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Find Your Happy Place

May 20, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Celeste Hamilton Dennis

It was Father’s Day and Maeve was in Friendly’s. After all this time, she was still a sucker for a Conehead. She and her father had spent countless hours here scarfing down the clown-faced sundae with whipped cream for hair and Reese’s Pieces for eyes when Maeve was a child growing up in Levittown. They […]

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Success Avenue

May 19, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Jessica Forcier

That night, I’d just opened all the windows in the living room and collapsed on the sofa. My husband was sitting out on our stoop, listening to the oldies station too loud. I took my first sip of coffee when I heard Sammy talking to someone. “Yeah, go on in,” he said, and the screen […]

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Dominoes

May 18, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Pia Ghosh-Roy

Shaving’s my contribution to society. Like, who needs a brown guy with a beard sitting next to them on the plane these days, you know? Look, no beard, I come in peace brother. Wrong word! Beep. Don’t say brother. Like ever. You don’t want them looking at your backpack. Whatever. So I shaved this morning, […]

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Sounds of Separation

May 17, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Sarah Kuntz Jones

Leslie thought about lighting a candle as the sun set, tinting her bedroom with a dimming tangerine glow, but she was down to her last box of matches and didn’t want to ask Alan for more. After twelve days of general quarantine, the electricity had gone out when too few workers could make it to […]

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Arroz y Dulce

May 11, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Rebecca Komathy

I walked over to the mirror and saw my pale arms sticking out of the light-colored dress. My legs were covered in bruises, scabs, and Band-Aids from my adventures in fence scaling, soccer playing, and wrestling with Jacob from next-door. I also had a tendency to mess with the wandering cats outside, and multiple scratches let me know they did not enjoy having their butts poked with sticks. …

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The Black and Invisible Butcher

May 10, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Jamal Michel

They crashed into a pit, half mud, half sand, like a meteor falling from the sky, or rather, like remnants of a tumbling meteor—their plane disintegrated mid-nosedive as though it was wrapped in papier-mâché, as though it was wrapped in the old newspapers back home that shared the same haunting headline at every street corner, […]

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La Garroba

May 9, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Andres Reconco

When I was nine years old my first love died. She liked to sit out in the sun, in front of Niña Marina’s whorehouse, her face to the sky, her long hair behind her, the tips touching the sandy soil of Acajutla, that little town where I grew up. People called her La Garroba: The […]

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Stages on Life’s Way

May 8, 2017/in Fiction, Fiction, Summer-Fall 2017 / by Ridwan Tijani

Enitan woke up to the sound of Ogechi’s voice, she was shouting something. Her voice was hoarse—the first thing that had made him fall in love with her. He waited a while until she calmed down. “What was that?” he asked. She didn’t look at him. “It’s my mum,” she said. “What’s going on with […]

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Issue Archive

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Genre Archive

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Friday Lunch Blog

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

Today’s course:

Being A Girl is Hard

November 28, 2025/in Blog / Shawn Elliott
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Diagnosis: Persisted or Silent Inheritance

November 7, 2025/in Blog / Paula Williamson
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The Queer Ultimatum Made Me Give My Own Ultimatum

September 26, 2025/in Blog / Lex Garcia
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Lilac and The Housefly: A Tale of Tortured Romanticism

October 24, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Nikki Mae Howard
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Dig Into Genre

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

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Turmeric

February 13, 2026/in Amuse-Bouche / Preeti Talwai
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Three Poems

February 6, 2026/in Amuse-Bouche / Reynie Zimmerman
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Three Poems

January 30, 2026/in Amuse-Bouche / Jen Karetnick
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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 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Editing issue 28, I felt something similar to the way I feel near water: I dove into my own private world. The world above the surface kept roaring, of course. The notifications, deadlines, the constant noise was always there. But inside the work, inside these poems and stories and artwork, there was a quiet that felt entirely mine. A place where I could breathe differently.

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