Quality Street
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, guest-edited by Claire Messud,February 2010
Sochienne called her a fat bourgeois, a dilettante dancing while Nigeria was failing, as though she could somehow solve the country’s problems by depriving herself of a manicure.
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Zalzala
by Lorraine Adams, guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010His mother was about to say something, but all she could murmur was zalzala. Earthquake.
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Suspension
by Holly Goddard Jones, guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010The soft light of the flames made her face seem prettier than it really was. Younger. She was a fixture in his life, a neutral—at most, perhaps, a reflective surface.
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Simpatico
by Sefi Atta, guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010Violet’s hair salon, Simpatico, was not far from the bus stop at Tafawa Balewa Square. It was on the way to Ikoyi, on a small road where artisans and craftsmen exhibited their works like miniature wooden villages, canoes, painted drums and rag dolls.
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The Norwegians
by Elliott Holt, guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010The Norwegians were coming to dinner.
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The Deer-Vehicle Collision Survivors Support Group
by Porochista Khakpour, guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010This is the storm right before the calm, she is letting it all out now, because she knows it’s coming. She wants to go home, even if it is what she used to call hell sweet hell.
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Surrender
by Hasanthika Sirisena guest-edited by Claire Messud, February 2010As Sunil stood in his backyard staring at the carcass of the small unidentifiable animal—a cross between a rat and a Chihuahua—he realized he was missing something important.
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The Book of Shapur
A novella excerpt by Alimorad Fadaienia, translated from the Farsi by Leigh Shulman, January 2010You take a vacation, you take a plane, and now this. You are running away from knowing this information. This is how things are these days.
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From A Hot Corner of the World: Israeli Fiction
by Assaf Gavron, January 2010We are from different backgrounds. We were born and grew up in different parts of the country: north and south and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and abroad: the core and the periphery.
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Second Chance
by Etgar Keret, guest-edited by Assaf Gavron, January 2010Our Max lived his life straight as an arrow, fast as lightning, no ifs, no buts, at least until now.
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A Competition
by Sami Berdugo, guest-edited by Assaf Gavron, January 2010Nothing has changed with him in the last three days. But I grew up and received additional time that cannot be measured in years.
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A Ship of Girls
by Michal Zamir, guest-edit by Assaf Gavron, January 2010But, truth is, I wasn’t looking too hot after the second scraping. It was only a cleanup job, the abortion just happened.
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Homesick
by Eshkol Nevo, guest-edited by Assaf Gavron, January 2010The Arab is so stunned, he doesn’t move. Just stands there with his certificate and his rusty key. Not breathing.
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Moving
by Assaf Gavron, January 2010After years in moving, you can tell by looking at the stuff. You can tell what it’s worth, if it’s cheap or valuable. And this guy—his stuff is worth billions, you see it immediately. Everything is as expensive as it gets, the furniture, the pictures, and the kitchen.
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The Broken Clock
by Jennifer De Leon, December 2009He tries to kiss her but she moves her chin. He pauses, considers stopping, but tries once more.
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Two Short-Short Stories
by Susan Daitch, December 2009They hired a Yiddish-speaking detective, wagged fingers at the short man clutching a squashed hat, and told him to listen carefully to each performance, find the obscenities, please.
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Pain
by Aurelie Sheehan, November 2009The pain occurs to me, and then I put words to the pain, and before long I am in a cardboard box hurtling through time.
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Red Ink
by Romesh Gunesekera, guest-edited by Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan, November 2009On the day of the battle, General Yu woke up with a severe stiff neck.
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The Other Gandhi
by Tania James, guest-edited by Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan, November 2009“You’re saying that the other Gandhi was created in the editing? Is that what you’re trying to say to me?”
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Murder the Queen
by Hasanthika Sirisena, guest-edited by Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan, November 2009Whatever you might say about the despicable nature of what I did, it was not as the press hints an act of desperation but one of hope.
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A Rightful Share
by Preeta Samarasan, guest-edited by Amitava Kumar and V.V. Ganeshananthan, November 2009I want to tell you about my friend Kandan. Full name Kandan A/L Palanivel. Twenty years old. Handsome bastard.
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Pieter Emily (Part 3 of 3)
by Jesse Ball, October 2009They have seen my house burn. They have shown themselves to be that which they hate, that which they want to chase away out of the village.
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Pieter Emily (Part 2 of 3)
by Jesse Ball, October 2009It was she who befriended Pieter. The things they did were not good things, not always. Once, they cut off a horse’s hoof for no reason at all, and left it on the steps of the church.
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Pieter Emily (Part 1 of 3)
by Jesse Ball, September 2009Since Pieter Emily had been seen, a rash of trouble had begun. The farmers on farms closest to the low road had found animals dead, their throats cut.
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Albino
by Ken Foster, Guest-edited by Pia Ehrhardt, September 2009The dog had first appeared to Boone one night as he sat in what remained of his living room, staring at the tarp that hung in place of what used to be his living room wall.
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Keeping Her Difficult Balance
by Barb Johnson, Guest-edited by Pia Ehrhardt, September 2009Everything floats down to this place, the very end of Bayou St. John where Delia sits, her feet dangling just above the tepid water.
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The Genius Meetings
by Elizabeth Crane, August 2009We meet to congratulate ourselves but we also meet to purge ourselves. We meet to share things we cannot share with you. Smart things but also customs. Like the metaphorical value of sleeping in a nightcap to keep the genius in.
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Whirlpool
by Nahid Rachlin, July 2009The house she grew up in, with its walled-in courtyard, windowless rooms, on gray streets in Ghanat Abad, with some of the houses and shops boarded up, some damaged during the Iran-Iraq war and never repaired, and women walking around in dark shroud-like chadors, had seemed like jail.
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The Last Geronimo
by Laren Stover, July 2009The monkey shrieks and runs across the table, scattering purchase orders. They have just finished the “Fancy Furry Friends” trade show in Las Vegas where the monkey dutifully twirled a tiny baton in a beguiling azure tulle and sequined gown.
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Sarverville Remains
by Josh Weil, June 2009This ain’t a novel, Mister Podawalski. There ain’t no editor like there was for what Sam writ from his mountain. There is just the Lord checking his notes.
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A Rare Sighting
by Erik Raschke, June 2009His excuses were always attributable to recent sightings of Bigfoot, the half-man, half-beast, which he argued demanded immediate documentation by a legitimate authority.
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Three Short-Short Stories
by Jennifer Pieroni, May 2009Aside from the phone calls, it occurred to me that Dan hadn’t spoken to anyone in over a week. The cottage could be isolating in that way and I was too raw for him to go.
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Anaphylaxis
by Jay Johnson, May 2009I washed down the thick, sweet smelling medicine with water, hoping her cramping intestines would absorb it into her bloodstream fast enough to keep her alive until Soweto.
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Día
by Patricia Engel, April 2009I find him sitting on a plastic lounge chair by the hotel pool. I give a little wave and he stands. We kiss on the cheek. He tells me I’m taller than he remembers.
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The Question
By Justo Arroyo translated by Seymour Menton, April 2009The first thing you notice are his eyes.
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A Meeting
by Marie Myung-Ok Lee, March 2009Jiyoung did seem traumatized from the experience. She said she was scared to be by herself at night, so Jan let her stay in her apartment, and of course Jan stayed with her. I wasn’t so happy about my bed being empty, but I wanted to do the bigger thing, so I didn’t complain, not a peep.
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Loyalty
by Eugene Cross, March 2009We were not inventive people and so we called my friend Crazy Fucker. He took to the name like he took to us, with a fierce loyalty.
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Forgiveness
by Nathaniel Bellows, February 2009Her advisor leaned toward her, his face close to hers, and looked her square in the eyes. “Nan,” he said. “No one can ever really plan for things like this.”
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Four Short-Short Stories
by Kim Chinquee, January 2009He was mostly into curve balls. He handled the ball in odd ways, not holding the way you were supposed to, with your fingers in the right holes, lining up, getting centered. He bowled as if it were a dance, a slow one with a beat you made up from the inside.
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Jesse’s Story
by Ru S. Freeman, January 2009I smell the already decaying flowers and the fresh blooms neatly laid by anonymous hands. The skid marks are already filled in. There is no trace of him.
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The Trapdoor
by Sergio Ramírez Mercado, translated by David Unger, December 2008Five rounds passed, without pain or glory. Nothing happened in the ring to excite the sparse crowd.
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No. 2 Dumpling Assembly Line
by Charles Lowe, December 2008The first to go was the coal delivery man and his daughter. His name was Zhou, sounding like the Duke of Zhou, a prominent early follower of Confucius. The choice of the coal delivery man was a popular one. The coal delivery man was known for shorting the residents on coal.
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Food
by Glen Pourciau, November 2008I’m a better person than a particular author of a particular story says I am and I won’t keep quiet about it any longer. One reason I can’t hold my peace is that the author is my husband.
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Clever Kidz
by Mark Edmund Doten, November 2008She grabbed my hair at the nape, plunged me in, jammed mud past my teeth. She’s a Blackwater mercenary, so no messing around. She wasn’t here for Christmas but at last I found her on the bank of the river, I was back with my sister at last!
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The Seven Credos: Guernica Fiction Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus
by Ben Marcus, October 2008I want to offer one-sentence credos written by each of the contributors, and it will show you in shorthand what drives them, what they believe is possible in writing, and how they distill their practice (especially when they know that their sentences will be published without attribution, which is how I got them to cough up these mottos in the first place).
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January in December
by Matthew Derby, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus, October 2008Church was bunk. Scarves were bunk. The cold was bunk. Robert Fancer’s grandfather, the man he was wheeling back from afternoon service in a crappy chair, was massively bunk.
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The Peephole
by Joe Wenderoth, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus, October 2008We are all of us spectators—and this must be asserted in the face of the many naive traditions insisting that a portion of us are of a lesser sort, and can or should not truly bear witness to Agony and all that precedes it.
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Christiana
by April Wilder, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus, October 2008In the end Julia agreed to three days in Denmark. She could spare three days and, while penciling out the trip on her map, she spilled coffee all over Ireland and took that as a sign that Denmark had a...
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Bob Alfresco
by Douglas Elsass, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus, October 2008Bob was inside. He wanted alfresco. He was debating the exact how of this on what he called a couch, but what even the most generous and wine gay and stylishly rhetorical layman would describe as a series of crates...
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Regards from Mozambique
by Dyannah Byington, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus , October 2008Gordon was the only person she knew, other than her parents, who paid to have a paper delivered to his door each morning. He followed gubernatorial campaigns in states he did not live in and had never lived in.
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from Vacation
by Deb Olin Unferth, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus , October 2008in superficial ways—the size of the chimney or placement of the porch—or in meeker assertions, a mailbox that looked like a reindeer, a soggy doll fastened to a swing. Evidence of thoughtless, pleasureless lives.
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She Is, Because
by Rozalia Jovanovic, Guest-Edited by Ben Marcus, October 2008She was walking with the short man. Though only yesterday she had been with the tall man. Or she was walking behind the short man, down the street, wondering did she really want to do this and if not why would she be doing it?
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Waiting
by E.C. Osondu (Winner of the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing), October 2008My friends in the camp are known by the inscriptions written on their t-shirts. Acapulco wears a t-shirt with the inscription, Acapulco. Sexy’s t-shirt has the inscription Tell Me I’m Sexy. Paris’s t-shirt says See Paris And Die.
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Postcards from the Museum of Olivia
by Eric Kraft, October 2008In Leroy's account, a woman named Amanda, who wears a name tag that identifies her as a sales associate at the Museum of Olivia, explains that entering the town requires the payment of an admission fee because, "the Town of Olivia is the Museum of Olivia."
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The Woman on the Tape
by Anya Yurchyshyn, October 2008Things float around like the room is a tide pool. I’m never sure what’s going to be where and what’s going to appear.
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The Memoirs and Prison Journal of Horace W. Redpole, 1793-1794
by Paul Gregory Himmelein, September 2008Grandmother was sprawled upon the couch in a heap of black crinoline; her shockingly white legs were raised in the air. Mr. Sparrow supported himself in a very precarious position and did not look the least bit comfortable but was busy grinding his privates into Grandmother’s, much like a mortar and pestle.
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Philip strolled, a coffee and newspaper in hand, and the smog from a Chardonequila hangover—Chardonnay-tequila shooters followed with a splash of Tabasco sauce—clattering about his head.
After Lilly
by Douglas Light, August 2008They met along the East River, beneath the Manhattan Bridge, on the esplanade. Saturday morning. The air smelled of tar and talcum powder, the river kicking off the odor in swells. All along the promenade, Asians fished or kissed. Philip...
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Plastic Jade
by Laura McCullough, July 2008Melissa didn’t think anything about Boone at all, but she smiled at him. She ducked her eyes, looking away the way men like a girl to do. In the years she’d been in this brothel, she’d learned a lot about what men want.
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The 24-Hour Date
by Lisa Lim, July 2008Acorns began to fall from the sky and slapped him with the ferocity of bullets in a gang shooting. I told him he could boast of hickies on his neck on his second date. I grew suddenly hot and wanted to masturbate in the woods hysterical naked.
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Korean Enough: Alexander Chee on New Korean American Fiction
by Alexander Chee, June 2008I lived my first three years in Korea, in my grandfather’s house in Seoul, before we moved to Truk, Hawaii, Guam, then Maine. My mother tells me that the first written words I ever read aloud were “Obi Mechu”,...
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Burial (from a novel-in-progress)
by Catherine Chung, Guest-Edited by Alexander Chee, June 2008She was limp and sweaty but I snuggled into the comfortable softness of her. They had cut her open, and she was whole. She looked very tired and sick; on her gown, blood bloomed like a slow flower.
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Gwangju (from a novel-in-progress)
by Elaine H. Kim, Guest-Edited by Alexander Chee, June 2008Smoke lingered in the air but I knew it wasn’t the smoke I was reacting to. Hundreds of feet thundered by, some in sneakers and socks, others in heavy, lace-up boots. We were in a storm of bodies, arms, and legs pumping here and there, shouts and chants interspersed with cries of rage and screams of pain. I
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NOGM (from a novel-in-progress)
by Jin Young Sohn, Guest-Edited by Alexander Chee, June 2008He responded to my Craigslist posting fairly quickly. Age, location, and phone number—he was strictly business. I was hesitant about meeting him, but he kept saying, Nothing has to happen. It doesn't have to if you don't want it to. We'll go somewhere well-lit. C’mon.
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Tube of Thunder
by Amanda Nazario , June 2008Mike is irresistible—a skinny guy with worried eyebrows. He likes to hustle poker, does not own a TV, and carries a handkerchief around for his allergies. His apartment is directly under Hellgate Bridge; he gets it cheap because a train shakes the building six times a day.
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How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone
An excerpt from the novel by Sasa Stanisic , May 2008You didn't have a real grandpa, Aleksandar, only a sad man. He mourned for his river and his earth. He would kneel down, scratch about in that earth of his until his fingernails broke and the blood came.
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The Machine Edda
An excerpt of a novel in progress by Zachary Mason, April 2008First they see the pale tendrils of steam rising up and then the gleaming cantilevered roof and then they are pulling up their wagons before the refinery, which is like a haphazardly assembled aluminum pagoda set into the high wall that marks the boundary of the kingdom Mnemosyne.
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The Loves of Mao
by Jane Wong, April 2008Mao loves to swim. Beside Li-Min’s bed, above her nightstand, there is evidence. A yellowing newspaper clipping displays Mao Tse-tung’s perfectly round head and shining eyes, bobbing brilliantly out of the Yangtze’s dark waves.
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Can you imagine the static electricity produced by a turned on giant gorilla?
All That is Solid
By Susan Daitch , April 2008Can you imagine the static electricity produced by a turned on giant gorilla?
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Last year sucked for everybody, except maybe Jackie, who found true happiness with Carlene. He moved out just after Labor Day, leaving a bunch of stuff behind and promising to help me out with rent until I could figure things out
Something So Nice for Nobody
by Amy Brill, April 2008Last year sucked for everybody, except maybe Jackie, who found true happiness with Carlene. He moved out just after Labor Day, leaving a bunch of stuff behind and promising to help me out with rent until I could figure things out
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Two Short-Short Stories
By Laura van den Berg, February 2008Before coming to the Amazon, she had heard stories about Jacques Gallant, whispers from female scientists at zoology conferences, always about a colleague-of-a-colleague who had been seduced by Jacques underneath a jungle canopy or in a mountain cave.
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You Don't Say
By Elizabeth Koch, February 2008I reached across the table and scooped pasta out of his bowl, ate it with my hands. He sighed. “You have tomato on your chin.”
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Downtown we still took calm assurance. We knew peacetime lay only a subway ride’s distance. There, our friends weren’t wheezing and didn’t have telltale lines of silt on their shoulders and calves from the rains of dust. They weren’t yet accustomed to seeing soldiers from southern cities whose names they’d never heard in the anarchist cafés. Last week, talk was of recycling and vegan shoes. Now it was about gas masks, on soldiers and neighbors.
The Noticers (Novel Excerpt)
By Elizabeth Kadetsky, January 2008When the heat comes I have to get out. I live on the top floor of a tenement walk-up, a flat filled to clutter with the detritus of a lifetime in New York City, my belongings packed so tight they seem to sweat and absorb all that’s breathable from the still air and deprive me of oxygen when I try to sleep. Such is the heat wave untempered by air conditioning. I haven’t slept in nights.
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Join the Club
By Geoff Kirsch, January 2008Thus began my fascination with Holden Caulfield. Not the Holden Caulfield, archetypal anti-hero of American arts and letters, not to mention inspiration for some of our better-read assassins. I’m talking about Holden Caulfield Sapperstein, an all-too-real young lady whose parents named her, for better or worse, after their favorite author’s infamous creation.
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When Rain Hits This City Already Floundering
By A. Igoni Barrett, January 2008The sergeant dealt him a series of rapid-fire slashes across the face with his whip, and then dragged him to the edge of the flooded pit. He let go of him and stepped back a pace. His face had regained its humanity. "Roll in the mud, you shit," he said, calmly.
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The Papermaker
By Benjamin Rybeck, January 2008The young man was having a cigarette on the street corner, feeling just about ready to get on with his day, when a man with a Clark Gable moustache and a shaved head leaned out his second story window and called down, “Hey you.”
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A Person of Interest (a novel excerpt)
By Susan Choi, Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman, November 2007Everything as it always was, day after day, until the thunderous boom.
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Two Films (a novel excerpt)
By Ernesto Mestre-Reed, Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman, November 2007As the projector unexplainably kept on rolling even after the house lights went up and the medics made their way to the front, some, apparently to the filmmaker’s credit as an artist and perhaps his detriment as a person, continued to watch and even laugh at the hazy antics on the screen.
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Ball Game (a novel excerpt)
By Gabriela Jauregui, Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman, November 2007He should have been thankful that Xavi died when their friendship was still intact, still unconditionally generous, as strong as their youthful athletes' muscles, as stubbornly perfect.
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You’re My Only Home (a novel excerpt)
By Jay Caspian Kang, Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman, November 2007The mirror needs to be hung up at a height of 18 feet. The four-foot stepladder we borrowed from the Weisses comes up nine feet short, and climbing the low-hanging branches has not been as easy as I first imagined. The bark leaves a slippery residue on my palms and the needles tear away as easily as leper hair.
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Atmospheric Disturbances (a novel excerpt)
By Rivka Galchen, Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman, November 2007Those phrases, something has changed, just need to get away, personal vacation, were not really my words but TV words, movie words, pollen in the air.
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456 Victoria (a novel excerpt)
By Bex Brian, Guest-Edited By Francisco Goldman , November 2007“I can’t study here." Karenne’s hand waved loosely over the room. Augati saw the whole shabby truth of her life. The coffee table: a door, the handle still on poking up through the magazines that concealed the rest, rows upon rows of old magazines, many with missing covers, many marked and marred by grease, spilled coffee, forgotten bubble gum. Even the pillow she had picked up when she joined Karenne was bald, and it stank.
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Six Stories Guest-Edited by Francisco Goldman
by Francisco Goldman, November 2007I had already agreed to guest edit a selection of fiction for Guernica earlier this summer. Then, on July 24th, at the beach in Mazunte, Mexico, my wife Aura Estrada suffered a fatal swimming accident. Of course, along with...
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Glass
By Chad Simpson, September 2007“Just lie there,” he would say. “Pretend your hands are tied to the bed frame. Pretend you can’t move them.”
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Nick’s Inferno (The twenty-seven notebooks of Nick Dante)
By Laren Stover, September 2007Maybe I used to be innocent, before I was four, or five, before I stole Veronica’s silver dollars and lit fires. I sleep under God’s moon and God’s shooting stars and I swear if I see one tonight I will make a wish.
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How to Rent a Hotel Room
By David Stuart MacLean, September 2007I miss her. She had a way of walking out of a dressing room, when she was trying on pants that would take your breath away.
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It's Not About the Dog
By Susan Taylor Chehak, August 2007"How can you stand to live out here in the middle of nowhere, Iris?" she asks, as if this wasn't at one time her hometown too. She waits, but I am not going to play. She studies me. "Oh, I get it," she says. "You guys think you're safe.”
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Cake
by Glen Pourciau, August 2007A guy in a suit, I don't know him, walks by my cubicle holding one of the paper plates, his mouth full, chewing his last bite, folds the plate around his napkin and fork and cake crumbs, leans into my cubicle, reaches around a corner and stuffs the plate in my garbage can. No look, no excuse me, no nothing.
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Jameson
By Dave Englander, Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007Jameson stayed silent for the rest of the ride, but secretly brooded over the fact that Rickter didn’t think he smiled enough. He smiled. That was something he did.
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Warmish
by Alex Waxman, Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007What we heard wasn't wisdom. Friends made suggestions, dumb things. I didn’t hear them or listen. I snoozed on painkillers, lay on linen.
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F=ma
By Rebecca Schiff, Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007The boy who knew the answers was very short, almost as short as me, a short girl. He had to shave every day early though—he was that kind of short. I’m the other kind, the kind that had to shave late. I did everything late. I’m still waiting for a lot of things to happen to me.
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Coaches’ Night Out
By Jeff Bender, Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007And there we were—the three of us—me and Regan on either side, the ugly girl in the middle, bobbing up and down with the music, her hips buried in Regan’s crotch, her hands on my shoulders. I spread my arms out like an eagle.
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Five Stories Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte
by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007Guest editor Sam Lipsyte on how he chose this month's fiction and why "bad" writers can always become good ones.
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Aide
By Vivien Drabkin, Guest-Edited by Sam Lipsyte, July 2007Heartburn raced up her throat. Janet’s stomach bloated out in response. She felt her chest open and prepared to become a tunnel of God.
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Four Stories Guest-Edited by Dawn Raffel
by Dawn Raffel, May 2007I am delighted to present the works of four writers whose originality, intelligence and emotional acuity I deeply admire. The stories I’ve chosen are quite different from one another, in large part because each of these authors—Victoria Redel, Norman Lock,...
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Messengers
By Brad Zellar, Guest-Edited by Dawn Raffel , May 2007They'd been chosen for their stoic, no-nonsense demeanors. They weren't happy to be dead, and they'd all been taken quickly, violently, and much too young. None of them were much for conversation, but they found things to say to each other as they drove to and from assignments.
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En Route
By Victoria Redel, Guest-Edited by Dawn Raffel , May 2007See how quickly a story complicates.
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By Artifice Do We Shut Ourselves Away From Night
By Norman Lock, Guest-Edited by Dawn Raffel, May 2007I am playing the shepherd’s game with the Shepherdess far underground, by the secret lake, beneath a cyclorama on which, suitable to the evening hour, the blue of afternoon is deepening to plum, while, one by one, stars appear according to a lighting scheme designed by the hotel’s Electrician. When in the world, he lit the stage for Max Reinhart and other directors of German Expressionism. “Life is an illusion,” I tell the Shepherdess, my hand rummaging in her blouse.
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The Missing Thing
By Chris Waddington, Guest-Edited by Dawn Raffel, May 2007After a year, Phillip said they should try again. He told Muriel what she already knew—that such problems were all too common with first pregnancies. Pressing her hand, he repeated everything the doctors had told them.
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Eminent Domain
by John Michael Cummings, April 2007She turned and lifted her windbreaker in back to show me the 14-inch, priceless George Washington bayonet, stolen out of the history lab and notched down the back of her jeans, the dagger-like tip wedged down the crack of her butt. “Jesus,” I said, grinning, “You carried it like that?”
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Tadpoles
by Stephen Raleigh Byler, March 2007"We’re not firefighters,” Francis said. The skinny man laughed. “Did you hear that guys? They say they’re not firefighters,” he called to the other five men who hadn’t gotten up to greet us but were still sitting down, smoking and conversing. “Slater, you a firefighter?” The man who apparently went by Slater smiled. “Hell no.”
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Buick
by Beth Bosworth, March 2007"He asked that his ashes be dumped in the Gowanus," I told them all. I put the lid back on the urn very carefully. The woman in the red dress adjusted her sateen shoulder strap. The car salesman began dusting off his knees, then stopped. Little bits of my father could very well have been clinging there.
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Four Stories Guest-Edited by Frederic Tuten
by Frederic Tuten, December 2006Was dying to write something witty and engaging and perhaps even interesting to introduce these four stories. And, finally, to leave a mark—if only a coffee stain—on the page of Literature. I thought to give descriptions of the work, the...
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MENU
By Iris Smyles, Guest-Edited by Frederic Tuten, December 2006You never expect a zombie to lean over and bite you, so you don't really notice it before it's too late and the zombie apocalypse has begun. If you knew, you could easily outrun the slow moving ones. You could just walk a little faster and you’d be fine. The way they get you is that you don’t know that they are coming.
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Big Truck
by Aurelie Sheehan, Guest-Edited by Frederic Tuten, December 2006Once you've been with a guy who has a big truck, there's no going back. It's depressing but true, it's like falling off a cliff. May as well just slit your wrists, dig a hole, and write the obituary.
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Fashionable
By Diane Williams, Guest-Edited by Frederic Tuten , December 2006Her face was too white and the skin was thickened and shadowed and defined by a deep rich pink luster and her house is filled with moquette furnishings.
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The Cat's Meow
By Shelley Jackson, Guest-Edited by Frederic Tuten , December 2006My daughter wears a jacket, like a book, but she is not a book, though she goes to the library. A book does not put other books under its jacket and walk away with them. My daughter tells me all the library books must be returned to the wood, and that is where she is taking them. She stacks them up into trunks and branches and tells them they are trees.
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George Saunders, Guernica's Guest Fiction Editor
by George Saunders, October 2006The essential thing is having a talent for having talent.
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Birdsongs East of the Rockies
By Lisa Nold, Guest-Edited by George Saunders, October 2006These sounds occupy many spaces, much like birds; there are the ones that rise upward and paint glorious arcs in the sky, and there are others that scale close to the ground or simply molt.
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Important Men
By Adam Levin, Guest-Edited by George Saunders, October 2006The important man had the kind of face that would look no different without the mustache.
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Karate Kid
By Eric Rosenblum, Guest-Edited by George Saunders, October 2006"I thought it was going to be about this kid who was really good at karate, but he wasn't. The kid wasn't good at anything."
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Working Up to the Dragon
by Chet Kozlowski, August 2006“But you know the craziest thing, Steven?” he said. “I think the dragon was loose. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks because of the fog, but I swear there wasn’t a line attached to it. It swooped around the others, and then — whoosh! — it was gone."
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Sliding By
by David Unger, July 2006Not surprisingly, Abie did well. If he had a talent, it was that he could sell anything to anyone: porn to a priest, whiskey to a teetotaler.
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Instructions for Sinning
by Franco Ferrucci, June 2006Arturo had been the second to emerge, so perhaps it was he who was the intruder.
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Facial Geometry
by Maureen Seaton, Kristine Snodgrass and Neil de la Flor, Guest-Edited by Terese Svoboda, May 2006I sat upright in the boat of freedom.
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The Myth of Drowning
by Dawn Raffel, Guest-Edited by Terese Svoboda, May 2006"She couldn't swim. Or cramps. Maybe undertow. The undertow was wicked."
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6 excerpts from “In This Alone Impulse”
by Shya Scanlon with illustrations by James J. Williams, Guest-Edited by Terese Svoboda, May 2006I’m down beneath it when a wood bump wakes me.
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from The Body is Still Warm
by Edie Meidav, April 2006Our love was probably less sexual than total, Californian in its appreciation of the other’s physical being, an annexation of identity.
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Two Doctors
by Terese Svoboda, April 2006Usually when you yourself want to scream what comes out is a whimper, a catch-in-the-throat kind of vocal.
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Trip to Saigon
by Kerri Smith, November 2005I tell myself I bought the painting as a souvenir, a memory in the French sense. But really it is my consolation for not finding out Amy’s name.
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The Waves
by Salar Abdoh, September 2005You didn't get trapped in the marshes on a moonless night and simply crawl your way back home.
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An Excerpt from Tintin in the New World
by Frederic Tuten, May 2005“You must find me very queer then, Madame Clavdia. I’m sorry if I disconcert you,” Tintin said, his voice low, his eyes downcast.
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The Name of the Father
by Jorge Volpi, May 2005Cowering behind an almost idiotic silence, I avoided looking into his eyes, gripped by the same fear that must have gripped Odysseus as he ran from the singular gaze of the Cyclops.
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The Magic Box
By Anna Lidia Vega Serova, May 2005She thought something bad was happening to her parents. She got up and walked barefoot to the curtain dividing the room in two.
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Excerpt from The Emigrant’s Hand
by Manuel Rivas, May 2005You could look from one end to the other, but for me there was only Castro’s hand, it held me in a hypnotic grip.
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From New Hats for Alice
2 Stories by Julián Ríos, January 2005Are your recollections really recent or do they reflect a remote past? You feel as if time is not time on the clock, and an aura of unreality surrounds you.
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From ‘foreign gods, inc.’
by Okey Ndibe, January 2005To be more specific, we own a Wolof god of justice and an Ewe goddess of fertility,”
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Paying Dues and Drinking Booze
by Tito Matamala, January 2005On the roofs of the city, the rain played its final concerto for piano and elephants, one rehearsed so many times before
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Vital Information
by Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, January 2005Since it is very hot out at sea, sometimes someone comes down with a little fever.
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Ions
by Germán Sierra, October 2004We sleep in sleeping bags on the beach, so in order to get close to you I have to slip out of mine first, then slip you out of yours.
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Thirty-Seventh of Tales of The Nameless
by Alimorad Fadaienia, October 2004We went to a cafe I knew near the bookstore. I tried to please him by saying, they have excellent coffee here.