short story Archives

Obverse

by Yuri Herrera

November 22, 2022

Posted on November 22, 2022 (December 2, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Translated by Lisa DillmanAnd that was why they decided to go off and explore the other side, on which, they hoped, there would be no watery cliffs or dragons awaiting them at the end.They traversed iotas and iotas. Deserts of iotas and dales of iotas and mountains of iotas. Millions of iotas. Until, finally, once

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‘Sleeping Alone’ by Ru Freeman: Snippets of Life

by Megan V. Luebberman

October 4, 2022

Posted on October 4, 2022 (September 28, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Sleeping Alone (202 pages; Graywolf Press), author Ru Freeman’s newest book, leads readers on a journey into the lives of a variety of unique individuals. In this collection of eleven short stories, Freeman utilizes a different point of view in each to tell of struggles with identity, loss, love, and more. Along the way, she reveals how thinking deeply about our own lives, contemplating our choices, and trying to make meaning of it all is simply a part of being human. The conflict in some stories involves familial relations, such as “The Wake,” which relates how an eccentric mother’s antics […]

The Murmuring Killed Me

by Peter Orner

September 15, 2022

Posted on September 15, 2022 (September 14, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Every few years or so I go to visit my dead at Beth El Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts. It’s across the street from a Cumberland Farms. My grandfather always said that being dead didn’t seem so bad if he could run over and grab a pack of cigarettes and the Fall River Herald. On

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Part of a Deer

by Lucy Corin

August 10, 2022

Posted on August 10, 2022 (August 9, 2022) by Zack Ravas

Here it was suddenly ninety degrees, and across the country it was suddenly frozen. I’d been texting about it with Basil all morning, getting my stuff together for running errands. In the car, I swapped into my sunglasses, setting everything up to follow the driving instructions I’d texted to myself by trying to balance the

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The Bully of Columbus

by Tom Barbash

March 29, 2022

Posted on March 29, 2022 (March 28, 2022) by Zack Ravas

“You’re gonna get your ass kicked,” the greasy haired bully said.He said it every time I saw him, which was once or twice a week when I was coming back from therapy, or on my way back from school. I was 16 then.“Ass kicked,” he called out once I’d passed him on Columbus Avenue, like he

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Shelter

by Kate Folk

February 28, 2022

Posted on February 28, 2022 (February 28, 2022) by Zack Ravas

In the basement of the house in Iowa that Reese and Mark were renting for summer, there was a concrete vault, eight-by-five-feet, presumably built as a storm shelter. Reese stored the house’s Shop-Vac there, along with a box of Carr’s rosemary crackers and a crate of wine shipped from their friends’ vineyard in Sonoma. Beyond

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Community Plot

by Bryan Washington

December 31, 2021

Posted on December 31, 2021 (December 31, 2021) by Zack Ravas

I’d started tending the ex’s plot. The lettuce and the garlic and the turnips. It wasn’t my idea, the apartment complex had a community garden, and of course I’d seen you out there but we didn’t have shit to say to each other. We met on the stairs after my guy left, and it was another few weeks before we spoke. I’d seen you around, though. Sometimes I’d catch you staring. Our eyes met, and you’d look away. You were an old man, living alone, always in the same greasy cardigan and the same burnt brown shoes, which was everything […]

Love Story, With Cocaine

by Tom Bissell

December 7, 2021

Posted on December 7, 2021 (December 7, 2021) by Zack Ravas

Maarit’s father had given her a dog because he hoped it would provide her with something to do. It was true that Maarit did not have much to do, though she always felt busy, which was, perhaps, a natural consequence of waking up daily at 3:00 p.m. Most of her activities involved spending her father’s

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Wool

by Mark Labowskie

November 25, 2021

Posted on November 25, 2021 (November 24, 2021) by Zack Ravas

Martin exits I-89 before he needs to and progresses town by town. He keeps pulling over to eyeball a fiery spruce or an outcropping of mica, admire quaint inns with ivy wreathed around their VACANCY signs and crumbling breweries offering hard apple cider tastings. He’s eager to reach Tunbridge, but knows anticipation is the greatest pleasure. He stops to buy a mason jar of corn whiskey from a sweet old man on a porch, thinking how happy he’ll be once he reaches Lola and Dot’s barn. Then, realizing his spirits are at that peak where they’re in danger of toppling […]

Alabama Funeral

by Kristen Iskandrian

July 20, 2021

Posted on July 20, 2021 (July 19, 2021) by Zack Ravas

The sitter arrived with a Ziploc bag of brightly colored string.“For friendship bracelets,” she said, one eye veering off.“Yes,” Bette said. The sitter’s eye was particularly lazy today; Bette had never gotten used to it, although she herself, when extra tired, had an eye prone to drifting. Bette was aware that she could be, in

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Chorizo

by Jaime Cortez

June 30, 2021

Posted on June 30, 2021 (June 29, 2021) by Zack Ravas

The dogs are melting. Lobo is lying on the porch with his pink tongue hanging out. Chiquita is hiding under the car with her ears down. Everybody is hiding from the sun except for me. I’m riding my bicycle, so I can feel some wind when I pedal. It’s not working too good. Past the

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Anyone Can Do It

by Manuel Muñoz

May 20, 2021

Posted on May 20, 2021 (August 30, 2024) by Zack Ravas

Her immediate concern was money. It was a Friday when the men didn’t come home from the fields and, true, sometimes the men wouldn’t return until late, the headlights of the neighborhood work truck turning the corner, the men drunk and laughing from the bed of the pickup. And, true, other women might have thought

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