Henry are not an unusual couple. They forgive slights, hold some grudges, and share hilarity at mispronunciations, bad teeth, and […]

MAISON MAGIQUE by Deborah M. Prum   I have a five-year-old grandchild who lives in Paris. Recently, she informed me that when she plays tag at her schoolyard, to avoid becoming […]

You Must Pay The Rent by Marijean Oldham The kitchen is new to her, its wide granite island, so big you could autopsy a moose on it. More cabinet space than she’d had in all her p […]

Cinzano by Michael Paul Hogan   The silence had lengthened to the point where it was awkward. The young man said, “Have you noticed? Ours is a Cinzano umbrella, but al […]

Political Animals by Erika Raskin I’ve been a vegetarian for years and years. I try not to be preachy about the issue `#ToEachHisOrHerOwn but in truth the whole concept of […]

Santa, Undone by Travis Flatt He taps on my door. You’ve got to hand it to a seven-year-old for knocking. That lesson he learned even before reading. “Please knock,” his mothe […]