Tag: Fiction

“Quotation Marks Are for Amateurs”: Matthew Kinlin in Conversation with James Nulick

From the venom-tongued Valencia to the hallucinatory The Moon Down to Earth, James Nulick writes novels about outsiders with the precision of a plastic surgeon and the phantasmagorial style of Marcel Proust reanimated in battery acid. His hypnotic and serpentine prose cumulates and reaches new heights in his latest novel Plastic Soul, a work of…
Side A Fiction by Jon Doughboy: “Your Mother Is on Her Way”

My mother’s lawyer called me this morning which came as a surprise because I didn’t know my mother had a lawyer or would have a need for a lawyer or even knew any lawyers. As a matter of fact it wasn’t the lawyer, a Mr. Defiore, Esq., who called but his secretary, introducing herself as…
Fiction for Bad Survivalist: “The Pit” by Sarp Sozdinler

People come to Cannon Hill for two reasons: to die quietly or to watch the gators. The gator pit is behind the Shell station. There’s a faded lawn chair wedged in the fence and a warped “NO TRESPASSING” sign that everyone ignores. It’s not an attraction in the official sense. The town doesn’t list it…
Side A Short Story: “The Foster” by Tom Busillo

We were having dinner, and she said, “I signed us up for a foster.” I thought she was kidding, but everything had already been arranged. His name was Lollie. The next morning, he was in the kitchen making toast. He wore a cardigan and kept his shoes on inside. He had dietary needs, emotional needs, and…
Haunted Passages Short Fiction by Tobias Carroll: “Crude Thing”

Matteo called it a crude thing. In the end that’s what stuck with me the most. A crude thing, a visitation, something unspeakable. The crude thing, and where it took us all. I was there and Erin was there when Matteo shared what had happened, the three of us sitting at an empty table in…
Fiction for Side A: “Pearl Ring” by Ivy Grimes

Pearl Ring He and his betrothed moved into a cream-colored apartment in the outer ring of the concentric circles that made up the apartment complex. At the center of the complex was a swimming pool. He first noticed her pearl ring on their first trip to the apartment’s swimming pool when she took off her…
Side A Short Story: “Light ’Em Up” by Elizabeth Rosen

I spotted the guy as he came around the corner where the protest was happening outside the library on the plaza. Kind of scummy-looking, and not in a hipster way. White guy, wearing a plain Hanes T-shirt frayed at the collar and scuffed aviator sunglasses pushed up into unwashed hair. He was carrying a homemade…
Side A Fiction: “Whirlpool” by Mark Wagstaff

Whirlpool The seaside painter paints what he sees. For tourists who scour the old town shops for authentic memories of their happy days at the beach. Who pay extra for signed and framed, to support artisan crafts. For friends, to settle small debts, though everyone knew these pictures never gained value. As presents, a quaint…
Flash Fiction for Bad Survival: “How to Acquire Land” by Genevieve Murdick

The Young Knight picked her out of what they’d left of her village, when she was just six. After loading up on as much milk and grain and heirlooms as he could fit on two bags on a horse, the Young Knight had room enough for a wife—but not an entire wife—not yet; and he…