Featured Essay
True Passion in Paradise
Sumayah Chappelle
From a very young age we are taught about passion. We are taught that we all have different unique passions and that we must take time to find our own. However long it may take, the majority of us will eventually pin something down. But what is this passion? Or what is this passion based on, rather? We like to say we base our passions on what we enjoy and what makes us the most happy. But what about it makes us happy? Is it something we are good at? Is it our therapy? Our release? Is it convenient? Does it give us the most acceptance? Most praise? Does it pay well?
Featured Fiction
Hiatus
by Aida Haddad
translated by Mishka Mojabber Mourani
Tala drinks her coffee in bed every day. She gives free rein to her thoughts, allowing a breathing space to think, to remember, to plan, or just to be.
Nadim looks in her direction. “You don’t need to come with me to the airport. It’s too early. I’ll take a taxi.”
“No,” she responds. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She notices his frozen smile and hurries up. It was one of the earliest things she had noticed about him. That inauthentic smile that told her he did not approve.
Creative Nonfiction
Letters from My Childhood
by Luz Pinilla
The cover of my phonics workbook is plaid like my uniform but in reds and pinks and whites. Inside, each page is covered with little pictures. Crowns, shoes, fruits, stars, each in its own little box.
Writing for Young People
Aspirations
by Lea Beddia
I take a breath and hold it before putting my key in the lock. It’s four o’clock on a Thursday, which means Mom is on her way home from work at Boutique Aspirations. It sounds nice. Imagine a boutique selling hopes and dreams, but the boutique is a vacuum-repair shop. Her job literally sucks.
Featured Poetry
The Shekhinah, The Key to the Cinema, & The Very Breath of Children Is Free of Sin
by Joy Arbor
The Key to the Cinema
My psych of genocide
prof invited me to a Friends
of Palestine meeting.
There each spoke around the circle
of their connection with Palestine.
A woman showed an old…
Flash Prose
Camellias in Black and Gray
by Danielle Batalion Ola
[fiction] I know I want Lea the way I do long before she pulls me into her room, but the way she shrugs the button-up off her shoulders still undoes me. She closes the door, reaching up and over her head to tear a wad of gauze off her back. She makes the white pad dance between two fingers before turning on her heel. “Do you like it?”
When I see “it,” sparks skitter across my skin. I stare for too long and the misstep makes her voice hike up one nervous tick.
Featured Translation
The Love Designer
by Ayurzana Gun-Aajav
translated by Narantsogt “Natso” Baatarkhuu
[translated fiction] Dime-a-dozen, fair-weather friends—the ones you met to do nothing but sit around, drink beer, and gab. The night we hung out was of the same kind. On one side of the booth sat men who wanted a one night stand. None of the ladies on the other side were seeking Mr. Right, either.
Nobody listened to anybody amidst the peal of women’s laughter, the men’s coarsening chatter, the overspill of shouts from the other booths, and then I heard it.
Featured Interview
Carmen Maria Machado
Author of Her Body and Other Parties & In the Dream House
Interviewed by Kate Carmody
