Gimme a Word

by Derek Alger

Originally published on December 5, 2011

My demons could never be exorcized through playing characters, I was stuck with trying to understand myself and what I perceived as the uncomprehending world around me through other means. Pretense was anathema to me, and yet, acting fascinated both my father and Ferruccio; my father through utilizing videotape in therapy and Ferruccio through staging psychodramas, encouraging patients to perform in spontaneous scenarios.

Pensive Pondering About Childhood Past

by Derek Alger

Originally published on December 3, 2011

I’ve always had trouble accepting the intricacies of the so-called grown up world, finding the behavior of most adults completely bewildering. This started in childhood with the way I viewed my father. I thought he was strange, whereas he was revered by his peers in the psychiatric world. This made me even more perplexed, and [...]

Since I Left Home

by Victoria Thompson

Originally published on December 1, 2011

I realized that I am missing many things—a shoehorn, a cash box, a serrated knife. But these things are not really missing because I see no use for them. After the lawn was mowed for the last time and before I gave away the keys, I hooked down a diet coke and took out the [...]

Don’t Tell Me Why

by Constance Ford

Originally published on December 1, 2011

When we finish, I see he has the gun, so I can’t do anything, like get away, which was what I was hoping for, and he ties me up again. Afterwards, because it’s drier down there, he slides back underneath the platform.

Slip

by Ariana Lenarsky

Originally published on December 1, 2011

There was no water for the river, the dam had been reopened intentionally. Still, moisture came quickly, like a new age, as the bridge murmured its weight and bare birds ringed the shadow of a cloud.   Summertime, relentless, its pickling daysweat pooling fear at the armpit, red oak rashes poisoning the ankle and back, [...]

Configurations at 4 and 40

by Bridget Gage-Dixon

Originally published on December 1, 2011

With thick sticks of chalk pressed between her fingers she draws circles on the driveway, some loop around each other, others float aloof beside the bordering lawn.   She hasn’t mastered square or triangle but the unrelenting way a thing spins back into itself makes perfect sense to her.   Cross-legged on the blacktop beside [...]

They Live on the Water

by Okla Elliott

Originally published on December 1, 2011

“I’m going back out to look for her,” Elena said. He looked up from his desk and saw her backlit in the doorway of his office. “You want to come with me?”

National Cake

by Chiaka Obasi

Originally published on December 1, 2011

My mother had said we should be careful how we moved about in Ama, because the bad men were on rampage. Every mother sang it like a song to their children.

Middling

by Thomas Andes

Originally published on December 1, 2011

“Who’s ready for dessert?” she calls as she barges through the saloon doors with five glasses on a tray, oblivious to the scarlet flush that tips her daughter’s ears.

Jacqueline Bishop

interviewed by Derek Alger

Originally published on December 1, 2011

Jacqueline Bishop was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, before coming to the United States to attend college. She is the author of two poetry collections, Snapshots From Istanbul and Fauna, as well as a novel, The River’s Song. Bishop is also the author of the non-fiction books, My Mother Who Is Me: Life Stories From Jamaican Women in New York, and Writers Who Paint/Painters Who Write: Three Jamaican Artists.