Tag: Fiction

Original Haunted Passages Short Story: “The Little List of Garden Monsters” by Jordan Dilley

In the garden, the monsters bloom. Stems and vines trendil over and under, through and back, vibrating to the rhythm of a dance that has no rules. There are no plaques here, no little hand-painted signs segregating herbs from flowers from vegetables. Anonymous to others, but we know their names. Martha has a little list.…
Flavor Town USA Short Story: “A Juicy Soul” by Coleman Bigelow

As I prepare to enter the icy river, my mind wanders to that slice of meat lovers I’ve left behind. I’m regretting my restraint. Not eating all of my “last supper” now seems like an unnecessary sacrifice. What’s the point of being born again if you don’t go out with a gulp? The first time…
Flavor Town USA Fiction: “Definition: Love” by Winslow Schmelling

/ləv/ n.1 Origin: gas station hotdog “Remember how the attendant gave the rest of them to us for free? He hesitated for that heavy moment after we asked for two of them. I swear I saw his eyes glaze. Visions. PTSD. Memories of war. ‘You can just have them,’ he said, placing each dynamite stick into…
Haunted Passages Short Fiction: “No Smiling” by Salvatore Difalco

The room was spartan, of tan and ochre tones, with a medium in white linen seated at a table composed of yellow beeswax. My eyes widened at the sight of a crystal ball placed before her glittering like a small galaxy. It looked like the real thing. A strong smell of cinnamon filled my nostrils.…
New Haunted Passages Fiction: “My Loyalty” by Daniel David Froid

After she died I heard her voice. At first I did not know the voice was hers, detecting only a murmur in another room. In my kitchen I stood at the sink, scrubbing a pan crusted over with the remnants of a meal I’d spent hours preparing. The casserole had turned out poorly, my effort…
“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…
Haunted Passages Flash Fiction: “That Year in the Valley” by Andrew Bertaina

I hated everything that year we lived in the valley. The small house with moss-covered shingles, the way the mice scurried beneath the floorboards at night, and the way the rain fell in sheets every time we put clothes on the line, such that my memories always include damp jeans. Mornings, I’d wake to the…
Allison Wyss Interviews Farah Ali about Her Debut Novel The River, The Town

Farah Ali’s The River, The Town is a gorgeous first novel about a Pakistani family navigating poverty, drought, and generational trauma. Farah and I spoke on September 27 about climate disaster around the world, how desperate circumstances lead her characters to make unexpected choices, and the idea that it’s not just food and water that’s…
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…