By Belle Waring / Fiction /         “Learn to obey, you who are but dust! Learn to humble yourself, you who are but earth and clay!” —Thomas à Kempis It wasn’t like we kept people prisoner. You could just walk off down the driveway if you wanted, two lines of dark grayish brown curving into dusk, with the huge oaks over it, and the hummock between. We would pla y that was f airy hills with the green moss, and the little things like fir trees, and slender, tiny orange mushroo

By Catherine Niolet / Fiction /         Daffodils bloomed early in our backyard that year. My son and I noticed them in our morning wanderings: he, gripping a borrowed basketball squarely between two banana-slick palms, elbows wet with oatmeal and whole milk, and I, wearing a too-large coat and beginning to sweat.  At first it was only the shoots that were visible, and we watched them each day as the stalks emerged and later unfolded. We plucked them when they were beginning

By Mark Wagstaff / Fiction /      The haul from the ladder tried her delts and nerves. That second, hung from the hatch, her toes ballet pointes, free of the ladder. That second she saw herself slip, fall, a broken bone and, worse, her precious face. Not today. Today she grappled onto the roof, a fuss of strength over grace. Gravel breeze between parted lips. The caress of height on her skin. First time she climbed on the roof, she assumed everyone was at work, heads down,

By Uma H. Demir / Fiction /         She can’t summon the energy to do it herself, so Haris has to lift her arm for her. His fingers...

By Sophie Hamel / Fiction /         From the stone bleachers of Delphi’s ancient theater, the view of the Parnassus mountains had a...

By Chidima Anekwe / First Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Fiction /          Though Chioma had been raised Catholic, she never minded...

By Nancy L. Davis / Second Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Fiction /         Perspiration blanketed Lena’s face as she carried two fat...

By Laurie Lathem / Third Place, 2025 Plentitudes Prize in Fiction /           When I go with my girlfriend to the sex shop to buy a...

By Caressa Layne / Fiction /   Turning a light on by the bedside, Etta found her housecoat and shoved one arm through, then the...

By Shelagh Powers Johnson / Fiction / In her more brutal moments, Maeve would say that the wrong child had survived: when the...

By Kristel Chua / Fiction /   In the rearview mirror, Yakima valley resembled a bowl of milk. Clouds swirled in ominous slow-motion,...

By Maggie Riggs / Fiction /   Michael watched his shoes toss shadows down on the dry brown grass beneath the swing set in the...

By Ines Rodrigues / Fiction /   “…for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.” James Baldwin (“Giovanni’s Room”)  ...

By Marla Braverman / Fiction /     “… papers that Israeli officials say were recovered from Hamas command centers show advanced...

By Anthony Lee Head / Fiction / Only moments before, I had been driving towards a fiery ball glowing like a distant beacon on the...

By Eve Newstead / Fiction /   What they don’t tell you is that wedding season lasts years. If Maeve had known, she would have taken...

By Monica L. Woo / Fiction / Born in 1964 in Patterson, New Jersey, Ryan was heir to a welder father and homemaker mother. His parents...

By Alexa Hirst / Fiction / It’s the people inside that make this a home, the cross-stitch on Ava’s wall says. The pink thread words loop...

By Christie Cochrell / Fiction / The sound of angry voices rose up from the road below on Monday morning, Juliana's farmhouse under...

By Paula Brancato / Fiction / Halloween. 10 pm. Tati shows up at my apartment after her frantic call. I didn’t want to call her back,...

By Jeanne Althouse / Fiction / It was the farthest north they had ever been. That this would be their last expedition never crossed...