Friday, January 27, 2017 Dear Mr. and Mrs. Douglass-Saad, This is to advise you that pursuant to the provisions of Section 24 of the School Act and Administrative Procedure—Student Discipline and Expulsion—your son, Jean-Pierre (JP) Douglass-Saad, age six years, a student in Grade 1 at Thomas Jefferson Elementary, has been expelled due to conduct injurious […]
Fiction
An Institution More Suitable and Equipped
Life of the Party
by Meghan Beaudry
The windows are plastered with paper skulls. Black crepe streamers drape across the ceiling fans. The poured alcohol awaits — Reservoir Dog’s Grim Reaper, although you’d wanted absinthe. By any account, it’s going to be a killer party. Bethany pads onto the front porch and plops down on the chair beside you. The screen door […]
Savage Summer
by Cameron Shenassa
My mother always worked, so in summers she’d drop us at the head of the river, where we’d put our tubes in the water and float back into town, free to spend our days however we pleased. Sometimes we got out of the water, hauled our tubes up the bank, and bought orange sodas at […]
Interview with Rachel Swearingen, Author of How to Walk on Water and Other Stories
by Scott Mashlan
Rachel Swearingen is the author of How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, winner of the 2018 New American Fiction Prize (October 1, 2020). Her stories and essays have appeared in VICE, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Off Assignment, Agni, AmericanShort Fiction, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2015 Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction, a […]
Dance, Ghosts, and the End of the World: An Interview with Emily St. John Mandel
by Nathan Winer
Emily St. John Mandel is a novelist originally from British Columbia. The author of five novels, her fourth, Station Eleven (2014), tells the story of life before and after a world-shattering pandemic, and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner award, as well as the winner of the Arthur C. Clark […]
George Saunders on A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
by Brianna Di Monda
There’ve been plenty of books on craft published by acclaimed writers before A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but none have been infused with such belief in the capacity of fiction to change its readers, such revelation of the tricks of the craft, or such empathy for future writers. George Saunders has been […]
Cool Uncle
by Emmett Knowlton
All summer long Gideon’s nephews had been terrorizing him, waking him with wet willies, reminding him what a loser he’d become. “Do a flip!” they shouted at him in the mornings as he watched them by the pool. “Do some push-ups!” they barked whenever he came back from a run. “Come on, Giddy,” they sneered. […]
The Only Thing Missing Was the Howling of Wolves
by Rachel Swearingen
The following is excerpted from Rachel Swearingen’s debut story collection, How to Walk on Water. Her stories and essays fiction have appeared in VICE, Agni, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. A recipient of the 2018 New American Fiction Prize, Swearingen has also won the 2015 Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction and […]
Interview with Salvation Day Author Kali Wallace
by Chase Erwin
Kali Wallace was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She attended Brown University, where she took an undergraduate degree in Geology, and the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she completed a Ph.D. in Geophysics. Additionally, she is a graduate of the prestigious Clarion Workshop for SFF writers. Her short fiction has appeared in a […]
Sam Cohen Interviewed by Raki Kopernik: Queer Jewish Writers
In Sarahland, a collection of stories woven together by characters named Sarah, Sam Cohen brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us. The cast of Sarahs finds ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and they discover new possibilities for life itself. In each Sarah’s refusal to adhere […]
