Most read stories

The Writer and the Talker

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"I’ve always wanted to write a novel. Like Catch-22, something off-beat that would start by word-of-mouth, you know, and become an underground classic."

Catalog of Backgrounds

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nowhere after nowhere

Monday

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Always in a hurry/to spoil your/weekend

Ten Books That Have Stuck with Me Off the Top of My Head as I Make Them Up, #2

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#2 The Typewriter Inside You by Harmon Gentle—I found this one at a garage sale when I was 15. Intended as a manual for sharpening one's typing skills, by the third chapter it became obvious that Mr. Gentle's sanity had slipped, and that rather than mastering the…

The Judge's Wife Part 5

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—Jesus, that bastard has everyone in his pocket.

The Perfumed Kitten

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We named her Big Cat—I don’t know why. Maybe because she was already grown when we got her, unlike the kittens we’d seen in the pet store window that Dad wouldn’t let us have.

Bag

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No chance for Hallo, we sank into an unlit station doorway and he fumbled through my shorts.

Jenny Whistled Through The Mail Slot

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We all thought, Birds! We all thought, Nests inside the chimney!

Wash That Man

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The washing machine at home was broken. It was an old leaky Maytag. A discouraging mess—twisted panties, sky-blue jeans, and an old lover or two or three floating downstream (the reverse of spawning salmon). Each man was slightly drowned,…

Filter

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The brain taints everything it brings to us/ with its limited apparatus, its precepts,// all the things it thinks it knows.

We Cannot Cross the River

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We cannot cross the river until it freezes. Bekker predicts January. For food we gather leaves, berries and roots from the thick forest behind the cabin. Suarez boils what we find into a revolting paste that we spoon into our mouths with dirty fingers.

The Death of Sherwood Anderson

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like the Bible in / Mauritania, like a mouse in a vial of ammonia, / like a retired coal miner on vacation in the Alps

Paint-Can Harry Lets in Some Much Needed Air

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Welcome the one and the all of you, welcome all you scraggly long haired weeds, welcome the no longer rolling stones of the new you, welcome you most beautiful little wonderfully…

Using Proven Scientific Methods to Get Published

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I have a ninety two percent rejection rate.

eleven by eleven by five

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(the hourglass has not gone digital, oh no,/but these days, silicon is in with the sand)

White

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This is what it is to feel yourself forget.

The Weight of a Gun

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The first time I ever held a gun, I was three years old...

His Essay on the Meaning of Poetry

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Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.

Professional Pizza Patter

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We all stared, somewhat shocked and mostly disgusted.

The Richter Sanction

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“Now,” my friend said. “Tell us about earthquakes. Can we expect one anytime soon?”

Assiduity Eight

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no snippet tasting

Die Zwischenwelt: The World as It Is and as It Is Not

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These philosophic notions floated in my head for years and eventually helped inspire my pursuit of basic information in contemporary physics, astrophysics, astronomy, and cosmology when I was not reading or writing fiction or verse.

Five Million Yen: Chapter 40

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Ben was dreaming of sex with Claudia. But, in his dream, he could hear Dan Arris calling his name and pounding on a door. The fear of Dan Arris was pushing out the delights of Claudia.

Question

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When the dark shadows of his limp eyes told us life was slowly seeping away, stolen by his stroke, his wife signed the “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” order and, tearfully leaving the room, she turns, asking a final question, “Think a needy family could use his…

Neil Gaiman

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“Tell me a story,” he said, toying with his top hat, running his fingers along its brim.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.7

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Keiko covered her arm while holding the staff. She looked up and saw morning breaking through the sky, but something was unusual about it.

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas

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In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

Summer, 1966

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After my mother died, my father shipped me to my uncle's. He hadn't told me she was dying, so he could just mourn alone.Lena lived next door, Italian, my age -- which was ten -- beautiful. She was watched by goons in black suits. Her parents owned a restaurant. Across the…

Regarding Hank

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Won't speak a word against 'em. Car trunk stunk like bad chicken long after, but I won't speak a word against 'em.

Excerpts from 'Dispatches from the Front: My Life in NE Portland—diary by JENA RACHEL ROCKWELL (year 08)'

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I'm getting self-righteous here, Dear Reader . . . [hey! wait a second! this is my diary! what are you doing, looking at it, dude! Hit the road! Scram! Vamoose!]