Current Issue

Letter From the Editor

For the past 11 years it has been the honor of Philadelphia Stories to host the fiction prize named for our friend and supporter, Marguerite McGlinn.

Young Americans (First Place Winner of the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction)

What was the one thing he couldn’t do without? Like, if he was stuck on a desert island forever. He knew his answer right away but took a few moments to ponder so he didn’t seem so strident. “A pencil and a sketchbook, I think.”

Dead Women (Second Place Winner of the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction)

The dead women are the topic of conversation at dinner. One in a dumpster. One, a hunter found, in the wooded swamp outside of town. One, with a hand that had fallen open, palm asking please, please don’t forget me.

Feral Wives (Third Place Winner of the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction)

The Feral Wives have left us, that much is clear. What is less clear is why, and for how long. Surely their absence must be an aberration, a temporary detour from the long, slow, steady march of civilization. For how would we go on without them? And they without us?

Witness

Our family moved to West Philadelphia in the 1960s after my father left the Army. Maybe because it was such a gorgeous afternoon on such a lovely spring day, my mom had walked down to my elementary school as she occasionally did, to get out of the house and stretch her legs.

goode for who

black skin, white acts blackface to carry black caskets

full sun

ocean keeps crashing at my house whenever waves are too small to couch surf

(cape may)

like scraps of paper folding themselves into birds

ONLINE BONUS: Already

this is not what you thought you’d be reading and honestly it’s not what I thought I would be writing either

ONLINE BONUS: Locks

As though we, the living, are locks. Or doors with locks.

ONLINE BONUS: The Thunderstorm

After slaughtering the moon and stars The storm stills.

Writing for Social Justice: The Devil in Society

My Auntie Lilith is a storyteller adorned with all the histrionics a 5-foot Trinidadian woman can muster.

Review: Simulacra by Airea D. Matthews

Airea Matthews’ Simulacra doubles then quadruples its mirroring.

Review: Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven by Grant Clauser

These are not naïve poems, but they are hopeful.

ONLINE BONUS: Making Eggplant Disappear

Every day for two weeks, my refrigerator vegetable drawer, stocked full on grocery day, slowly emptied.

ONLINE BONUS: A Quarter of a Life

We leave the bar a little before midnight. The laughter of the drunken crowds outside muffles the car horns and screeching tires in the distance.

ONLINE BONUS: POETRY BOOK REVIEW

Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets is more than a motivational tool or instruction manual for a beginner poet.

ONLINE BONUS: How To Grieve A Home

Live and grow there with the people you love. Use each and every part of the house, every square inch.