Believe it or not, we found time to enjoy books during this totally normal year. For some of us, we discovered work written long ago, while others read more recent publications. Either way, books kept us company and helped us escape the despair of endless Zoom meetings. Thanks for letting us share some of the […]
Fiction
MAYDAY is interested in original and engaging literary short fiction. We are committed to featuring a diverse range of content and authors, including LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and international voices. We love innovative, strong writing that trusts the reader and is true to its author.
Popular authors we believe fit this vision include writers such as Carmen Machado, Jeanette Winterson, Maggie Nelson, Ocean Vuong, Yaa Gyasi, Ali Smith, Tommy Orange, Saeed Jones, Jhumpa Lahiri, Etgar Keret, Shelly Oria, Aimee Bender, Pedro Cabiya, China Miéville, and Olga Tokarczuk, among others.
He Went That Way
by Nicholas Cormier III
They approach in a tactical formation. I hear boots, that familiar sound from basic training. Shuffling feet out of step. The numbers are unclear, more of them than me. Sit. That’s the instinct. No victory to be had in the fight. There’s a fight. They push me over. I crawl out into the middle of […]
The Friend Seekers
by Siamak Vossoughi
The boy and the girl were watching the father working in the backyard. It was Saturday afternoon and the sky was gray in a way that seemed like Saturday afternoon was always going to be gray from here on out. The girl was to go to a birthday party later. The boy was thinking of […]
Interview with Novelist Miriam McNamara
by Raki Kopernik
Miriam McNamara was born in Ireland, raised in the Southern United States, and now lives in the Midwest. She has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two queer young adult historical novels. Her debut, The Unbinding of Mary Reade, was released in 2018 by Sky Pony […]
The City Above and Below
by Matthew E. Nesheim
Excerpted from The City Above and Below: Song of the Weaver – Book One (2018, Lamplight) 12.11.2387 – Planet Vellus, just outside Alba Calea There he was and wished he wasn’t. The voice of a young boy echoed in his head like the conscience he had long forgotten. It was the middle of the night […]
A Painter’s Secret
by Matt Whelihan
I met Toad during a rough time. I mean, I wasn’t sick or addicted or anything. Nobody I knew had just died, and I wasn’t living on the streets. It was just that Jen wanted kids as fast as she could have them, and she was letting me know this as often as she could. […]
Recognition
by Ignacio Ortiz Monasterio
[Editors’ Note: An embryonic version of this piece, titled “Me, the Other,” was originally published in Spanish in a small circulation magazine. The following translation is by Michael Parker-Stainback.] Finally, after years of anonymous toil, my talent has been publicly recognized. And no one—literally no one, except my cousin Vincent, Professor Thaddeus Lazarus and I—knows it. He—Vincent—turned […]
Fighting for His Brother
by Ignacio Ortiz Monasterio
This is how it happened. It was early in the evening. William was home, practicing his piano, when his older brother Rhodias and his squadron comrades, seven of them, arrived. The moment he heard the door and recognized voices, he shut off, afraid, and hurried to the sofa. “Did I stop on time?” he asked […]
The Death of Z
by Thomas Jacobs
The Nobel laureate Zoroaster Zigsari was gunned down outside a tapas restaurant on Calle Cava de San Miguel on the eve of his seventy-sixth birthday. There was no question who was responsible. He was one of the regime’s fiercest critics. He had become, he told me, inured to their constant threats of death. Twenty years […]
Time Space
by Eric Barnes
“If a dollar was only ten cents,” our middle child, Carmen, says as she digs into her purse, “everything would be a lot cheaper.” I turn to her, ready to respond, to correct her mistaken notion. But then I pause, my mind suddenly locked up. Her mother squints, lips moving, she too attempting to work […]
