Mimi Herman, to be featured in CQ 66.2, was selected as the 2017 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate! Congrats!

by LESLEE BECKER The name-calling started with an argument about John Wayne. We’d been watching a John Wayne movie on TV, my mother laying it on about The Duke’s good looks and heroism. My father shook his head. “John Wayne … Continued

by ROBERT DALL The address was somewhere near Newtown Creek, in the borderlands between Queens and Brooklyn but also between rebirth and decay: abandoned warehouses, chop shops, and fuel tanks slowly giving way to row houses, burger joints, and bodegas. … Continued

PAUL LINCZAK received an MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a Cornelia Carhart Ward Fellow in Fiction. His writing has appeared in Salt Hill and Stone Canoe. His story, “Frankenstorm,” appeared in Carolina Quarterly 65.3. CQ: While the protagonist … Continued

by MARK JACOBS A bunch of noisy goddamn ducks were flying over the hospital as the orderly wheeled Glynda’s wheelchair out to the taxi. Geese, probably they were geese. Whatever. The orderly was a studly black guy named Lorenzo. No … Continued

by LINDA WOOLFORD From below the water’s surface, Sammy saw a smear of sky. It was like looking through the glass-top coffee table he hid beneath to get his breath when it felt like war all around him. Here, underwater, … Continued

Brandon Barrett is a practicing cardiologist living in rural Virginia with his wife and son. His stories have appeared in The Literary Review, The Cossack Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Jersey Devil Press, and elsewhere. His story, “Gerald’s Last Ghost Story,” … Continued

by SHELLY WEATHERS I was sent down the street with a bottle of mentholated liniment to give to Mrs. Jesop for her spider-bitten leg. “Mrs. Jesop?” I whispered or mouthed through the screen door from her front stoop. It was … Continued

Ryan Habermeyer earned his MFA from the University of Massachusetts and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Missouri.  His fiction has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from … Continued

Matt Izzi lives in East Boston. His stories have been published in Post Road Magazine, Shenandoah, and elsewhere.  A short play of his appears in the current issue of Third Coast.  He is originally from Rhode Island. His story, “Bully … Continued