skinny dipping

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

by Lisa Lynn Biggar

The summer after my dad and his four brothers gave up on the week-long canoe trips down the Susquehanna, he and my uncle Steve took my cousin, Tammy, and me camping—just down the road from my grandparents’ farm. I was around eleven then, Tammy ten. We set up tents on an embankment above the Tunkhannock Creek. It was only for a night, but my aunt Sandy still resented it and brought my uncle a big bucket of yellow beans to cut the ends off for canning. . . .

rules and suggestions for relapsing

creative non-fiction

by Keith Powell

Do Rationalize.

Fixate on this question: how much was some flaw in you, and how much was a toxic cocktail of place and crowd? After all, expats drink. Consider that even if it was you, a flaw doesn’t mean you’re broken. Cracked, maybe, but cracks can be mended. You're older now, wiser. Eight years is a long time, and Ohio is a long way from Seoul. It can be different now because you’re different now. . . .

a stranger asked if i was jesus

creative non-fiction

by S.A. Kennedy

The day was a vacuum again. I ventured the three-block walk down the hill to the thrift shop because I figured something might happen there. Even with the layer of clouds stretched across the grey sky, the natural light penetrated my eyes with force. I hadn’t been conditioning them properly – too much time inside failing to read the open books in my hands, eating nothing aside from macaroni with frozen peas. . . .

broken butterfly

creative non-fiction

by Sarah Ives

“Mama, I found one,” squeaks my four-year-old, who recently decided that he is a mouse. “A monarch!” He points, jumping and squeaking, at the boardwalk. I follow his finger to what looks like a discarded candy wrapper flapping in the wind. But there it is: a single monarch with a broken wing. . . .

dog people

fiction

by Nicholas Claro

I go inside for the other bottles. Rod brought over three thinking Kristen was going to hang out too. She’s refused to talk to me and stayed in the bedroom after we got home this morning. When Rod arrived, she turned the television up. We talked and ate while The Great British Bake Off boomed in the background. . . .

Wish you were here

fiction

by Nikki Volpicelli

I'm not mad. Really. It's just been strange since you left. Tropically strange. I get why you did—our house was ugly and that's part of the reason you wanted out. I don't claim to know all the reasons, just that it was usually smoke-filled and mom never stopped ashing in that lumpy, orange Hawaii ashtray long enough to clean. That if you were to take any of the pictures of us off the walls there'd probably be a bright white space, but she never did.

help is on the way

fiction

by Ruby Rorty

When light is blinking, help is on the way. This is what the sign said, only the lacquer P in help had lost some of the paint on its hump so it looked more like a scythe. . . .

nothing is on fire

fiction

by Susan Phillips

Nothing in the town is on fire—yet. It’s the dry season and a dense forest is about five miles away. Everyone in town is tense and on alert. Would a careless camper leave a campfire glowing? Would a careless hiker throw away a lit cigarette? . . .