By Cesar E. Cisneros / Fiction /     The long winding creak and loud clank of the apartment gate rattles us awake. “Mom?” my brother calls out, brushing the sleep out of his eyes.  No scratching of the keys against the lock, no jingling of the doorknob, no yelling to put away our shit—only silence at our door. I yell at him to go back to sleep, smashing the pillow against my ear, but he peeks through the window blinds to find her. It’s still dark out. He puts his head back

By Grant Jarrett / Fiction /     It was early on a Tuesday morning in May when Leviticus Tate perceived that he had the ability to rise into the air, to hover. This wasn't just the residue of another aeronautic dream. It was a simple, indisputable fact; something he knew, understood, a part of him, like an instinct, like swallowing or breathing or scratching an itch. And yet this was unlike anything else. This was singular, exciting, life altering. There were questions of co

By Yolanda Kwadey / Fiction /     My sister said they cut her, that one of the babies wouldn’t turn the right way, and that she was in breach even past the forty-two weeks. So, she let them cut her open, seven layers of tissue in all. Nobody in my family was really known for their patience. There were scars to prove it, old streaks of torn skin from Ma’s canes when she’d lose whatever smidgeon of patience she possessed. The people of my generation in this part of the world c

By Christie Cochrell / Fiction /     No one really knows why restoration stopped on the abandoned St. Julian hotel, where commoners and kings once came to relax in luxury. The investors behind its latest makeover were said to be from Japan, so weren't around on the island to brief the media, to quell rumors, to affirm or deny any of the unlikely stories circulating of forced labor, trafficking, Somali pirates (Chinese thugs?) on motorboats landing one moonless night and spir

By Erica Ottenberg / Fiction /     Daniel sits two feet from Jen across a table sticky with a palimpsest of spilled beer. She hasn’t seen him in twenty-four days. Now it’s like she’s looking at him through a microscope lens—a five-foot-ten specimen on a slide. She can count the pores on his nose and the follicular root of each hair in his five o’clock shadow. A man, reduced to a mound of cells. Particles and pigments and collagen fibers converge, affording him the tint of an

By A.S. Aubrey / Fiction /     I was determined to climb the tree outside my window—maybe because you told me not to. Knock-kneed bony and my oily unwashed hair in my face. Those Levis that made me look like a boy with the bulge at the zipper on my too-skinny body (Shelly and Sarah laughing at me on the playground, pointing), and my legs moving, into those limbs, panting with freedom.  It was early morning, before cartoons, when you would lie in bed with your cigarettes, th

By Patricia Canright Smith / Fiction /           If you wish to live and thrive,       Let a spider run alive.            LET’S BE FRIENDS There’s more to a spider than the number of legs. We would like you humans to know us. We would like to share what we know about you humans. Knowledge leads to understanding; understanding leads to respect. It’s time. Most humans approach spiders with fear and loathing. A furry little creature with four legs:  Oooo. A furry little crea

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...