Kendall Klym
A Professional Male Ballet Dancer in Twelve Steps

Kendall Klym - A Professional Male Ballet Dancer in Twelve Steps

Contest - 2nd Place
Featured as one of “the greatest up-and-coming fiction writers today” in the Amazon description of Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2014, Kendall… Read more »
Shonté Daniels
Alligator Mississippiensis

Shonté Daniels - Alligator Mississippiensis

Poetry
Shonté Daniels is a poet and games journalist. She is currently an editorial associate at Rewire. Her poetry has appeared in Apogee, Ambit, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. She was a finalist in… Read more »
Michele Leavitt
Ash Box

Michele Leavitt - Ash Box

Poetry
Michele Leavitt, a poet and essayist, is also a high school dropout, hepatitis C survivor, and former trial attorney. Recent work can be found in Guernica, Catapult, Narratively, and North American… Read more »
Laura Donnelly
Birding

Laura Donnelly - Birding

Poetry
Laura Donnelly's first book, Watershed, won the 2013 Cider Press Review Editors' Prize. Her poetry has appeared recently in Passages North, Indiana Review, Grist, and as the Missouri Review poem of… Read more »
Richard Schmitt
Living Among Strangers

Richard Schmitt - Living Among Strangers

Fiction
Richard Schmitt is the author of The Aerialist, a novel (Harcourt 2001). He has published fiction and nonfiction in many places. His story "Leaving Venice, Florida" won 1st Prize in The Mississippi… Read more »
Mason Boyles
Lucid

Mason Boyles - Lucid

Contest - 1st Place
Mason Boyles works at Pizza Hut. His fiction has appeared in publications such as Cutthroat, the Chariton Review, the Worcester Review, and others. He is a recipient of the Chariton Review Prize, the… Read more »
James English
My Hope Level

James English - My Hope Level

Contest - 3rd Place
James English’s short fiction has appeared in The Magnolia Review, Hobart, The Tishman Review, Liars’ League (London), The Drum, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. He lives with his wife in… Read more »
Andrew Siegrist
Nightmare Prayers

Andrew Siegrist - Nightmare Prayers

Fiction
Andrew Siegrist is a graduate of the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Greensboro Review, Pembroke Magazine, Fiction… Read more »
Laura Jean Schneider
No Sunshine When She’s Gone

Laura Jean Schneider - No Sunshine When She’s Gone

Fiction
Laura Jean Schneider has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The Writer online, The Montana Quarterly, High Country News, Edible… Read more »
Philip Schaefer
Portrait for the Anti-Refugee Campaign in Ravalli County, MT

Philip Schaefer - Portrait for the Anti-Refugee Campaign in Ravalli County, MT

Poetry
Philip Schaefer’s debut collection Bad Summon won the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press and will be released in 2017. He is the author of three chapbooks, two of which… Read more »
Hilary Schaper
Re-cognitions

Hilary Schaper - Re-cognitions

Creative Nonfiction
Hilary Schaper’s essays have been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, earned Honorable Mention in New Letters’ nonfiction contest, and been a finalist in the Prime Number Magazine’s creative… Read more »
Joy Ellison
Sitti’s Scars

Joy Ellison - Sitti’s Scars

Fiction
J.M. Ellison is a writer, scholar, and grassroots activist. They are interested in using stories, both fictional and true, to build community, document social movements, and imagine a liberated world.… Read more »
Alice Lowe
The Idea of North

Alice Lowe - The Idea of North

Creative Nonfiction
Alice Lowe reads and writes about life and literature, food and family. Her personal essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Crab Creek Review, The Millions, Permafrost, 1966,… Read more »
Roy Bentley
The Keno Caller at the Oxford Cafe in Missoula

Roy Bentley - The Keno Caller at the Oxford Cafe in Missoula

Poetry
Roy Bentley is the author of four collections of poetry, including Starlight Taxi (Lynx House: 2013), which won the 2012 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize, The Trouble with a Short Horse in Montana (White Pine:… Read more »
Alexandra Renwick
The Monsieur

Alexandra Renwick - The Monsieur

Fiction
Alexandra Renwick is a dual US & Canadian author whose short fiction has been translated into nine languages and performed in audio and on stage. Though she splits her time south of the border between… Read more »

Sitti’s Scars

Joy Ellison

My grandmother’s fingers are covered with scars. Some are short and delicate. These nicks Sitti gave herself while cutting tomatoes for fattoush salad, my father’s favorite. Others are round and red, like pomegranate seeds. She burned those marks into her flesh when she baked loaf after loaf after the Israelis demolished our neighbors’ tahboon oven.

The day that the army drove their bulldozer to our village, my brothers and I ran after the soldiers. We wanted to see whose home they were coming to crush into rubble. My father followed, too. The whole village gathered to yell and to cry. Only Sitti stayed inside. She seemed to know that the soldiers would pick the Rishmawi family oven. She started mixing dough before the demolition began.

“They were fortunate,” my father said. “Only that old pile of stones. They will survive.”

My grandmother thought the future of the Rishmawi family was not so certain. Bread, she told me, is a serious matter. So, she baked and baked, burning three of her fingers. When she finished, she wrapped her hand in white gauze and wrapped the mound of bread in a white towel. She delivered the loaves to Mariam Rishmawi, who cried as she accepted them.

Sitti’s food is delicious, but her hands pay the price. My father complains that he suffers too. “Mama, stop cooking,” he whines. “I don’t have time to drive you to the hospital.”

Sitti laughs. “I have my hospital right here,” she says, shaking the box of band-aids she keeps by the stove.

My grandmother’s fingers betray all her secrets. Still, she feeds our family and the rest of the village, too. She rolls grape leaves, stuffs zucchini, and mashes hummus. She serves us maqulbeh, carefully placing a plate on the top of the pot of chicken and rice. She holds the plate on tight, flips both over, and removes the pot. Some of the rice spills onto the floor.

While I help Sitti sweep, my father watches from the doorway of the kitchen. “Don’t listen to her,” he calls out. “How can you learn from someone so clumsy?” Sitti pretends she doesn’t hear him.

Shway shway,” she says. “Slowly, my love. You must always be careful, but not too careful.”

Read more »