Daniel Lowe is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2026 Flash Fiction Contest The river fog clears and rises, and for a few moments the tops of the city’s tallest buildings seem suspended in air. From your perch on the hillside, their windows are portals of white light, like eyes with cataracts reflecting a brilliant sun. Cloud cities exist only in fantasy, fairytale worlds of imagination now overtaken by video, and anyway, you gave up all fantasy other than the sexual kind the day you entered puberty. Perhaps it was a day like this one, a cool … Continue reading Mosaic by Daniel Lowe →
Because no matter the finery she wears she can’t do anything to shake her past Because she can’t seem to shake her past she’s like a long scar in a formal dress Because she trusts the zodiac to run her life she drinks according to the stars and constellations Because she drinks according to stars she counts herself wise as she downs 80-proof misery Because she knows the strength of the stock she came from she can share laughter even while possessed by sorrow Because she can laugh even while she cries she can speak … Continue reading Boxed Wine and Sad Seasons by Tobi Alfier →
For Joanne First snow has hushed the highway, yammer of distant coyotes comes to us as brittle and sharp as icicles dangling from the eaves. Without thought my mind links the stars and traces the ancient outlines –I read Orion standing roughshod on snowy Pine Mountain. No going back—once the dots are connected, those stories are etched for the duration, the stars never again a random scatter of pinpointed lights. The same for speech— we come into this country wordless to find everything already named and so contained by its appellation— once the red and … Continue reading Brimming Over by George Singer →
I was born on Halloween, quarter past three in the morning, jaundiced and with a hole in my heart. Or so Mum told me, but she was grumpy about what a pain I had been, so I didn’t push for details. All Hallows’ Eve—hallow meaning saint—is the night before All Saints’ Day on November 1, and is when the departed and beloved are remembered through prayer and song (vespers being Latin for evening). The practice goes back centuries, and includes a rich Celtic influence and history. We knew none of this growing up in Southeast … Continue reading Halloween’s Child by Ping Yi Yee →
Lincoln Perry launched Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University’s Department of Art in 1971. Not essentially recognizable to those of us who now know his work, he was painting abstractly at the time, digesting such influences as Mondrian and Klee. Exploring the geometry of color; the relationships and influences of one hue upon another and observing the small important skirmishes that occurred along their fashionably flat margins. Those were all early fascinations of the period for him, that would ultimately leave their subtle mark. The following year Perry joined a commune of fellow artists … Continue reading An Artist’s Progress: A Glimpse Into The Art of Lincoln Perry by Deborah McLeod →
Scroll to the end of the interview for excerpt from Making Rounds. In her new memoir, Sharon Hostler writes candidly about her life, both professional and personal. We see her raise two children while also becoming a major force in a new model of patient-centered care. We watch her wrestle not only with the obstacles society imposed on her, but with her own preconceptions. Her insights into how race, gender, and class shaped different people’s medical experiences are fascinating. The memoir takes us from her difficult childhood in Vermont to her against-the-odds career in academic … Continue reading An Interview of Sharon Hostler by Sharon Harrigan →
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