* Lillian Li *
Remember when you were a fan of just about everything? “Please don’t scream in the car!” your dad would shout when you became overexcited by a dog we had just driven past, or a convertible with its top up. “You’re going to give me a heart attack!” As early as the first grade, you had already accessed your stores of obsessive energy. You could not be contained.
Love Letter to My Fanfiction Past Read More »
* Kevin Haworth *
In Israel and Gaza, there are sounds that tell you when someone is trying to kill you. In Israel, a high-pitched siren signals an incoming missile and sends everyone to the nearest cover—either a public shelter, or the basement of your apartment, or your stairwell, or, if you’re on the highway, huddled between your car and the concrete divider, the best of bad circumstances.
Aan Alle Slachtoffers Read More »
* fiction by Courtney Sender, excerpted from MQR 53:2, Spring 2014 * Look, the truth of the way of the world is that David loves Moira enough to move to the middle of Nothing, England, for her, and Moira doesn’t love David enough to pick up the goddamned phone.
All David wants to do is warn her:
“We Can Practice Starts,” by Courtney Sender Read More »
* Paula Mendoza *
At the time, I was only dimly aware of the work that house members, reproductive rights activists, and other civic minded people were doing to call attention to, and prevent the passage of, this bill. That night I was to be thrown into the thick of it.
* Kaveh Bassiri *
Like many great works of modernist literature, these texts were new, self-conscious, and critical, though the Persian works seem to be darker and more scathing. Yet what is most unusual about these books is that they were mainly written and published in other countries. In other words, key foundational works of modern Iranian literature was born elsewhere.
Iranian Literature Born in Exile Read More »
* Gina Balibrera *
Many nights I fall asleep reading. Glasses on my face, a light turned on beside me, fans whirring, only a few pages in: in bed, on the couch, or, a couple times lately, in the bathtub. I awake with a start, close the book, settle into the brief remaining dark. Here are three I’ve been reading.
That Summer Feeling Read More »
* Leah Falk *
Is the sense of shapelessness that comes with mid-summer something an artist should dread, or use?
* Claire Skinner *
Three miles up the canyon, I see a bear. We’re standing on a small cliff overlooking McGee Creek. Like many Sierra Nevada streams, McGee is lush: willows, wild rose, wildflowers, and quaking aspen, their bark white as milk.
Get Their Good Tidings Read More »
* Mary Camille Beckman *
The obituary form is form par excellence. It’s formula—a formula that prefigures its content. Like air inside a balloon, the content of my grandmother’s life—names, dates, places, accomplishments—took the shape of its container.
A Form of Loss: On Writing an Obituary Read More »
* Jeremy Allan Hawkins *
In recent times, La Petite France has become one of the most heavily frequented tourist areas in Strasbourg, known for its unrivaled quaintness. The history of the neighborhood is, however, more colorful than any Christmas display, and many thousand times more sordid. One of the first facts a newcomer learns here is about the origins of its name. Apparently it was inspired by a hospice built in the fifteenth century to house soldiers with syphilis, known at the time as the “French disease,”
Fantasy in La Petite France Read More »
