Category: Side A

“Notes to the Girl Across the Street” by Zary Fekete: Fiction for Side A

Notes to the Girl Across the Street May 5, 1989 Hello … my name is Zoli. I am fourteen. I come from Hungary. I live in a small town called Nyárliget. It means “summer grove.” Your town is Sonnenalm. It means almost the same thing. I saw you in the window yesterday. You were fixing…
Original Side A Short Story: “The Hagiography of Agatka” by Zosia Koptiuch

The Hagiography of Agatka I really did think you were a saint. In the Polaroid I took of you, you stand in someone else’s room, holding someone else’s newborn. White dress dotted with tiny blue flowers. Nothing but boxes in the background. Reaching out, the baby’s hand lazily touches your cheek. You look down at…
New for Side A: Three Poems from WHAT by Robert Kocik

proto-anything Sunrise light day sunset night dark. Sharpness of shape-less white against blue. Unbearability of ticking. Grievance blight, life changing quiet, the way of thingswith/out us. Another antler chandelier. Sculptor’s field of marvels overgrown. Blooms of jellyfishclogging aircraft carrier’s cooling system. Nail polish next to erythromycin. ‘Composting’… a wordfor earth’s reaction to our works our…
Side A Prose Poetry: “Another Pirate Story” by Brad Rose

Another Pirate Story At the pentagon, the holiday spirit is in full swing. Cannibalism tends to bring people together. Fortunately, I’m in touch with myself, although like opposable thumbs, I don’t take it personally. This year, Satan is doing my income taxes. He’s a likable enough guy, although he says he finds it too dark…
Side A Poem: “Anti-Ars Poetica” by Jonathan Memmert

Anti-Ars Poetica There is no poetry in a shrapnel wound that refuses to heal … No enjambment in a lifelong amputation / No metaphor inside the guns aimed & trigger cocked No simile flies from the aerial carpet bombings No alliteration as tank tracks cross borderlines No allegory hidden in a drone’s surveillance Mines laid…
Hybrid Work for Side A: “[THE JOB]” by Randall Le

I – GET [THE JOB] It’s been a while now but I sort of remember when the knowledge hit me. Man, you should probably be thinking about getting a job. Insane. Ridiculous to think that anyone could make it through college without having to think about that. “Do what interests you.” Just another victim of…
“Easy to Advanced Hand Puppets”: A Short Story for Side A by Dolan Morgan

Easy to Advanced Hand Puppets Introduction When was the last time you made a hand puppet? Or, for that matter, when was the last time you did anything? Something real. Be honest. Right, okay: then you might as well make hand puppets. And for that, you’ve come to the right place: an instructive, easy to…
New Short Comic for Side A: “Young Lions” by Hal Flower

Mini-interview with Hal Flower HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? HF: While attending a series of screenings of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Decalogue, I came to understand that the writer’s aspiration ought to be clarity, not complexity. HFR: What are you reading? HF: Having recently finished…
New Side A Flash Fiction: “Don’t Look at the New Moon Through Glass” by Alison L. Fraser

Don’t Look at the New Moon Through Glass I put her superstitions away for later, when she had proven herself to be a ghost. Hand outstretched towards me, obscenities dripped from her fingers, her brain encased in cancer, her frontal lobe an abyss of dead matter, she told me not to leave her with that…