She’s seventeen years old and standing at a bus stop in East Texas. It’s raining, and her hair is pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a backpack, and on the bench beside her is a green duffel bag with a broken strap. The bus is late. Her...
We don't envy Judge W. Todd Kaneko's challenge of only picking one chapbook from this shortlist! We had the privilege of reading many fantastic chapbooks over the last few months, and we're sad we can only pick one winner. Here are the titles of...
This la-de-da woman waltzes in. Skinny. Shiny-lipped. Designer facelift. Lenny, the crabbiest waiter, with his crater face, his cigarette breath, his lady-I-ain’t-got-all-day shrug, shuffles over to her booth. She, in her crispness, looks up at him...
judged by Deb Olin Unferth October 01 to December 01, 2024 (Closed) submit This contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted and trusted us with your writing! Fractured Lit has always been a place that celebrates the use of writing...
The autumn chill permeated Ruth’s wool coat as she hurried through the forest, dried leaves crunching underfoot. She clutched her satchel laden with contraband. If her parents found these candles, herbs, oils, and feathers plucked from her pillows,...
“He’s bleeding out!” These words stampede through the air, disembodied from their owner. “Somebody help him!” I stand on the museum steps. When the words reach me, I am unsteadied by their desperate velocity, and I wobble on the bottom step. I hope...
We went to the museum, but we didn’t see anything good. We sat on a long bench under the great T-Rex, frozen in midroar. Outside, your son wound his way through a fake rainforest, raised pathways running under and over each other. He had darted for...
In the first month of the year after the holiday season she felt out of sorts (the season she got the diagnosis, the season the doctor gave her a referral to the Giant Hospital), Barbara bought things. She awoke every day with the phrase carpe diem...
In 2023, the island known in County Kerry as the Sleeping Giant, named for its resemblance to a man lying on his back, exhaled. Those first few people to see it were quick to dismiss the notion they must have seen mist rising or a flock of gulls....
When the Children came back, they came back different. Dante had an arm that wasn’t his attached at the shoulder. You could tell because of how long it was, much longer than the other, and the fact that it was on backward. Rachel, who always talked...
The giant orb in the night sky makes our friend’s house look like a doll’s house. One of us mentions this and another of us scoffs, “As if.” We clutch sleeping bags in our arms, plain ones without characters. We borrow them from older siblings, or...
My son…he’s a good boy. I hug him as often as I can. Casey is almost five now, but he’s small for his age, so he feels more like a three-year-old. I want to hug him like this forever. I want him to hug me back like this forever – with both arms and...