Michael Gray
A Memory of Hands

Michael Gray - A Memory of Hands

Fiction
Mike Gray received his MFA from Florida Atlantic University in 2012 and currently serves as an English Instructor at Hazard Community and Technical College in Kentucky. His fiction has appeared in… Read more »
Craig Buchner
American Metal

Craig Buchner - American Metal

Fiction
Craig Buchner's short stories have appeared in Tin House, Hobart, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other literary journals. Craig teaches writing and lives in Portland, OR. You can find more of his work at… Read more »
Joshua Idaszak
Aralık

Joshua Idaszak - Aralık

Fiction
Joshua Idaszak is from Washington, DC. He has lived and worked in Australia, Turkey, and Spain, and will be attending the MFA program at the University of Arkansas this fall.  Read more »
M. M. Adjarian
Birdman

M. M. Adjarian - Birdman

Sprints
M. M. Adjarian is a writer and professor. She has published creative work in The Provo Canyon Review, The Milo Review, From the Depths, and Empty Sink Publishing. Her articles and reviews have also… Read more »
James Norcliffe
Blue

James Norcliffe - Blue

Poetry
James Norcliffe is a NZ poet, editor and writer of novels for young people (mainly fantasy) including the award-winning The Loblolly Boy. He has published eight collections of poetry, most recently… Read more »
Justin Brouckaert
Charlevoix

Justin Brouckaert - Charlevoix

Fiction
Justin Brouckaert’s work has appeared in The Rumpus and Passages North, among other publications. He is a James Dickey Fellow in Fiction at the University of South Carolina, where he serves as… Read more »
Sharon Rawlette
Cop Cars

Sharon Rawlette - Cop Cars

Sprints
Sharon Rawlette lives in Virginia’s Northern Neck, 20 miles from the hospital where she was born. She holds a PhD in philosophy from New York University, and her essays have appeared or are… Read more »
Carolyn Williams-Noren
Evening, End of Summer

Carolyn Williams-Noren - Evening, End of Summer

Poetry
Carolyn Williams-Noren is a 2014 winner of a McKnight Artist Fellowship, selected by Nikky Finney. She has recent poems in Gigantic Sequins and Bluestem and forthcoming in Sugar House Review and… Read more »
Karen Kasaba
Flown

Karen Kasaba - Flown

Sprints
Karen Kasaba’s stories, essays, and articles have appeared in Swink, Wilderness House Literary Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Santa Barbara Magazine (Fiction Competition Winner), Hawai‘i Review,… Read more »
Kate Lister Campbell
Free Swim

Kate Lister Campbell - Free Swim

Fiction
Kate Lister Campbell lives with her husband in Brooklyn, NY, but is originally from Kansas City, MO. When not writing, she helps to design job training and placement programs for people with barriers… Read more »
Vincent Poturica
Habte

Vincent Poturica - Habte

Fiction
Vincent Poturica lives in Gainesville, FL, but he will soon be moving with his soon-to-be wife to Long Beach, CA. His stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Birkensnake, Bodega, FRiGG,… Read more »
Suzanne Simmons
Hospice

Suzanne Simmons - Hospice

Poetry
Suzanne Simmons is a poet and essayist who lives in the lakes region of New Hampshire. She holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Calyx, The New… Read more »
Helen Ellis
How to Be a Grown Ass Lady

Helen Ellis - How to Be a Grown Ass Lady

Sprints
Helen Ellis is the author of the novel, Eating The Cheshire Cat (Scribner). Her short stories have appeared recently or are forthcoming in FiveChapters, Blue Mesa Review, Monkeybicycle, The Weekly… Read more »
Ginny Hoyle
How to Breathe

Ginny Hoyle - How to Breathe

Contest - 2nd Place
Ginny Hoyle’s work has appeared in Copper Nickel, MARGIE, Pilgrimage, Wazee and elsewhere. She collaborates with Colorado artist Judy Anderson to create freeform artist books and installations.… Read more »
Shirley Fergenson
How to Leave a Garden

Shirley Fergenson - How to Leave a Garden

Contest - 3rd Place
Shirley Fergenson is the literary fiction specialist at The Ivy Bookshop. This piece is part of a collection of linked stories she began during her Masters in Fiction Writing at Johns Hopkins… Read more »
Diana Spechler
How to Love a Telemarketer

Diana Spechler - How to Love a Telemarketer

Contest - 1st Place
Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire and Skinny. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Glimmer Train Stories, The Southern Review, The Paris Review Daily,… Read more »
Michael Trocchia
How to Make a Thing to Believe in

Michael Trocchia - How to Make a Thing to Believe in

Poetry
Michael Trocchia is the author of The Fatherlands(MPP 2014) and the forthcoming collection of poems Unfounded (FutureCycle 2015). His poems and prose have appeared in journals such as Asheville Poetry… Read more »
Evan Beaty
Jurisprudence

Evan Beaty - Jurisprudence

Poetry
Evan Beaty lives in San Antonio, Texas. Read more »
Brenda Peynado
Swimming Lessons

Brenda Peynado - Swimming Lessons

Creative Nonfiction
Brenda Peynado has work appearing or forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Black Warrior Review, Pleiades, Cimarron Review, and others. She received her MFA from Florida State University where she was… Read more »
Marjorie Stelmach
The Stylite Prays for Visions

Marjorie Stelmach - The Stylite Prays for Visions

Poetry
Marjorie Stelmach’s most recent book of poems is Without Angels (Mayapple, 2014). Earlier volumes include Bent upon Light and A History of Disappearance (University of Tampa Press) and Night… Read more »
Meng Jin
The Weeping Widow

Meng Jin - The Weeping Widow

Fiction
Meng Jin was born in Shanghai, China, and now lives in New York City where she is an MFA candidate in fiction at Hunter College. Her fiction has appeared in Bound Off and Drunk Monkeys, and is… Read more »
Erika Kleinman
Their Names

Erika Kleinman - Their Names

Creative Nonfiction
Erika Kleinman has work published or forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Apple Valley Review, and Salon. She is essays editor for The Nervous Breakdown. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and two… Read more »
Landon Houle
When Trapped in a Car under Water

Landon Houle - When Trapped in a Car under Water

Fiction
Born in Brown County, Texas, Landon Houle currently lives in South Carolina and works as an editor at In Fact Books. She is a winner of Permafrost’s Midnight Sun fiction contest and Crab Creek… Read more »

How to Breathe

Ginny Hoyle

I.

I want to strip my life clean, reduce my stuff
to bare essentials—a tree in winter
at winter’s end, a cliff above a white sea.

Make that a white cliff, swallows wheeling,
and let the high priest of morning
sing up the sun.

Make it Millay’s West Country sun
with her lark in air and that song
clean through me

and Millay’s West Country cry—
What have I done with what was dearest to me?
It is not here.

II.

Everyone gets a key to the garden,
a stone seat big enough for one
worn smooth by longing.

III.

Called to the window by petals leaping,
morning breeze. No words
soft enough to say
how this delicate infusion,

a teaspoon of violet dissolved
in an empty sky,
alters the intake of breath.

I bow my head
and look into my heart:

open door
patch of sky
and the wind moves through.
Read more »