At some point, we’ll forget the rabbit’s name, how it came to die, the rush we were in to bury it, and when people ask, we’ll shrug, and Vince will snarl his upper lip in the way his body’s patterned to do since we went into care. But right now, we tip marbles and red...
The winner is The Breakfast Shift at the Usual New York Diner by Debra A. Daniel! Thank you, and congratulations to our shortlisted writers. We so enjoyed reading your stories about work/play for this challenge! HR by Chris Bruce The Librarian Dana Jaye Cadman...
There’s a beautiful beach. You get there by walking through a shady path, and then you’re on the soft sand. Some low hills far off, green and silver in the sun. There’s a couple on the beach. The woman on a towel with a hat to shade her eyes. The man in the water up...
I once fucked a guy in a redwood water tank. The kind that once held water caught from rain, maybe filled by the county every couple of months. The kind that now looks like a dorm room, a single bed pushed against rounded walls, a small fridge next to a tiny table and...
We're so excited to announce our Anthology 4 winners! Judge Morgan Talty chose 20 stories to be published both online and in print! Thank you to everyone who submitted and to our finalists. It's never easy choosing only twenty stories from all of the great ones we...
The astronaut pushes a wire cart through the supermarket. Their body is obscured beneath the thick, radiation-proof fabric. Their face hides behind the mirrored shield opaque enough to block the sun. We decide to assume the astronaut is a she, for women make better...
1. The fourth-grade mothers learn that one of the fourth-grade girls, Jade, is missing. Their sons and daughters announce this at the dinner tables. The children are reluctant to provide the news. Nothing like this has happened before, and they don’t know how the...
We have narrowed down the total submissions for this challenge to 12 stories for the shortlist. We're making final decisions now and will announce the winner early next week! It's always so fun to see how writers interpret these challenge prompts. HR The Librarian...
We're so thankful to partner with Judge Aimee Bender on this prize. She was so impressed with the shortlisted stories that she chose co-second-place winners, so we will honor four stories with prize money and publication! 1st Place: To the Tower by Skyler Melnick 2nd...
My daughter’s walking me through her sandcastle. She brings me in through the garage weight room, which opens up into a two-story climbing wall. Before I can test that out, my wife, Anna, yells for me to come see the downstairs bathroom. Kaylee has crafted one of...
After she gave birth, she could hardly sleep because she was either leaking milk or blood, or both at the same time or because she heard every sound the baby made—the widening of his thin lips while dreaming of a past life to his little fingers opening from a fist...
My face turns into my aunt’s face as I age. Now we know what she would have looked like at 35, 37, 40, 42. Lost in a gaze. Cigarette in hand, land of left-handed thoughts in her brain. Keep speaking while I rest a while in here, leaning back into the carseat of my...