Zach VandeZande
Allies

Zach VandeZande - Allies

Fiction
Zach VandeZande is an Assistant Professor at Central Washington University. He is the author of the novel Apathy and Paying Rent (Loose Teeth, 2008) and the forthcoming Lesser American Boys (Ferry… Read more »
Kalila Holt
Care Taking

Kalila Holt - Care Taking

Fiction
Kalila Holt is from Chicago and now lives in Brooklyn. She's previously appeared in wigleaf, and she produces the podcast Heavyweight. People are always asking her, "Did you get a haircut?" and… Read more »
Rebecca Aronson
Dear Gravity [Shall I Call You Shiva?]

Rebecca Aronson - Dear Gravity [Shall I Call You Shiva?]

Poetry
Rebecca Aronson is the author of Ghost Child of the Atalanta Bloom, winner of the 2016 Orison Books Poetry Prize and finalist for the 2017 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards, and Creature, Creature,… Read more »
Dannye Romine Powell
Early Autumn

Dannye Romine Powell - Early Autumn

Poetry
Dannye Romine Powell’s fourth collection (2015) is Nobody Calls Me Darling Anymore from Press 53. Her poems have appeared over the years in Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review,… Read more »
Nancy Chen Long
Eight Ways of Looking at a Man-Kite

Nancy Chen Long - Eight Ways of Looking at a Man-Kite

Poetry
Nancy Chen Long is the author of Light into Bodies (University of Tampa Press, 2017), winner of the Tampa Review Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing… Read more »
Ande Davis
Firefly Season

Ande Davis - Firefly Season

Fiction
Ande Davis lives, teaches, and writes in Northeast Kansas. His work has previously appeared in PANK, Hawai’i Review, South Dakota Review, and cream city review, among others. Read more »
Carolyn Oliver
Horse Latitudes

Carolyn Oliver - Horse Latitudes

Poetry
Carolyn Oliver’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in FIELD, Indiana Review, The Shallow Ends, The Greensboro Review, Booth, Glass, Lunch Ticket, and elsewhere. She won the 2018 Writer’s Block… Read more »
Julie Marie Wade
Portrait of Regret as a Door-to-Door Salesman

Julie Marie Wade - Portrait of Regret as a Door-to-Door Salesman

Poetry
Julie Marie Wade is the author of ten collections of poetry and prose, including Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures, Small Fires, Postage Due, When I Was Straight, Catechism: A Love Story, SIX, Same-Sexy… Read more »
Kathleen Lane
Stealers

Kathleen Lane - Stealers

Fiction
Stories from Kathleen Lane’s recently completed short story collection, Deaths I’ve Imagined, can be found in Los Angeles Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Writer’s Digest, Swink Magazine, Forest… Read more »
John Hazard
Testing

John Hazard - Testing

Fiction
John Hazard lives in Birmingham, Michigan. He has taught at the University of Memphis and, more recently, at Oakland University and the Cranbrook Schools in suburban Detroit. His fiction has been… Read more »
Sarah Starr Murphy
The Birth of Athena

Sarah Starr Murphy - The Birth of Athena

Fiction
Sarah Starr Murphy is a writer and teacher in rural Connecticut whose stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Forge Literary Magazine, Opossum, Menda City Review, and several others. She… Read more »
Rachel Greenley
The Cedar

Rachel Greenley - The Cedar

Creative Nonfiction
Rachel Greenley is a Seattle-based writer. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Months To Years, and Wayne Literary Review. Rachel's memoir manuscript The Lake Effect: an excavation of love and loss… Read more »
Frank Haberle
The Snow Catches Up

Frank Haberle - The Snow Catches Up

Fiction
Frank Haberle’s short stories have won awards from Pen Parentis (2011), Beautiful Losers magazine (2017) and the Sustainable Arts Foundation (2013). They have appeared in more than 30 magazines… Read more »
Amanda Moore
Transmutation

Amanda Moore - Transmutation

Creative Nonfiction
Amanda Moore's poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including ZZYZVA, Cream City Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Best New Poets, and Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of… Read more »
Sarah Salway
Waves

Sarah Salway - Waves

Fiction
Sarah Salway is a novelist, poet and writing tutor based in Kent, England. Her novels have been translated into several languages, and her poetry has appeared in many places including financial… Read more »
Emily Paige Wilson
What I’ll Tell My Great-Great-Granddaughters

Emily Paige Wilson - What I’ll Tell My Great-Great-Granddaughters

Poetry
Emily Paige Wilson’s debut chapbook I’ll Build Us a Home was published by Finishing Line Press (2018). She has received nominations for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. Her… Read more »
Daniel Turtel
White Horses

Daniel Turtel - White Horses

Fiction
Daniel Turtel grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He graduated from Duke University in 2013 with a degree in mathematics and has been living in New York City since. In 2018, he won the Faulkner… Read more »

Waves

Sarah Salway

Because the doctor said she could do with a change of scenery, he rented a little blue fisherman’s house for them in Cornwall. Because it was out of season they got a good deal but because she’d left behind her friends and family and everything she held dear including the streets she’d walked down so briefly with her pram, she cried for days, and because she was crying so loudly that the house became unbearable, he took to walking along the seafront. Because he didn’t want to stand out too much—she’d told him once how locals had hounded D H Lawrence and his wife because Frieda wore red stockings—he began to copy the fishermen he saw, walking with his hands looped behind his back, his eyes out to sea. Because it’s difficult to walk without looking where you are going, and because it was sometimes misty and the winds so raw that he wore a scarf half way up his face, he fell in the sea more than once. Luckily, because there were so many fishermen around he was quickly rescued, but because no one could understand why a grown man couldn’t keep out of the water, the rumours began that he was a drunk, or wanted to commit suicide, or perhaps he was just fed up with a crying wife. Because wouldn’t you be? Because no one else would now talk to them, and because he couldn’t now stop looking out to the sea, they began to spend evenings together in their little cliff top garden, her crying and him looking. Because there’s only so much time you can bear like this, one night, she turned to him and asked what he was staring at. Because he was a bit of a bore, to be honest, she expected a lecture on the density of stars or how climate change was affecting oceans and ice levels in the Arctic, or even how although grief takes people different ways, maybe it was time for her to listen to everyone and make an effort to move on, and because of this, when he simply said, ‘the horizon,’ she was touched. Because of this, she followed his gaze too, thought at first that the haze was her tears but then saw it was fog, and realised that this was how he was seeing the world, and that actually she might be seeing clearer than him, and because neither wanted to talk any more they just spent the night looking out, breaking their silence occasionally by calling out new words for it: ‘murk’, ‘vapour,’ ‘drizzle,’ ‘murk’, and because she had done English Literature at university, while he’d studied Engineering, she carried on longer than him, ‘brume,’ ‘haar’ and ‘gloaming’. Because she had forgotten the joy of playing, it took her some time to realise she’d stopped crying, and because he was a sore loser, it took him even longer, but because by then, they had both got so cold in the garden, they stayed close in bed that night. And because it was a better day the next morning, they made a sudden decision to go back to London that day. Because he was a creature of habit, he decided for one last walk, his hands looped behind his back. Because the horizon was clear, there was nothing to interest him there so he looked around instead, saw the men nodding at him, realised the fishing was actually more of a tourist attraction and because it wasn’t holiday season anymore everyone was bored, and that actually, the sight of a man falling in the sea must have been funny. Because of this, he stopped still and shocked himself with something he realised was a laugh. And because it had been so long, for him and for her, the sound of it carried like a seagull all the way to that blue house on the cliff edge, and because, without all the crying, she had done the packing already, she came out to see what was happening. And because the gloaming, the haar, the brume, the murk had gone, she saw him, saw him waving up at her, and because her heart skipped a little bit and she'd thought it was dead, she waved back.

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