by JOHN HAGGERTY At 3:55PM I close the Threat Desk. I say “close” in the interests of accuracy, because at the inception of the Threat Desk program, when we were given a generous selection of models and options to choose … Continued

by SAM BEDNARCHIK St. Louis, MO: Dorothy, a publishing project, 2017. 215 pp. By my roughly crunched count, Leonora Carrington’s complete literary output totals just over 600 pages of writing. Her Complete Stories, reissued by Dorothy in a beautiful book … Continued

by MARK GOODRICH Lizzy sat in the recliner her kids had bought her when they moved her into the home after Joe had died. The television was on, some news program, muted. One window in the small living room, looking … Continued

by LINDSAY WILSON Lake Buena Vista, California. At dusk, if you are lucky, this man-made lake’s surface lays as still as hand beaten metal, the thin imperfect mirror of which breaks with each fish biting at the steel ceiling of … Continued

by RICHARD SCHMITT This morning I beat the old lady next door up, which makes me happy, kick-starts the day. She’s tough to beat up that one. Kind-of-a raw old lady, bare-knuckled and hunchbacked, knobby knees and elbows, walking bow-legged … Continued

by BRANDON TIMM Failing deodorant hung thick around Lisa as she fought through the surging crowd around the zoo’s tiger exhibit. God, she could taste the people baking in the sun. Their sweat, their excitement, every expectation gliding salty over … Continued

Geri Ulrey is a writer, filmmaker, and educator living in Los Angeles. She has also been published in Gulf Coast, was a finalist for the 2016 Gulf Coast Prize in Nonfiction, and shortlisted as a finalist for the 2015 Disquiet … Continued

by BEN MURPHY Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2016. Brian Evenson’s collection A Collapse of Horses is an experiment in incomprehension. That’s not to say that the narratives themselves are incomprehensible; rather, each of the thirteen stories depicts failures to understand. … Continued

by NIELS RINEHART “I’m telling you, I’ve been looking at that cigarette on the window sill since I got moved to this cell five years ago.” The new kid sat on the opposite bunk, holding the cigarette in the palm … Continued

SHELLEY BERG ’s stories have appeared in Phoebe and Passages North. She lives with her husband and two children in Dedham, Massachusetts, where she is working on her first novel. Her story, “The Dirty White Sky,” appeared in Carolina Quarterly … Continued