Fiction

  • September 2018

    Colorful, geometrically tangent houses cascade up a hill
       By Jóanes Nielsen
    Photo: James Stringer/Flickr A chance encounter with a magnetic stranger shifts something inside the narrator of this story set in the streets of Tórshavn. I first met her around th...

  • September 2018

    A black and white photograph of an old black Cadillac
       By Milena Solot
    Photo: Steve Oprey/Pixabay In this story from Milena Solot’s manuscript A Possible Place, the recently named matron of a successful whorehouse in Mexico City walks into the car...

  • September 2018

    An illustration done in colored pencil of a rabbit sitting in a forest garden
       By Sólrún Michelsen
    A small birch tree with arctic thyme, lupine, sea thrift, angelica, marsh marigolds, welsh poppies, oriental poppies, rhubarb and red currant. Watercolor by Roshni Robert A woman’s comp...

  • July 2018

    A black and white photograph of the interior of a vintage Cadillac with the focus on the steering column and gauges
       By Sylvie Weil
    Photo: Chris Devers/Flickr A bar mitzvah brings multiple generations of a family together in celebration, far from the reach of the evil eye. NEW ROCHELLE...

  • July 2018

    A photograph of a pot of broth steaming on a white stove
       By Moshe Sakal
    Photo: Sarah McGee/Flickr While visiting a kibbutz to give a lecture, and after dining on both hot desert-root vegetable soup and sushi, the speaker becomes the listener when someone in...

  • May 2018

    A painting with numerous brown-skinned people shrouded in dusk gesturing at a wildly-garbed priest standing on the stairs of an Aztec temple
       By Rodrigo Fresán
    Blood War, 2016, by Jia How Lee. The concept art is based on the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.   Years ago the man got married and years ago the man became unhappy in his marriage. T...

  • May 2018

    A spider-like junction of a production machine
       By Aleksey Lukyanov
    Photo: Skitterphoto/Pixabay Outside the Special Instrument Factory, protesters rally against war, corruption, and the latest in protective head gear: the Ex-Box. Procrustes-1 was t...

  • May 2018

    A digital illustration by Michael Manalo. A female walks away from the viewer along a cliff's edge towards a red door. Windows hang in the sky nearby, the largest of which is gushing water.
       By Angélica Gorodischer
    illustration by Michael Vincent Manalo   Anything might happen beyond a door opened by a perfect wife. to the memory of María Varela Osorio If you should meet her on the street, cro...

  • May 2018

    An ornate brass door knocker rests on a dark turquoise door
       By Anne Richter
    Photo: Daria Nepriakhina/Pixabay T he old man lived in a vast, dark house, windows blind with frosted glass, door adorned with a heavy bronze knocker. At one time or another, all five of his children...

  • May 2018

    A painting of two houses, one bright and right side up, the other dark and upside down, meeting at their floors
       By Pierrette Fleutiaux
    Duo III, 2013, oil on canvas by André Schulze Courtesy of the artist/andreschulze.com A mother inside, a daughter outside. Has her mother shrunk, or has she always been...

  • March 2018

    Cobblestones glittering under a street lamp
       By Inaya Jaber
    photo: arcaion/pixabay After work, my friend and I go to the Café de Prague in the heart of the Hamra district. As we sit at a table by the large window, looking out on the lighted street, I think a...

  • January 2018

    A lone figure stands in the polarized light of the subway at night as a train passes in front of him
       By Zsuzsa Takács
    After deciding to end it all, a woman takes a final subway ride. Z, the story writer, decided to end her diary. What is more, with an eye on approaching Christmas, she would adorn it with s...

  • January 2018

    Close-up of a wooden bench, painted forest green, though the paint has begun to wear out with age and use
       By Laura Legge
    Through story and stranger, two fallen-out friends mediate their way back to one another in the Edinburgh Zoo. M eet me in the waves, you bad fisherman, and I will give you Death by Water. T...

  • January 2018

       By Kristine Ong Muslim
       And somewhere in all these, all these possible variants of the bus-taking crowd, was Karl, who would appear from out of nowhere, and I would be the only one who could see him. I did not kn...

  • November 2017

    Socrates statue
       By Alex Stein
    Photo: Pixabay Using Socrates’ trial as his point of departure, the author spins out a meditation on wisdom, the divine, justice, grace, and desire like “an arrow in the chest.” “We cann...

  • November 2017

    Padlock on a rusted door
       By Montasser Al-Qaffash
    An apartment on the bank of the Nile River for a fair price sounds like a no-brainer, unless that apartment happens to be right next to one of the most infamous prisons in Egypt. Th...

  • November 2017

    Photo: Katherine Dewey Hill
       By María José Navia
    Photo: Katherine Dewey Hill This story begins with three @ handles and ends with two.With a single hashtag, repeated insistently like a mantra...

  • November 2017

    The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1985
       By Stephen Mitchell
    Menashe Kadishman (1932–2015), The Sacrifice of Isaac, 1985, cor-ten steel, 15' 1" x 15' 5" x 9'. Kadishman’s sculpture “was partly inspired by an experience the artist had while se...

  • September 2017

    Orange lifejackets piled up on the shore of an island just next to a boat moored nearby. The open ocean and a dark sky looms in the background.
       By Gianni Skaragas
    Life jackets and a boat used by refugees and migrants to cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey lie abandoned on the Greek island of Lesbos (Photo: Aris Messinis / AFP / Getty Images) An intimate yet u...

  • September 2017

    Berlin. Photo: Daniel Krieg
       By Andreas Baum
    Photo: Daniel Krieg In post-unification Berlin, groups of squatters compete for empty housing. Who will gain the upper hand? The next morning, a group of angry men were standing in...

  • September 2017

    Foxglove design
       By Alit Karp
    Illustration: flickr.com / xyzquantumpoet A Lutheran seminary student wonders what it takes to become a Jew for his girlfriend, whose embrace is “not a preface to anything else.” I ...

  • May 2017

    Cliff jumping at Tenkiller Lake, August 2011. Photo: Rachel Folmar
       By Eddie Chuculate
    Cliff jumping at Tenkiller Lake, August 2011. Photo: Rachel Folmar A teenager finds himself living in the shadow of his lover’s deceased boyfriend. Cordell stopped by the gallery to drop off...

  • May 2017

    Two boats on dark blue water with ripples
       By Daniel Dencik
    Photo: Kai C. Schwarzer A relationship is put to the test when a young couple visits a family member on an isolated island. We left home to think it over. Nanna had an abortion three years a...

  • March 2017

    Illustration: Heidi Tailleferr
       By Claudia Salazar Jiménez
    Illustration: Heidi Tailleferr First and foremost, we focus on the comfort of our clients.” “And what aspects of your operations are oriented toward that goal?...

  • March 2017

    Man in a suit with his arms crossed. Photo: YSBRANDCOSIJN / 123rf stock photo
       By Basma Abdel Aziz
    Photo: YSBRANDCOSIJN / 123rf stock photo Who needs confusing laws and bothersome committees when you have an autocrat writing principles for every aspect of your life?  He was not tall or br...
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