Category: Bad Survivalist

“Bounty,” a Bad Survivalist Flash Fiction by Michele Finn Johnson

Marian’s halfway through her beginner Peloton class when she hears her husband, Luke, scream—What the hell? She slows her pedaling, listens for his lazy follow-up—Have you seen my socks? Did you drink all of the almond milk?—anything that means Marian doesn’t have to try and unclip herself from this mechanical beast. Snails? Are those snails? …
Bad Survivalist Short Story: “In the Afterlife Your Landlord Is a Witch” by Maggie Nye

She does not wear a pointed hat around the property, except in winter. And the hat is not so dramatically pointed as to be ridiculous. The underside of the brim is lined with white rabbit fur. It looks warm and stylish. Your landwitch also keeps a huge hound-sized rabbit for a pet. There are many…
Bad Survivalist: “What Makes You Feral,” a short story by Julie Wernersbach

PIPE BURST. COME EARLY. She rushed. What did she expect? A pipe shattering in mid-air, hard water bursting from the metal and plastic ceiling in frozen shards, an icy scream hovering above the Junior Prom dresses. But when the woman got to work, the emergency was only water on the floor, all the way to…
“Netflix Closed Captioning,” a poem for Bad Survivalist by Jeffrey Hecker

[Rapid downbeat funky relaxed happy soulful witchy jazz music starts playing] [Wurlitzer muffles sobs] [Cadavers gurgle blow bubbles that suck and pop] [Ceiling fan blade claps like elephant seal] [Upbeat demented ska funeral music stops playing] [Flava Flav’s Unga Bunga Bunga remix starts playing] [Dime drops into coin-operated dryer not enough to activate spin] [All…
“Nude Fridays in Whitelandia,” a Bad Survivalist Short Story by David Winner

The Zoom Wake Pretty soon after Louis’ passing, I had an idea. Zoom wakes were everywhere, but this one would have been different. On our six screens, you would see our bare chests. We range from our twenties to our fifties, but like Brooklyn Peter Pans, we are known as the “boys.” An old-fashioned characterization…
Bad Survivalist: “DON’T CHIDE THE HOOTCH” & other RIP VW erasure/collages by Nance Van Winckel

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Nance Van Winckel’s ninth poetry collection, The Many Beds of Martha Washington, is just out with the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series/Lynx House Press. She’s also published a book of visual poems with Pleiades Press (2016) and five books of fiction, most recently Ever Yrs, a novel in the form…
Bad Survivalist Poetry: “where the space ends” by Anthony Santulli

even maps know that point of view is a lifeless music—that the next sense to evolve will only create further desire to escape from experience at intermission, the utterance of terms we barely notice (these things happen in the cracks, their particular hiss) …
Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by Emily Pinkerton

Go Like This Write in front of mirrors. Talk to yourselfin the bathroom. Spend late nights alone.Wake early, follow the sun. Tread carefully.Forgive with a watchful eye and an ear to the ground. Emergency Control in case I emergency. I handleas indicated. I open. Door turnsand I emergency. I plan. Responseincoming. In case I need.…
“This Sultry Thing Called Home,” a Bad Survivalist Poem by Dhwanee Goyal

Loosely after Katia Krafft, a French volcanologist. Also somewhat inspired by John Ashbery. There were no landscapes where I lived, only water, its animals. Still, my father used to come home with fire burning the ends of his moustache. You know the story of birth: how woman meets woman, shrieks for every tragedy that could…