Author: Editor (Page 5 of 70)

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Trajectory

13 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Matt Zambito

The Moon grounds me so much
that the pressure leaves me
as if a pile of stable dust, while

the gravity of our planet is so weak
that I might float off and away
if I’m not careful. If I am careful,
I try to stare through the sand of

my glasses to see the particles
parting as if they weren’t as
they are but how they should be

if not for heat melting and space-
time’s curve pulling. To be safe
(or at least to be on its side), I’ve
got weighted boots on to tromp

over gray dirt hidden on Earth’s
surface, the force of being lessoned,
its meaning more than any orbit.

Matt Zambito is the author of The Fantastic Congress of Oddities, and two chapbooks, Guy Talk and Checks & Balances. New poems appear in Freshwater Literary Journal, Braided Way, and Pioneertown. Originally from Niagara Falls, he now writes from Wilson, New York, where he resides with his rescue dog, Sadie.

Another Day at Sea

10 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Brian Christopher Giddens

How the body aches in the morning.
But what to do? Bed needs making,
dog wants walking, and garbage
overflows the bin. Life continues
even when the body wants to stay
inert, warm under the covers, listening
to the radio alarm, always set to NPR,
sharing stories about all the busy
people creating chaos around us.

Like an old dog, the corpus needs
nudging, as “no” isn’t an answer.
Things move slower, the world
spins faster, but the movements,
memorized, fall into place. With
a wince and a wobble, rusted
and ragged, the ship still sails.

Brian Christopher Giddens writes fiction and poetry from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his husband, and Jasper the dog. Brian’s writing has been featured in The New York Times (Tiny Love Stories), Passager, The Bluebird Word, Rabble Review, Hyacinth Review, Roi Faineant, Amazine, Glimpse, and other publications.

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

Speak to Me of Spring

7 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

When I was little, my middle sister’s face
grew milky. Her thin body swayed, then wafted
to the linoleum like mimosa silk.

I thought she was dead.
I didn’t know you could mime death with held breath.

Today I want to write about daffodils, their yellow funnels,
bell-shaped coronas, and frills, how they trumpet sunlight.
But the breadth of war expands each day to bring more death.

I think of my husband’s staticky call, sirens blaring,
the day the Twin Towers fell, and how he came home
to me as he cannot now.

Today, I want to write about daffodils,
how after flowering, they die back into underground bulbs,
and in season, return to life.

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro has published essays in the NYT (Lives) and many anthologies. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net, her poetry has appeared in Prism, Westview, Poet Lore, Rogue Agent, The Virginia Normal, Rougarou, Evening Street Review, and more. Connect with her at rochellejshapiro.com, @rjshapiro, @rochelle.j.shapiro, or @RochelleJShapiro.

Joy

4 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

As the sun sets red behind river birch, oak and elm
still copper and yellow only across their crowns
and the sky opens its spaces
I thank God for my legs,
for my eyes, for my heart
that still cross distances and open them
still feel sorrow
and have turned to transform
it into joy over and over –
as the day knows how to depart
and return full of possibility
over and over
as love knows how to forgive and rejoice
over and over.

Alexandra Newton Rios was raised in New York City, holds an MFA in English from the Writers’ Workshop and MFA in Translation in Comp. Lit. (University of Iowa). Nueva York Poetry Press recently published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem to Georgia O’Keeffe. Mother of five children, she ran the New York City marathon in November 2025!

Morning at the Marsh

1 June 2026 / Editor

Nonfiction by Susan Pope

In early May at the shorebird festival in Homer, Alaska, I was invited to read my goshawk attack story at the site where it happened. Since the assailants were not yet nesting, I felt safe from any potential assault.

The event was a fundraiser for the land trust that had rescued a piece of forest and wetlands from bulldozing for development. Here was an opportunity to support a cause I believed in, plus a chance to plug my new book. Birding, hiking, storytelling, snacks. A perfect fundraiser. Local merchants donated food, the trust handled the logistics, the festival advertised the event, my friend Nancy provided bird identification assistance, and my husband Jim supplied the moral support. All I had to do was show up at the trail head, hike to the viewing platform, and read for ten minutes.

I visualized. I timed. I practiced out loud.

I was ready.

But not for leading the hike because the official leader, having no childcare, was forced to bring up the rear with her squealing, squirming toddler. Or for the frequent stops and starts to accommodate the grandma who thought she had signed up for pre-school story hour and kept sprinting off the trail to capture her rubber-booted fleet-footed three-year-old dashing after squirrels. Or for the six-year-old junior birder so eager to find those birds she slammed into my heels each time we paused to listen for one.

Or for the young moose who blocked our path and would not move—despite our clapping, shouting, and pleading—until she’d devoured every last fiddlehead fern. Or for the helicopter circling overhead at the viewing platform where I was to read my story.

Or for the Wilson’s snipe punctuating the roar of the helicopter’s rotors with a furious ack, ack, ack each time I imitated the goshawk’s scream in my story. Or for the pair of Canada jays who swooped in to raid our unguarded snacks when no one was paying attention.

But none of this mattered as I shouted my story in a very non-literary way to people politely trying to listen. The sun shone, the birch and willow leaves popped open, the wrens trilled and twittered, the sandpipers, ducks, geese, and cranes frantically fed or nested or headed north, and parents and grandparents did their best to ensure that the next generation had a chance at this one unpredictable and magnificent life.

Susan Pope’s work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction Short Reads, Alaska Magazine, River Teeth Beautiful Things, and The Bluebird Word Literary Journal, among others. Her memoir Rivers and Ice follows five generations of one Alaskan family in the rapidly changing landscape of the North. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

Endurance

28 May 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Joli Huelskamp

We exchange annoyed glances
as the noisy school groups jostle us
on their rush through the Shackleton exhibit.

We read the signage; they don’t.
We’re interested; they’re bored.
Except one little boy, standing rapt before a video on ice.

He’s not distracted by the tiny James Caird,
or by the haunting photo of Crean with the ill-fated sled dogs.
No, he’s fascinated by ice, how it forms, flows, breaks apart.

We exchange approving smiles, gratified that at least he—
“C’mon, Ernie,” barks the teacher, pulling him away,
“it’s time to go see the dinosaurs.”

Joli Huelskamp lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She won second place in the Knoxville Writers Guild 2025 Short Fiction Contest. Her work has been published in Bewildering Stories.

Bad Land

25 May 2026 / Editor

Fiction by A.S. Gordon

She called me this morning because the planks have begun falling. There are red wasps nesting in the eaves. I can hear them buzz low in the wet air.

Dad brought me with him when you first began hauling the lumber out. You showed him where you aimed to build it. “Bad land,” he told you. You said there was no such thing. That to say so was an oxymoron. I stared eye level at the bull pressed into your belt buckle.

Within months the thing rose and shrunk, went up and came down again. You damned the lowland mud and the murky mirror the rain made it hold to the plans behind your eyes. The wind brought down the doorway I watched you spend an afternoon setting.

She leads me through the living room where the March breeze creeps through the window to rustle the plastic Christmas tree. Neither of you can take it down anymore. Her hands are like pincers. When I see you sitting out back her fingers bite my wrist. That it’d be best not to. That you’ve been having a rough morning.

You told me once that you weren’t woodworking if you didn’t walk out of the shop with a splinter when all was said and done. I wonder now if I could’ve taken yours and mine once, bit my lip and held out my palm to squirrel away a painless day for you.

I can see us again past the scarce wisps on your head, standing out against the whites and yellows on the honeysuckle vines. Before I knew what this state was called you told me they came from Japan. Years later I asked you about them again, some other soggy spring, after I’d read the species was invasive. You said that nothing belonged to anyone. It was here because something wanted it here, nothing more, and it would stay no longer than anyone wanted it to.

“Just like us,” you said. You were the commie Hoover saw in Guthrie.

She leads me around the side of the house, says there’ll be Kool-Aid for when I get hot. Even with the rainstorm I can’t believe it didn’t burn. I watched you carve nativity scene crosses inside the walls of that little shed, fashion violas and birdhouses and haggle with the summer sweatbees for your workbench. It’s all black as tar now. The lightning wanted it here no longer.

I turn again and there you are, sitting on the patio, rocking, rocking. You’ve muttered to me before that people come in the night. They track mud on the ceiling, they leave your truck door open. They cut your driver’s license in two. They know each twist of your safe, each disc in your spine, each dogeared page on your bookshelf. You find the crumbs they leave on your plate after she has filled your belly with pills. But now, here, you only raise your hand.

Where are you, man? Where have you gone to?

A.S. Gordon is an emerging writer from Murray, KY.

Grounded

22 May 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Linda K. Allison

I was never a girl who could fly
Never one who could leap
A maple seed pirouetting in the breeze
I was not one to tumble
Head over feet
As if caught
In the frothy curl of a wave
Me, I was affixed to terra firma from the start
Planted securely with my first indignant bellow

I envied those girls
The ones who could leap and twirl
As if gravity did not exist for them
As if the rules of Newton applied to someone else

But eventually, I turned my gaze
Discovering a kaleidoscope of life
Unfolding below me
Flushes of mushrooms
Where none had stood the evening before
Appearing as if by nature’s sleight of hand
A bale of turtles
Collapsing like dominoes into a dark pond
Me, witness to their choreography
As I bend close

And so, while other girls flew,
I hovered
And now, many years later
While most who once soared have lost flight
I’ve only grown closer to the earth

Linda K. Allison is a recovering banker who lives with the love of her life among the trees in the The Woodlands, Texas. Her writing has been published in The Milk House, MoonPark Review, Pile Press, and others. Her photography has appeared in The Sun, Burningword Literary Journal and elsewhere.

Lives Intersected

19 May 2026 / Editor

Nonfiction by Gail Purdy

“Mom, it’s me!” I call out as I enter the apartment. Silence hangs in the air. “Mom?” I call out again before moving towards the bedroom and adjoining bathroom. I see the blood-stained towel first, then my 94-year-old mother lying motionless on the bathroom floor. One of the sliding glass shower doors is off its track and rests at an angle up against the shiny white tiles. Only the metal frame keeps it from falling further and landing on her. Is she dead? I hesitate for a second, which feels more like an eternity, before reaching for her wrist. Her eyes blink open at my touch.

An avalanche of emotion surges through my body, threatening to crush me. I want to scream and cry. Instead, I shove fear and anxiety into the shadows at the back of my mind.

“Do you feel any pain?” I ask.

“My back hurts . . . and my head.” She struggles to get the words out. Dried blood has formed a crust around the gash at her temple. A large purple and blue bruise is making its way down her cheek.

“What happened?” Should I try to move her or call the paramedics? I can’t decide.

This is the fourth fall in less than two months. I push the rising dread to the back of my mind, up against the fear and anxiety already exiled there. I reach for my phone and press three digits before sitting on the floor next to my mother. No words pass between us.

When the paramedics arrive, she complains of neck and back pain. Concerned about a possible fracture, they place a rigid collar around her neck, and strap her to an orange plastic stretcher, immobilizing the rest of her body. They move fast, wheeling her down the hallway and out the door to the waiting ambulance. “I’m going to the hospital too . . . I’ll be right behind you,” I shout after her. “You’ll be okay, Mom.” Are the assuring words for her or for me?

At this early hour there is plenty of space in the parking lot near the emergency entrance. Two streetlights cast a thin pattern of light across the gravel, but not enough to illuminate anything that might be hidden in the shadows. I turn off the car engine and sit motionless, except for my shaking hands, and watch the paramedics take my mother into the ER. I take a deep breath. My lungs resist the expansion, fearful the air supply will be cut off before they grasp what they need. I release several breaths before getting out of the car.

Antiseptic smells mingled with urine and fear assault me when the glass doors slide open. The familiar odours hang in the air threatening to suffocate like they always do when the doors close behind me. “Why isn’t anyone helping me?” My mother’s cries join the chorus of voices in the room.

“There are many people who need help. The doctor is very busy. You’re his next patient.” The lie falls easily from my lips. Heaviness sits in my stomach and the weight of it anchors me to the chair next to my mother.

“My neck hurts . . . and my back hurts,” she cries out. Her body is still immobilized.

A nurse moves between us and slips a little blue pill under my mother’s tongue before she turns and settles her gaze on me. Her eyes are soft with kindness as she places her hands on my shoulders. “Your mother has lived her life . . . you need to live yours.” Her touch is gentle, but her words split my heart open with an unexpected force. The weight of being a caregiver is slowly crushing me. I want to leave but I can’t move.

“Where’s the doctor? Why don’t they help me?” Mom’s voice now shrill.

My voice breaks through her mounting fear. “The doctor is busy. An ambulance just brought a man into the hospital. He’s been shot, and he might die if the doctor doesn’t help him first.”

I continue to evolve the fictional tale until I see the blue pill take effect. Mom’s eyes close, and I see her face soften. My eyes close too, releasing the tears I can no longer hold back.

Gail Purdy lives life on the west coast of British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in Four Tulips, rhizomag, Witcraft, Missing Pieces (a grief anthology from Quillkeepers Press), Last Syllable, The Bluebird Word, and the 2021 Amy Award Anthology. Long walks in the forest accompanied by her inner child nurture her creative soul.

Photo by Ramakrishnan Nataraj on Unsplash

Standing

16 May 2026 / Editor

Nonfiction by Thomasin LaMay

They stood. And stood for something. Just by standing.

“Lupins” by Seamus Heaney

Last summer, a business planted dozens of tiny saplings in a field near my home, green space in an urban area where I walk my dog. It was an attempt to fix poor choices, but the project went untended. The young trees tried to root through a dry fall, then rare, brutal winter. Now, in spring, they stand.

Proud, bone brittle, brown.

A mirror of world events. So much broken, being torn. I used to think I was in the world to look with goggle eyes, that awe was grace, maybe even faith. Now I am unsure. Feelings fracture. Kindness is scared. I want to feel useful, for things to make sense.

So there’s a certain perspicacity in these fragile and mostly dead trees which I start to embrace. I’ve watched them all spring as everything else turns green and flowers. Cherry limbs with pink blossoms dance against a bright blue sky. New-born fawns wander the creek’s edge. And all across the field, those un-bloomed saplings stand full-flaunt in their plots, stretching their splayed tips to the sky like cheerleaders. As if they were actually alive. Birds sing from their branches. A snapping turtle burrows and leaves her eggs. There’s no judgment, no anger at their neglect. They take what is given, as if to say yes. Yes, and thank you.

Mine are timid hands, but one morning I wrap them, warm and wanting, around each little spindle. You can do it, I say. You can do it. But I’m not sure what I mean by “it.” Perhaps their stand is not static. I wonder if such “standing” is a way of intrinsic belonging, that we’re all doing the “stand” but we just don’t (want to) see it. Because Heaney’s lupins, like these little trees, are also readying their own transformations, the inevitable. Knowing that is hard. Even though we’re doing it, all of us, together.

I’m not sure why that brings me comfort. Maybe because it makes sense.
The saplings remained through much of summer, but today when we go for our walk they are gone. Dug out. Small holes left behind, clumps of black dirt in a freshly cut field. Scraps of bark in the grass. Some were simply mowed over, their bodies intact on the ground. We bring one of them home, stand it in water on the porch.

In my backyard, late summer Obedient plants are starting to bloom. Not lupins, but a good look-alike. Tall, leggy, purple. Called “obedient” because if they fall over, you simply stand them back up. Also like lupins, they come back every year. New flowers, a long-established root system. Something to count on.

Thomasin LaMay is a writer, singer, and teacher in Baltimore, MD. She’s taught music and women/gender studies at Goucher College, and currently teaches high school. Her writing appears in Thimble Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, Yellow Arrow Vignette (online August 2025), and Tiny Memoir (January 2026).