J. Scott Bugher
A Cincinnati Boil

J. Scott Bugher - A Cincinnati Boil

Poetry
J. Scott Bugher is a writer, artist and session musician living in Indianapolis, Indiana. His poetry and short stories have appeared in a variety of journals and his novel-in-progress keeps him busy.… Read more »
Taylor Brown
Black River

Taylor Brown - Black River

Fiction
Taylor Brown's short fiction has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The New Guard, CutBank, The Coachella Review, and storySouth. His story "Rider" received the Montana Prize in… Read more »
Melissa Ferrone
Blue Ridge Talk

Melissa Ferrone - Blue Ridge Talk

Creative Nonfiction
Melissa Ferrone is currently an MFA student at West Virginia University with a focus in Creative Nonfiction. She also received her Bachelor’s in English at West Virginia University. Her greatest… Read more »
Richard Spilman
Church Camp

Richard Spilman - Church Camp

Fiction
Richard Spilman is the author of two books of short fiction: Hot Fudge and The Estate Sale. He lives in Wichita, Kansas, where he works hard to maintain no visible means of support. Read more »
Gabrielle Hovendon
From the Airplane, From the Water Tower

Gabrielle Hovendon - From the Airplane, From the Water Tower

Fiction
Gabrielle Hovendon is an MFA student at Bowling Green State University, where she teaches creative writing and composition. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in more than a dozen… Read more »
Sharman Apt Russell
Icarus

Sharman Apt Russell - Icarus

Creative Nonfiction
Science and nature writer Sharman Apt Russell teaches fulltime at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico, as well as in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University in Los… Read more »
Michael Lavers
Light Years

Michael Lavers - Light Years

Poetry
Michael Lavers completed an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. His poems and essays have appeared in many journals, including College Literature, Smartish Pace, and Rattle. He… Read more »
Ash Bowen
Murder in the Red Barn

Ash Bowen - Murder in the Red Barn

Poetry
Ash Bowen’s first collection of poems, The Even Years of Marriage, won the 2012 Orphic Book Prize for Poetry and will be available from Dream Horse Press in November. Other work has appeared in New… Read more »
Laura McCullough
Nautical Tattoo

Laura McCullough - Nautical Tattoo

Poetry
Laura McCullough's most recent book of poems is Rigger Death & Hoist Another. Her other books are Panic, Speech Acts, and What Men Want. She is the editor of two anthologies: The Room & the… Read more »
Mike Smith
Notes from a Slowly Dying Suburbanite

Mike Smith - Notes from a Slowly Dying Suburbanite

Creative Nonfiction
Mike Smith is a 3rd-year Creative Nonfiction graduate student at the University of New Mexico. His historical writings have appeared in magazines and newspapers from across the West, including New… Read more »
Roy Bentley
One Wench in the House between Them

Roy Bentley - One Wench in the House between Them

Poetry
Roy Bentley’s work has been recognized with fellowships from the NEA, the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Ohio Arts Council. Poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah,… Read more »
Dorene O’Brien
The Final Viking Voyage

Dorene O’Brien - The Final Viking Voyage

Fiction
Dorene O’Brien is a fiction writer from Detroit. She has won the Red Rock Review Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the New Millennium Fiction Award and the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award. She… Read more »
Rosanna Staffa
The Ghost of Chendu

Rosanna Staffa - The Ghost of Chendu

Fiction
Rosanna Staffa is an Italian writer living in Minneapolis. She recently received her MFA in Fiction from Spalding University. Her Flash Fiction “The Call” will be published by Spry Literary… Read more »
Jonathan Starke
The Radio Men

Jonathan Starke - The Radio Men

Creative Nonfiction
Jonathan Starke is a former bodybuilder and boxer who highly values vagabond travel and is often missing the Golden (80s) and Attitude (90s) eras of professional wrestling. He is the founding editor… Read more »
Mark Wisniewski
To Bukowski, #43

Mark Wisniewski - To Bukowski, #43

Poetry
Mark Wisniewski’s second novel, Show Up, Look Good, was praised by Ben Fountain, Kelly Cherry, T.R. Hummer, Jonathan Lethem, and Molly Giles; his first, Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman,… Read more »
Katie Cortese
Wakulla Springs

Katie Cortese - Wakulla Springs

Fiction
Katie Cortese holds an MFA from Arizona State University and a PhD from Florida State. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Carve, Gulf Coast, Word Riot, Sport Literate, and Passages… Read more »
Hilary Sideris
What

Hilary Sideris - What

Poetry
Hilary Sideris’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Green Mountains Review, Memoir, Quiddity, The Southampton Review, and Southern Poetry Review. Her new collection, A House Not… Read more »
Richard Prins
Zunguka

Richard Prins - Zunguka

Poetry
Richard Prins is a New Yorker who sometimes lives in Dar es Salaam. He received his MFA degree in poetry from New York University. His work appears in Los Angeles Review, Painted Bride Quarterly,… Read more »

Light Years

Michael Lavers

Mostly the desire to feed themselves,
and the rusty lineage of tools invented
to that end. Everything else was waiting,
discussions about weather interrupted
only by the need to bury their dead.
They tried their hardest to kill time, to fill
the gaps left open by survival. Wars helped.
So did the internet. And so did painting,
as far as we can tell. At thirty two
feet per second per second, children fell
out of their mothers into dirt, were cleaned off
and given names. Birds that left each fall
came back each spring. Moss interred the churches,
doctors washed their hands, and viruses
made promises to blood that nobody
could break. All this they called life. They cried
out in the night hoping someone heard,
googled their tough questions, and in the dark
the answers grew. What else can we say?
We have no way to know if they were happy;
only that they were brief, that they were somewhere
over there, beyond those stars, light years ago.
Read more »