The chicken doesn’t realize she’s being plucked when it is being done one feather at a time.  The frog doesn’t realize he’s being boiled alive when the water he’s swimming in simmers slowly.

Richard Risemberg was born to a mixed (and mixed-up) Jewish-Catholic marriage in Argentina, and brought to LA as […]

“It’s getting late,” he said. “You want to go inside?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “It’s not late at all, and you’re not staying here tonight anyway.”
He grunted as he pushed himself back in the chair.

Larry Warner is the author of five books, including the award-winning Journey with Grief (2018) and his first […]

The warm water
like fingers
gently kneading
my knots of sorrow

Judy Upton is an award-winning playwright with plays produced by the Royal Court, National Theatre, Hampstead Theatre and […]

There is something lying in the brambles and I can see now that it’s not a lion. It looks like a big lump of frozen, bloodied meat, wrapped up in a brown wool coat.

Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His short fiction has been published in Canada, The UK, […]

“I was in Saint Louis when the cholera come up the river, back in forty-nine. It lasted into the next year. Killed thousands of folks. A terrible thing, but mostly I remember the fear. Fear made some folks crazy. Not all of them, mind you, but enough. There were times when the Sheriff had to enforce the quarantine with a drawn revolver.”

Every boy and girl can toss a knee-buckler for a strike on a 3-2 count, hit in the clutch, and launch fastballs beyond the city borders with an Adirondack Ash