Letter from the Editor
Appropriately (and to the dismay of some pun-hating colleagues), we have named this special collection of works our “Experi-May-ntal” issue!
It’s Sixty-Six Degrees in February Bingo
Shed your jacket,
because it’s sixty-
six degrees
outside (you live
in a part of the
world where this
is bad)
Christopher Alan McDaniel of Swamp Ape Review on Hybrid Work, Local Mythos, and “Weirdness” in Literary Publishing
I think the academic, the prestigiousness, of what we do sometimes makes it so we have to deviate into these buckets: this is nonfiction, this is fiction, and then this is poetry. We exclude so much good literature that doesn't fit neatly into one of those boxes.
Synonyms & Antonyms
We stood in silence glancing at everyone in the bar but one another, until the fireworks started popping.
In Defense of the Weird Girls: Writing as a Love Letter to the Inner Child
Girlhood is remembered as a freezepop staining my fingers red, a scalp sunburn hidden underneath a camp bandana, and the grit of gravel stuck in a scraped knee.
The Phoenix Aces
Keep all of the stress in one hand, shuffling as often as you need to, until it finally becomes an unbearable burden, and you must make this fourth move.
F*ck the General Audience
I’ve stopped worrying about people who don’t understand my work. It’s much more rewarding to find people that do and cultivate that niche. If you’re willing to write it, then chances are someone is going to love to read it.
Metamorphosis
Later, I told Sylvia that I didn’t want to play with Arnau anymore. I said that we needed to focus on the package we were presenting to the audience. He wasn’t good enough, I claimed. She drained her drool from the trumpet and said, “No te vendas.” She didn’t want me to bring my Americanness, or wherever I was meant to claim, to our group. We would not sell ourselves.
Writing in the Present: An Interview with Alexandria Peary
It’s like this: it’s a call and response. I’m really, literally, sending a question to my unconscious, and I’m waiting to see what comes back.
Having a Baby at 20
I love cute small things and my baby
would be so cute imagine
its eyes so big so bright its happy
kicking legs its pink bud of mouth
Everything Might Just Happen
Ramon was the golden child of a musical Catalan family. He’d been handed a trumpet at age five and told, “This is your future.”
ALWAYS SOMETHING FALLING
Maybe spirits? The lake
is a mirror, then it isn’t. Only
the memory of it.
Accessibility (Dis)services at AWP
Without being truly inclusive, how can we, as a field of professionals, claim to promote and see all voices, all perspectives, all experiences?
Fragments of the Letter I Keep Tearing Up
“Gwen, I feel like a man’s idea of a hysterical woman. I feel like a stopped clock rewound to the wrong time. There’s this girl; I feel like I know her from somewhere.”
The Tears of Agnes
I severed the tranquility of the silent forest with my laughter. It was a warning to the beast, I told myself.
A Letter from the Editor
Our February collection features a range of wonderful pieces from a talented group of contributors. Despite the diversity in genre and form, it’s impossible to ignore the emphasis on human connection, exploring what it means to face loneliness. Through these stories, we are launched from earth into space and dragged back down again. After our travels, we arrive back in a place that feels the same, yet changed.
The Genealogist Catalogues Every Living Hand
The baby of me going out like a light—
sisters’ hands caught mid-gesture
in sharp flight between words