We’re proud to announce the 53 titles of our longlist! The submissions we received were resonant, inventive, and so engaging that we’ve had a hard time narrowing down the list! From this list, 25 stories will make it to the shortlist for judge Sian Griffiths to choose her final 3 winners and 5 honorable mentions!…
The pool was four feet deep, and we bought it at Target half off. You could float on your back and think, “fun times are here,” because at least you weren’t burning hot. Mom and I watched it fill up with hose water. She looked around at the back yard, the neglected fruit trees, and…
These pieces have been chosen because the writer has done something special with sense of place. They’ve eliminated the need for a distinction between foreign and familiar. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen that place, been to that spot. You know this place because of how this writer has created it. Joaquin Fernandez, Places…
User Profile for the Recently Bereaved
I’m looking for the way it feels to stand behind doors sliding shut on a train to Ikebukuro and you bow goodbye to me from the platform and I bow to you. I am on my way to that monster cafe we loved, where the slippers they gave us were fuzzy and green with small…
Lost Centuries
Yonder Years Ago So down a synapse they tunneled, carried past sensation burdens: memory waves chute-oscillated, irrigated crevices and canals to harvest minds and remember electric journeys in flashes and sparks. Disconnected and torn, hand-in-hand they went, hesitant and fearful with closed eyes and emptied lungs. They first knew nothing and deemed it better that…
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