Most read stories

NOVEL EXCERPT: Jimmy Gollihue

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Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound, a long voice from up the mountain, and the baying of the dog pulled a keening lament from his dream of the highway.

Lens

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Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.

Red

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Erwin came into the kitchen through the back door and went straight to the sink to clean up. Black mud and dried blood crusted his fingertips and caked the callused whorls of his knuckles.  He used the round of strong-smelling soap he kept for…

Helen O., Grand Central, 1959

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No snippet to see, here. The piece is so short a snippet would be the whole thing.

The Field Guide: Olivetti

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When you last produced writing on a manual typewriter, was it before or after your first sexual experience, or maybe during? Manual or otherwise. Which do you recall with more enthusiasm...

Little Pi.ec.es

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I scare my daughter when she sleeps because she thinks I'm going to kill her.

Chairs and Mirrors

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There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.

Hail Mary Pass

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so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross

Rude Awakening

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Vito suddenly found himself wide awake. He was unable to recall having fallen asleep or dreaming or awakening. It seemed he'd just entered bed, yet a glance at the windows told him it was already the middle of the night.

You Wear Camo?

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Got me a 50 pound bat ray.

Swimming Lessons

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The trainers looked at her and smiled and they were still one creature with four legs and two heads. The old man’s left eye moved in sync with the younger one’s right eye.

Rule Out Euthymia

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In her belief that Juni is lucky, Jade eases the horrors our mother suffers at night, not because Juni is stuck in a physical passion, but because the whole family and whole groups of strangers know what Juni is doing for sex.

Tattooed Hands

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A 1960’s of walking sugar beet fields to remove the rogue bolters by hand and on other days painting the ironwork of cattle sheds with red oxide. Then a 1970’s when the self-inking explosion of tattoos on his hands and then his body began.

Wings

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The trouble began in October, when Ava, an embittered receptionist who worked at a small museum housed in a five-story Westside brownstone, discovered that the floors were littered with enormous grey feathers

The Undertaker's Son

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You would never see me the same again. You'd always be peaking at me from behind your mother's apron.

Non-Stop Service

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Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.

Love and Destruction In A '67 El Dorado

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He had her pinned to the back seat, expressing his love. Do you love me? she whispered in his ear. Do you, do you, Jimmy Dale, do you love me? His only response…

a day uptown/a night on the bowery

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in her monestary mission, with her rosary and candles, time holds me here my feet got the travelin' blues but my hands tie old women's bones to my hair

Bison

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To make extra money, my father wrote music reviews for the Calgary Herald, and on Saturday nights, he went to hear the Symphony, or into recital halls to listen to the chamber music that was being performed around the city. He took me, once, to a performa

fc1 (bee boo guy/ valio hansolo)

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poon fred / loop ilo/ bussy yubb tree

Wet funeral

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I know now, how she moves without verbs after you crushed her into the river.

The MacGowans Flee West

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Some believe the Scots were encouraged to emigrate, hired guns as it were, to Ireland to civilize that population. If that's the case, we would see it as another evil English trick. In any case, we MacGowans are Scots Irish and Protestant.

Welcome to the Occupation

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You just watch, the schoolteachers’ll be next and then you’ll see shit go down. Imagine what happens when a fifth-grader sees his teacher getting frog-marched through a crowd on YouTube.

Those (Beckoning) Lights

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The understanding we made was neatly wrapped up in its own blue tissue cocoon like a neatly rolled joint and dumped unceremoniously into the forgotten past like a plate of leftover digitized lies. The lid was slammed shut. Time passes too tightly. And you …

Hat Shop Girls

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My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV

Arcana Magi Memorial - c.4

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Azure walked through the fog as though she were walking to class. Her hands swayed through the mist and felt the thickness of the cloud through her fingers

Variation on a Variation of a Mode

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Borges must be so proud somewhere

PLAYGROUND

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Marie shrugs. “Maybe she’s just late. Come on, let's wait by the jungle gym.” She runs over and starts climbing. The jungle gym is closest to the path that goes into the woods and down into the canyon. She has to get him into the woods somehow.

Mama's Boys

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A pale face was illuminated by the street light. A voice rasped, “Charlie?” “Do I know you?” “It's Bill.” The side of his little brother's thin face

The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars, 19

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His wings were down when he got into the truck. It was a used UPS truck we’d bought from someone in Berkeley, and we painted out the letter “S,” so that it just read “UP.”