Fiction
Cul De Sac (Second Place Marguerite McGlinn Award Winner)
The first night her parents arrive from India is the one that means the most, because there is so much to look forward to, even now, even after everything that’s happened.
Fiction
49 Seconds in the Box (Third Place Marguerite McGlinn Award Winner)
Mira waits in the lobby of her building for the elevator, a canvas bag with an All Things
Poetry
Tenth of No Wonder, month of plucked birds, caverns stuffed with stale bread, the hearts fed to cats who lick their lips. More hot chocolate, more bourbon, more to lose in fewer words of shivered shorter lines. Earlier dark and earlier still till after Dissemble when we will celebrate future perfect Spring. Nancy Scott’s over [...]
Poetry
Age: 20 Nationality/Place of Origin: Istria, Trieste Description: rope-walker Cause of Death: Died of atlanto-axial disclocation (broken neck) The secret to balance is to always fall up— Even in training, I rarely felt the net on my back. I pointed my nose away from the hills, seeing what I needed to see through the [...]
Poetry
ge: 51 Nationality/Place of Origin: Poland Description: Catholic Cause of Death: Cut his throat because of extreme poverty Sew me into the dirt in pieces beside the potatoes and beets. Pay the debtors with the next harvest. Do not trouble my wife. Do not trouble my sons. They are blameless. [...]
Poetry
Her husband turned to the afterlife when something incurable found a way to him, prepared for things that soon might go on somewhere beyond his body, even bought two plots hoping his wife would one day join him. And after he passed she arrived at the cemetery each day, ready to seed the loose, [...]
Poetry
I smell stars, loudly – singing rings of chorus, orbits. Towards us, comets— named them after us. Named them Halley, Hale-bopp— tear drops on fire. I can lay on my back on the hillside by the road, sniffing out Cadillacs and autoshow Edsels, winesap taillights, tasting speed, and cinnamon blood, hot blood shining [...]
Non-Fiction
Doris Ferleger’s appropriately named new book Leavened speaks of the devotion of family. The book explores the familiar themes in Ferleger’s work of her and her family’s Jewish identity as survivors of the Holocaust. She does this through weaving recurring threads of ceremony, sacrifice and food. The collection’s title and its cover painting by writer [...]
Non-Fiction
Tucked into Philadelphia’s northeastern section, the small neighborhood of Port Richmond is still asleep. It’s 5:30 on a cold December morning, and a fog has fallen over the narrow streets and row-homes. Abandoned factories and ornate churches, still illuminated by the moon, cast elongated shadows across the neighborhood. Most residents are still snug in the [...]