Memory/Movie by Jason Sepac

November 9, 2022

How much have I spliced into my memory?

Left: Talia Lakshmi, smiling, wearing hoop earrings and a purple and white scarf. Her shirt is green. On the right: Cover of book, "What We Feed To The Manticore." Title in bold, black letters. Illustrations of blue tiger, roses. Background, yellow.

A Normal Interview with Talia Lakshmi Kolluri by Samina Najmi

November 2, 2022

I have always come to both reading and writing from a somewhat genderless space. What I mean is that both writing and reading have been mechanisms for me to try on different lives and experiences.

A child's hand holding a crayon as they color on a page. A glass full of coloring crayons sits beside their hand.

First Story by Sarah Gambito

November 2, 2022

"What do you say to someone who has been gone for so long."

Image of a red helium balloon heart against a white background. A white woman's arm holding it in frame.

A Longer and Slightly More Complicated History of Her Heart by Mary Jones

November 2, 2022

She thought she knew of everything that could happen to the human heart, it seemed most of it had happened already to her mother.

Lit Jack-O-Lantern seen through a clouded window, being held up by hands, surrounded by cobwebs.

What Does Your Halloween Costume Say About Your Gender?: Quiz Results By Jackie Domenus

October 31, 2022

You stand there silently, breathing candy breath into your mask until your face gets damp. Your best friends are cheerleaders, witches, fairies. But you’re just a structure of a person, an outline of a body, quiet and haunted.

A top-down view of a bottle of white pills. The white pills are backlit and seem to glow. The inside of the bottle is a very light green and red.

Drug Facts by Hillary Adams

October 19, 2022

"The first will make you numb, but you’ll be thin so everyone will tell you how good you look and that should equate happiness, or at least not wanting to die."

Image of a blue sky with a few clouds and an airplane directly above.

Delta by Dionne Irving

October 12, 2022

We didn’t have friends on board. We didn’t have friends of friends on board. And we hadn’t ever even been to Miami, or to Brazil. So we went about our day. We made coffee.

A square image with a white background and three lines of paint in the colors pink, purple, and blue: the colors of the bisexual flag.

Two Poems by Jo Blair Cipriano

October 12, 2022

Death reminds me too much of myself./ I mean, if you watched an animal die/ in agony, would you still enjoy eating its flesh?

Image of a sail boat in the distant, surrounded by a gray, foggy ocean

Jack in Search of a Mother by Alison Kinney

October 12, 2022

Jack looked at his own two feet dangling over the giant's shoulder. He thought about how small he was next to the giant, beside the sea.

Left: Manuel Muñoz with hand on head, wearing jean jacket. Right: Book cover of "The Consequences." Black background, two golden feathers in center.

A Normal Interview with Manuel Muñoz by Manuel Farias

October 11, 2022

"What we think is a really small, isolated place turns out to be the center of somebody else’s world."

Shadow Work by Soramimi Hanarejima

October 5, 2022

After work, we meet in the park near your office to swap shadows.

An analog clock with its hands at 10:30 , on a blank white wall,

Chronostasis by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

September 28, 2022

Tamogotchis are everywhere in middle school, cradled in our hands during math when we learn about angles and remainders, the goal to take what is whole and break it apart. The egg buzzes several times a day as a reminder that survival is not guaranteed.

Image of two palms trees silhouetted against a smoggy, orange LA sunset

Two Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee

September 28, 2022

Angelenos call the phenomenon of swarming water bees
a congregation as in a church

Image of a white baby wrapped in a creme blanket, held against the chest of a person in a white sweater.

Early Days by Carol M. Quinn

September 28, 2022

Lisa will not sit down, will not shut her eyes any longer than it takes to blink, because when she does, she has learned, her muscles begin to release and the room lilts gently from one side to the other and she cannot trust her arms to keep hold of her baby.

A Groovy Way to Grab a Musical Bag that Turns On the Sounds of Today by Joe Bonomo

May 31, 2022

The voice to which I’m only half-listening sounds familiar, but something’s off, also. I look up blankly from the records I’m riffling through and realize that I’m hearing Elton John, one of his well-known hits from the early seventies, but I haven’t heard this version before.

Take a Ride in My Jag by Catherine Cort

May 18, 2022

Jags can be time-consuming. And then there is the problem of satisfying its animalistic nature. Especially since tonight is Friday night, and you are going out.

And Now That I Am 51 by Lisa Allen

May 11, 2022

The women who raised me were plain./ Devout./ Called whores if they rouged their cheeks/

A Come to Jesus Moment in the Gynecologist’s Office by Frederica Morgan Davis

May 11, 2022

Did so many women come in with babies growing inside them that Jesus acknowledged that plural? Or was it just a nice Southern thing? Like the French “vous,” used in singular formal to show respect to elders?

Two Poems by Sarah Hansen

May 4, 2022

my spine curved/ into a question mark, my pen sketching symptoms/ on an empty man's silhouette.