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author_headshot_LJ_Jensen

November 2024, at the UPS Store on Bergen Street

June 4, 2025/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2025 / LJ Jensen

The trees should have withered months ago, but everything is too green. I walk the dog past a magnolia on our morning route and find one last leaf still attached to its branch. I tell the dog to growl at it, as if she can intimidate the leaf into a timely death. As if this can fix an eighty-degree day in November, or last week’s brushfire in the middle of Prospect Park. The dog pisses on a mess of roots and blinks past me with whale eyes. I follow her gaze to the branches and see them: buds. Magnolia buds. Creamy white and six months early, premature mouths gulping the air.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/LJ_Jensen_headshot-scaled.jpg 2560 1617 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-06-04 16:55:002025-06-12 19:54:48November 2024, at the UPS Store on Bergen Street
author_headshot_McCarthy

4358 Lawn Avenue

June 3, 2025/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2025 / Shannon McCarthy

Once there was a door that opened to you, and your grandmother stood behind it. Loud voices and warm light spilled messily from behind her while you and your sister shivered in the jagged Chicago cold. Overjoyed to see you on her worn front stoop, returned from the inhospitable East Coast, she ushered you in. In her excitement, she slammed the door in your parents’ faces, shouting, “The girls are here!” Your grandfather ambled down threadbare carpeted stairs that had weathered six pounding sets of his children’s feet. Smelling of cigarette smoke, peering through

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/McCarthy_headshot_resized.jpeg 2000 1333 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-06-03 15:31:112025-06-11 14:57:534358 Lawn Avenue
author_headshot_youngblood

Scent Map

June 1, 2025/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2025 / Angela Youngblood

The scent of my childhood is irises and dogshit. Metallic like wire and blood from splinters. A dry dust that coats the nostrils, leaves tissue black.
The childhood of my friends smells different. Sweet like candy and attentive parents. I notice their fences are just for animals like pigs and horses, and I wonder if they can smell the fear in me.
Jenny’s mom thinks I’m too polite and therefore insincere. I worry they can smell the

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Youngblood_headshot-2.jpg 2000 1500 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2025-06-01 16:00:562025-06-11 14:58:44Scent Map
Marina Carreira Headshot

No Beco dos Ramos: Alfama and Queer Love as Resistance

November 6, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Marina Carreira

In the summer of 2018, my then-wife and I spent a weekend in the beautiful “village” of Alfama. We rented what I can only describe as a cavern of a studio in what would become my most favorite part of the city. The apartamento was ridiculously small, with only one window and a bed pushed into a cave-like opening against the wall. It was tight and hot and absolutely perfect.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Marina-Against-Blue-1.jpg 640 514 KJ McCoy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png KJ McCoy2024-11-06 14:25:192024-12-03 15:10:57No Beco dos Ramos: Alfama and Queer Love as Resistance
Dan Garner

The Casualties

October 21, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Dan Garner

The war went on. After each battle, the casualties were laid side by side beside the pit. Their handlers, the men who had fetched them from the field and medic’s station, rested on the mound of dirt exhumed from the pit, smoking cigarettes, choking on stale biscuits. Sewn inside their canvas coffins, the casualties looked like a regiment of bedrolls.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/headshot-1.jpg 1619 1080 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-10-21 19:23:272024-12-03 15:11:52The Casualties
person looking at books in an alley Andrew Graham Martin author shot

Luxury

September 7, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Andrew Graham Martin

When we woke up, everywhere we looked, parachutes. Pierced on church steeples, crumpled in meadows. Cast over roof gutters and laid bristling against treetops. They sagged from branches like the carcasses of ghosts.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Andrew-scaled.jpg 1920 2560 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-09-07 19:22:302024-12-03 15:17:23Luxury
Kiely Todd Roska headshot black and white

Grief Is a Question

August 8, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Kiely Todd Roska

Grief, at its heart, is a question.

What could I have done differently?
Why why why why why why why why why why why?
At Christmas, am I still supposed to cook the carrots with horseradish that no one else eats?
Or, rather, grief is many questions tumbling on top of one another.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kiely-Todd-Roska-black-and-white-2-1.jpg 765 535 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-08-08 20:02:582024-12-03 15:20:17Grief Is a Question
Anna Stacy Headshot

The Aquarium

July 2, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Anna Stacy

The leak started when they were sitting on the couch: Frank reading the paper, Martha knitting, the radio playing a song they had danced to once, though neither could quite remember where. The ceiling opened and spilled right onto the cushion between them, and they turned to watch it pour.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/anna-stacy_medical-headshot3-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-07-02 22:31:102024-12-03 15:23:41The Aquarium
Stephyne Weathersby headshot

Garbage Bags

June 8, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2025 / Stephyne Weathersby

If the world ends in fire, my family will survive. Here’s the truth: after the house burned down, I was restless for twenty moons and filled with more shame than the prosecuted. The guilt was too massive for my eleven-year-old body to carry, but I stored it in the pit of my stomach for five years.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/DSCN2933-scaled.jpg 2560 1920 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-06-08 21:46:262024-12-03 15:24:26Garbage Bags
Sarah Chavera Edwards Headshot

Mujer de la Luna / Moon Woman

May 4, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2024 / Sarah Chavera Edwards

The moon has a face, but it is not one of a man.
The moon is a mujer, a woman.
I see her clearly for the first time in years of orbiting me. Two eyes. One nose. One pair of slightly parted lips. She rises quietly over the trees in Jay Ramirez’s yard and I perceive her.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Sarah-Chavera-Edwards-Headshot.jpg 828 629 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-05-04 11:56:582024-06-09 16:23:17Mujer de la Luna / Moon Woman
Melissa Fitzpatrick Headshot

Sweet Tooth

May 3, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2024 / Melissa Fitzpatrick

Tilted back in her recliner, Rachel’s mother has the look of a petulant child. Feet up, arms crossed. Pouting.
Rachel closes her eyes, exhales long. She swallows her impatience, her anger, and reminds her mother what the doctor said. “If your blood sugar’s too high, you won’t heal.”
Her mother makes a face. “A couple pieces of candy aren’t going to kill me,” she spits.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Melissa-Fitzpatrick-Headshot-scaled.jpeg 2560 1957 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-05-03 14:53:342024-06-09 16:23:47Sweet Tooth
Sarah Freligh Headshot

You and a Guest Will Fly Round-Trip Coach from Los Angeles to Beautiful Maui

May 3, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2024 / Sarah Freligh

only there is no guest, just you and this empty seat where your wife should have been and a pink-haired woman bunched into the window seat, eyes shut, lips moving as the jet’s engines rumble and thrum. Your wife would have small-talked her, showed her the funny picture of your son and the grandkids—tongues out, eyes crossed—

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/IMG_0722.jpeg 2018 2048 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-05-03 13:08:412024-06-09 16:24:57You and a Guest Will Fly Round-Trip Coach from Los Angeles to Beautiful Maui
Kate Kulpa with Liam the kitten Headshot

Flight 800

April 3, 2024/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2024 / Kathryn Kulpa

All you need to do is marry some decent boy and settle down, is what my father told me every time I asked about college. There are no decent boys in this town, is what I’d answer. Then he’d call me ungrateful. Then I’d slam the door to my room, the tiniest space in the house—more an oversized closet than a real bedroom

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kate-Kulpa-with-Liam.jpg 1238 950 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2024-04-03 14:35:322024-08-26 12:12:54Flight 800
Person looking into camera

Irreconcilable Differences

November 23, 2023/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2024 / Glenn Orgias

I’m supposed to go straight from my cell to the return room, but I grit my teeth and etch my poem into the concrete walls of the clone factory. Someone, at some time, will read these poems and know that I too questioned my role. My latest one reads: Would we all just be machines/ if we couldn’t do bad things/ on purpose.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Glenn-Orgias.jpg 960 1280 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2023-11-23 14:32:372023-11-23 14:32:37Irreconcilable Differences
A person with glasses looking into the camera.

The Last House on the Left

May 28, 2023/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2023 / John Haggerty

Eventually the house was going to fall into the sea—just pitch right over and tumble down the bluff. That was why it was cheap. Why they could afford it.
Their realtor said it was nothing to be concerned about. That was years away, he said. It probably wouldn’t happen at all.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/JH-BW-hi_key.jpg 531 800 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2023-05-28 16:52:242023-06-12 12:36:06The Last House on the Left
A person smiling into the camera.Andrew Brandveen

A lasting transformation

May 27, 2023/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2023 / DJ Hills

Our only child has transformed into a starfish. They called it a compulsion, then a desire. Limb by limb, eye by eye, they replaced the body we gave them. Is this worse than puberty? I can’t ask. Our child speaks starfish now: chemical excretions and spindly touch. I am as ignorant and useless as they swore in their youth I was.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Photo-credit-Andrew-Brandveen.-.jpg 1323 1556 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2023-05-27 16:38:062023-06-12 12:30:41A lasting transformation
A person where glasses smiling into the camera.

The Grand Calabaza

May 26, 2023/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2023 / Diego Ulibarri

The gourd appeared three days after my miscarriage. Its massive body, swollen and puckered with warty growths, stretched from one end of the butcher’s block to the other. Bulbous and green with a light-yellow underbelly, it sat there in the center of the room unbothered by its own mysterious appearance in the household.
Nothing about the 32-pound gourd made sense.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DiegoHeadshot2.jpg 600 900 Michelle Hampton https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michelle Hampton2023-05-26 17:03:282023-06-12 12:32:02The Grand Calabaza
Christine H. Chen Headshot

Our Castle

November 20, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2023 / Christine H. Chen

Some time, before we noticed it, Ah Ma had started renovating our cramped one-bedroom apartment into rows of cardboard boxes, boxes she got from buying canned beans, jars of spicy bamboo shoots, packs of Long Life noodles, because Ah Ma never buys just one thing at a time, that’s cheap and lonely, and we’re neither, instead, she buys things in double at least…

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Christine_Portrait_LT-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2022-11-20 19:09:502022-12-08 22:56:13Our Castle
Kyrie' Eleison Owen Headshot

The Deserters

November 19, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2023 / Kyrié Eleison

We packed an ice chest and drove from civilization to a grave. We drove forty-five minutes to a sea in the middle of the desert. You said the Salton Sea was a mistake—an engineering failure that caused the Colorado River to flood the Imperial Valley in 1905. But the mistake seemed a blessing in disguise.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/MG_4341_C-1024x1024-1.jpg 1024 1024 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2022-11-19 21:52:422022-12-08 22:57:01The Deserters
Anam Raheem Headshot

Holding Hands

November 13, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2023 / Anam Raheem

I enter the Gaza Strip weekly, my routine the same: cross the border, get settled into my office, and then walk around the corner to purchase fruit and vegetables for the week from Abu Emad‘s market. In my 5 years in Palestine, I have become a regular at this market.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Anam_Raheem_Writer_Photo.jpeg 1920 1440 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2022-11-13 19:07:092022-12-05 15:42:09Holding Hands
Headshot Photo of Writer Alexandra Corinth

Queering Eden

June 5, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2022 / Alexandra Corinth

Here in the grotto, we whisper like sinners sipping on wine stolen from a stocked cabinet or an under-staffed supermarket with broken cameras—ours for the taking. Our secrets are coated in fermented, besotted grape juice, brains buzzing and swollen against our skulls, the rest of us just as desperate to be free.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022_headshot_600_x_600.jpg 600 600 Erica Colon https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Erica Colon2022-06-05 23:14:462022-06-15 22:29:28Queering Eden
Headshot Photo of Writer Brian Katz

Sardines

June 4, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2022 / Brian Katz

Midday, standing on the gray, vinyl floor of his small kitchen in Chicago’s West Side, Ozzie took a can of sardines from the cabinet and pried open the top. His flannel robe hung loose, exposing gnarled blue veins running down his legs. He stood motionless as he stared into the tin.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Katz_Headshot_042522.jpg 1138 759 Erica Colon https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Erica Colon2022-06-04 23:29:512022-06-15 22:30:56Sardines
Keith Powell, author, reading a book

The Fight

June 3, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2022 / Keith J. Powell

Before curfew, Friend Bar is a G.I. hangout. After curfew, it belongs to us, the expats. We think of it as our private after-hours dive tucked away on the second floor of a broken-down building in a seedy part of Seoul. 

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/kjp-1.jpg 960 960 Suzann Cohen https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Suzann Cohen2022-06-03 14:48:592022-06-17 10:31:50The Fight
Headshot photo of writer Lilly Roan

Comments Made to a Mother of Girls

June 2, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2022 / Lilly Roan

Four girls in five years, wow, did you plan that? Do they all have the same father? Are you going to try for a boy? Have you figured out where babies come from?

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Emily_M_102721-83_websize.jpg 1600 1067 Erica Colon https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Erica Colon2022-06-02 22:55:262022-06-15 22:38:55Comments Made to a Mother of Girls
Analia Vallagra

Always Waiting, Always Here

May 31, 2022/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2022 / Analía Villagra

She’ll be dead that evening, but neither of them knows this. In her final moments, as the car flips over, she will not think of him but of her parents, of how she would give anything to spare them the pain they are about to experience.

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/AV_pic5-scaled.jpg 2560 1920 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2022-05-31 01:32:512022-06-17 10:30:11Always Waiting, Always Here
Brett Biebel, Author Headshot

One Night Only

December 3, 2021/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2022 / Brett Biebel

The neighbor had a few trees removed, and they had to leave the trunks out on the lawn overnight. The sun went down, or the truck was full, or else I guess they maybe just needed a break. They were ash trees, I think. . .

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Headshot-Brett-Biebel.jpg 2560 1920 Bebhinn McilroyHawley https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Bebhinn McilroyHawley2021-12-03 19:40:062021-12-05 15:44:57One Night Only
Jorge Torrente, Author Headshot

The Pond

December 2, 2021/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2022 / Jorge Torrente Cabrera

The first time it really hit her, Rosa was in her teens. 
The children were spending their summer vacation at the sprawling García ranch at the foot of the sierras, and on a particularly hot afternoon, she had gone bareback riding with Soledad, while the rest of the kids stayed behind playing children’s games. Daring each other, they ran the horses hard and far from the house. . .

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Headshot-Jorge-Torrente.jpg 640 347 Julz Savard https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Julz Savard2021-12-02 17:36:292021-12-06 18:18:37The Pond
Minna Dublin, Author Headshot

Consent Training

December 1, 2021/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2022 / Minna Dubin

Ollie is pulling his eighteen-month-old sister’s hands. “Come on, Mae. I wanna show you. Come with me, Mae. Come with me.” She is pulling away from him. He is too strong. Keeps pulling. Mae begins to wail. . .

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Headshot-Minna-Dubin-PHOTO-CREDIT_-Andria-Lo--scaled.jpg 2560 1706 Erica Colon https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Erica Colon2021-12-01 18:25:422021-12-05 15:44:07Consent Training
Eliot Li, Author headshot

Cicadas

December 1, 2021/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2022 / Eliot Li

Noah reads the headline from today’s Baltimore Sun: “Get Ready For Brood X: The Once-Every-17-Year Cicada Swarm Is Coming.” The last time Noah heard the chirping of Brood X, a petite girl in a blue nightie slowly opened the door, from inside her hotel room. She had small hips and a baby’s face, looking nowhere near the twenty-one years old her ad claimed her to be . . .

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Linda McMullen, Author Headshot

Gracie

November 30, 2021/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Winter-Spring 2022 / Linda McMullen

After high school, Laura, Camille, Jeanette, and I got twenty-hour-a-week jobs at the Avalon Mall and devised elaborate plots to maintain long-distance relationships with our boyfriends. Gracie announced that she’d bought a ticket to Saigon. . .

We blinked.[…]

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Behind the Eight Ball: How to Become Homeless in the Richest Country in the World

June 13, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

May 9, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Products of Our Environment

March 14, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Dig Into Genre

May 23, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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On The Map

March 28, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Tale of the resistant apple tree

June 6, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / paparouna
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Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

May 30, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
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we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Caroline Shannon Karasik
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Word From the Editor

The state of the world breaks my heart every day. Broken hearted, I stay online. I can’t log off. Because my career and schooling are all done remotely, I tend to struggle with boundaries regarding screen time, with knowing when to break away.

Like many of you, I have been spilling my guts online to the world because the guts of the world keep spilling. None of it is pretty. But it’s one of the things that, having searched for basically my entire life, I found that tempers the chaos that lives rent free inside my head.

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