Tag: Fiction

New Side A Fiction: “Vesuvio” by Patricia Quintana Bidar

Vesuvio Salvador has suggested they meet at Vesuvio. For him, the bar is a place of nostalgia. Whereas, Luisa has never left San Francisco. Lives in that same rent-controlled studio on upper Grant, where she paints, teaches, and sleeps. She stops first for coffee and a sandwich at Trieste. “One clarifying gin,” she tells Jacques,…
Geoff Graser and K.E. Semmel Discuss His Novel The Book of Losman

The Book of Losman is the debut novel by K.E. Semmel, a writer and translator who lives in Scottsville, New York. Semmel tells the story of Daniel Losman, an American literary translator who has emigrated to Denmark. Losman is trying to discover the cause of his Tourette syndrome, and is willing to go to great…
Fiction for Side A: “Lazarus Goat” by Jacob Austin

Lazarus Goat The goats dawdle in the field. They show no remorse for yesterday’s incident. I had been all set to go home. Nothing to do but call the goats in, count them, and lock the gate. Mopface and Lamby, the pair of massive komondors, were lying on either side of the entrance, their lion…
New Side A Short Fiction: “Clownskin” by Brent Joseph Johnson

Clownskin One afternoon the sky above us and the sky to the side of us gathered together into a strange and terrifying pattern. So we stopped what we were doing and pointed at it. Even our power-walkers and mail-carriers, even our demons and sasquatches, even our own actual clowns pointed in perplexity. “Holy shit,” we…
Fiction for the Friggatriskaidekaphobic: “Immortal” by Stefan Kiesbye

On evenings she couldn’t sleep, she walked up the carpeted stairs and knocked on my door. Under the down comforter, my bony hips squeezed between her thighs, we listened to her husband’s snoring. Emily was richly layered and comfortable and her neck smelled of dark spices. When she was in a hurry, she knelt in…
“Hot Dog Exclusivity”: New Short Fiction for Flavor Town USA by Avery Gregurich

The people of Icon are celebrating their independence just as they have for centuries: with a contest of eaters. It’s hot throughout Icon. The national flags wave upside down on poles outside the pods of some of the people tuning in on their HomeScreens to watch the eaters. Most of those people actually hunger to…
Original Short Story for Haunted Passages: “Everything Got Worse” by Kelli Dianne Rule

November 1, 1991. Myakka City, Florida. The earth-moving machines had long sputtered out and all the workers were eating or sleeping so I got bored and decided to run off to explore the woods behind our construction site. Tall pines and old oak trees covered the floor in dry needles and acorns and when the…
Thad DeVassie: Four Microfictions from The Factory of Sadness for Bad Survivalist

Bulletin Board Material The bulletin board mounted outside the conference room has dozens of thumbtacks on it. Sticky notes and a few pens are below on an empty desk. There is a prompt written in blue Sharpie along the bulletin board frame: add to the conversation! Wendy put it there about a year ago, without…
Fiction for Haunted Passages: “Turnpike Dreams” by Dave Nash

Exit 18 – The George Washington Bridge connects the two ledges that rise from deep water in constant motion. On the New Jersey side, one hundred feet had to be blasted out to make it level with New York. Someone is always trying to cut us down, I tell Anna. She says I have a…