November 2026
The Write Launch
Photo by Anthony Cantin on Unsplash
Poetry
Joe Oswald
“Before Walking One Morning,” “The Bear in the Backyard,” and “The Saw Filing Machine”
I sense a light leap
onto the foot of the bed
and wait as you cat
your way to the top of my pillow,
sniffing an ear or two or
rubbing your forehead against mine
along the way.
onto the foot of the bed
and wait as you cat
your way to the top of my pillow,
sniffing an ear or two or
rubbing your forehead against mine
along the way.
Cari Berlin
“What Do They Say About Honey,” “Pray for Rain,” and “To Be Carefree”
I can catch more glares with vinegar, more tsks
and shakes of the head, which is not
what I was going for,
I’m sure,
when I stepped to the front of the line.
and shakes of the head, which is not
what I was going for,
I’m sure,
when I stepped to the front of the line.
Damien Farley
“The Falling Man,” “some way token,” and “Found yet another notebook, this one empty (Thank God)”
On that day did you fly?
(Succeed as you’d done before
to make the stockrooms,
the bag-in-a-box, and the crying
go all away?)
(Succeed as you’d done before
to make the stockrooms,
the bag-in-a-box, and the crying
go all away?)
Emily Bilman
“Furtive Fields” and “Nomad-rivers”
Along the corridors of my body
I enter each room feel my blood-
streams flow from organtoorgan, feel
the linings of my lungs swell
with each breath feel them weep
I enter each room feel my blood-
streams flow from organtoorgan, feel
the linings of my lungs swell
with each breath feel them weep
Lee James
“Prophetic Breakfast,” “Lunch Kink,” and “Sleep”
Cold cereal, hot coffee, thumb push…push…
visions;
glass eyed
gap toothed
locust earth –
visitations;
visions;
glass eyed
gap toothed
locust earth –
visitations;
Leslie Rourke
“Link in Bio”
The people cry out
skin
skinnier
skinniest
why is my cortisol so high
am I inflamed
skin
skinnier
skinniest
why is my cortisol so high
am I inflamed
Jim Dunn
“Tourouvre ou Perche,” “Glenstone,” and “Night in the City”
The Frenchmen sleep
under canopies of steel
holding back the heat
and the things that reel
The Frenchmen sleep
under canopies of steel
holding back the heat
and the things that reel
The Frenchmen sleep
Short Story
Brian Demarest
To Walk in Good Spirit
Atsee Wiya’s dream always began the same way: she was a child standing on the edge of a mesa with her grandfather, watching thunderheads gather in the western Arizona sky. An orange flash lit the clouds; lightning danced across the desert floor. “Where do thunder and lightning come from?” she asked, eyes wide with wonder.…
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Melanie Redler
Starry Night
Photo by Anthony Cantin on UnsplashThe moment Ruthie Banks heard the governor issue his shelter-in-place order, she made up her mind to take up smoking again. Ruthie hadn’t smoked for 27 years, but this was no ordinary time in history and, therefore, she reasoned, it deserved a good smoke. She walked into her bedroom to change and leave her house against the governor’s orders. He wasn’t her candidate in the last election, or the one before that. He was transparently…
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Elizabeth Creel
The Neighbors
The iron gate at the girls’ house in Munich clanged shut.Frau Schultz, the girls’ neighbor to the left, lived in a light green, Baroque-style stucco house at the edge of the street. She was a widow; her husband had been a German army commander. The girls slowly absorbed this fact from comments they overheard at dinner and from the careful way their mother pronounced his name.…
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John Dennis
Population
Photo by Jr Korpa on UnsplashMONDAY — 1,438,612 The number appeared above Central Station at six every morning. It was displayed on a rectangular electronic board between the clock and an advertisement for dental implants. CITY POPULATION: 1,438,612 Nobody knew exactly why it was there. The mayor had unveiled it three years earlier as part of something called the Living City Initiative. There had been balloons and a children’s choir. He said the number represented not merely how many people…
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Sharon Dean
The Writing Environment
Jason Hawke 🇨🇦 For Unsplash+The students drift in, some in groups looking excited, some alone looking afraid. I smile at them all as they find one of the chair desks. Gone are the days of desks with tops that open and grooves for pencils. I’ve arranged these sort-of desks in a horseshoe so they face me. I want no students sitting quietly in the back rows. When the clock reads nine, I close the door and say, “Good morning. Welcome…
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S. A. Merrin
Unsent Messages
Photo by Nate Smith on UnsplashAt night, the bathroom is the only room in my apartment that doesn’t expect anything from me. That’s not fully true. It still expects basic hygiene. But it doesn’t want me to answer emails, text anyone back, make a choice, or perform competence. It just wants me to wash my face and leave. The mirror is less rude after 10 p.m. It still shows me everything, obviously, but the light stops doing that morning thing…
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Megan Monforte
Sanctuary
Photo by Rob Laughter on UnsplashFor years, Lenny could still see Mrs. Miller’s face. It appeared in her mind from time to time—not for any rhyme or reason, but there it would be, just as it had looked that morning in the spring of her eighth-grade year, through the big glass window of the school office. They’d held each other’s stare for only a few seconds, but it was long enough. Had she felt bad? Eventually, Lenny would admit that…
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Creative Nonfiction
Tamara Marshall-Jones
Use Microaggressions to Instruct if the Opportunity Arises
Photo by Steve Davison on UnsplashMany citizens born in the United States think that the white-Black conundrum we still face is a purely American one. Americans who have never traveled or lived in a place that is heavily populated by individuals of other nationalities or ethnicities may have never faced global anti-Black discrimination and may not even be aware of its existence. However, the concept of making the world anti-Black was hatched on the European Continent centuries ago and transported…
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Douglas Brouwer
Lives Not Lived
Earlier in my life I was a publishing mogul. Or maybe I should say that I spent exactly one afternoon thinking about being a publishing mogul. For reasons I no longer remember, my college friends and I once went to look at an old printing press, one with movable type, a gorgeous turn-of-the-century antique. The person who was selling it kept the thing in his garage where it took up so much room that he had to leave his car…
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Jenya Monet
Freedom to Fail
Photo by Jr Korpa on UnsplashIt has been ten years since I stepped off a plane in Orlando carrying two suitcases and an accent I tried desperately to hide. Hot Florida air hit me in the face, and it was the first sign that after twenty-four years of Russian winters, things were going to be different. My story is a story of an immigrant, but my immigration isn’t a story of becoming American. It’s a story about freedom. Freedom to…
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Rabinder Sira
THIRST- the last time Messi ruled
Photo by 磊 周 on UnsplashI am absolutely parched. First, the hour-long trudge into the bouncing Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the blazing Atlanta heat. Then 85 minutes of nerve-racking football fandom and all its insanity. That familiar primeval imperative to hydrate has been triggered. But I refuse to take a single sip from the plastic pint glass of delicious iced water in my cupholder. I’m saving it for a greater purpose. This time yesterday, I was lounging at home in Brooklyn—feet…
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