Category: Fiction
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Announcing Our Nominations for The Pushcart Prize
Hello, Dear Chum, Thanks for stopping by! It’s good to see you. It’s been a busy year—but the year isn’t over yet! We’re roughly a month away from the release of Issue 4, a whopping triple-issue print anthology featuring the best of the year, the winner of our annual Dead Herring Prize, and a whole…
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“The Sky is Falling” by Morganne Howell
2006 “What are you worried about?” my mother asks me across the patio table. She looks at my father for reassurance, who studies his stein. Charred fragments of the forest float down from the overcast sky and land in the crisp foam of his beer. He picks them out with a finger and wipes his…
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“Passing Whimsy” by Angela Townsend
Mullet has passed. Mullet was the color of a circus peanut and too shy to enjoy being enjoyed. Mullet’s heart misfired. Mullet’s death made eighteen people cry. Mullet’s name was a housewarming gift from the whimsy people. Animal shelter staff gnaw comedy like a protein bar. They name cats for ill-advised haircuts. They blow cool,…
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Laura McHugh: An Interview with the author of “What’s Done in Darkness”
Anybody who’s ever called the Ozarks home shares a particular heritage with the land itself in a way that is unique from the rest of the world. Almost a stereotype, we Ozarkians grew up catching lightning bugs, climbing trees, and tearing through the hills barefoot. We are born of honeysuckle and dogwood and baptized in…
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Announcing the Dead Herring Prize
Art—even lower-case-a art or writing—is not a surefire way to get rich. Sure, it would be nice, but for creative people, the process itself is the reward. We create art because it helps us to maintain some semblance of sanity—creating things heals us. We create because we must. But, hey, baby’s gotta eat! The editors…
the water and the gills 