JOANNE MERRIAM: The Farmer

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Insurgency started with small seeds, the woman he compromised lying under oath, the celebrity he made famous shot at the border. Every year a new crop of plump Kalashnikovs, succulent Swiss accounts. He thought he understood cultivation, but finds himself set out to dry, the seed of some future flowering.

Joanne Merriam lives in Nova Scotia. Her writing has appeared in dozens of periodicals including Baltimore Review, Pictura, and Under the Basho. She owns Upper Rubber Boot Books, known for the first English-language anthology of solarpunk, Sunvault. You can find her at joannemerriam.com.

AJ JOSEPH: The Taste of Forgetting

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , , ,

Lila served Gerald the same iced latte in 1892, 2025, and 3041. He never remembered. She always did. “Happenstance,” he said, smiling at the déjà vu. She stirred in grief, knowing he’d forget again before the foam settled. Time bent for him; for her, it only bruised, and always lingered.

AJ Joseph is trying to tame her overgrown garden so that her cats don’t get lost in the weeds.

JOANNA ALEXANDRA NORLAND: Sticks and Stones

Artistic, Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

She seized a stick and scrawled “I love you” in the sand.
He chose a boulder and sharpened his chisel.
All afternoon, he scored, hammered and chipped.
He called to her at last to present his reply.
By then, she had skipped away and the tide had erased her words.

Joanna Alexandra Norland’s plays, including Lizzy, Darcy and Jane, and Mothers Have Nine Lives, have been produced on four continents.

KEN GOSSE: When the Fig Falls

Amusing, Poetry, Submissions, , , , ,

Has anyone ever given a fig
about credit due to the Cheshire cat?
Proving gravity, and without breaking a twig,
he knocked down an apple, a well-timed cat pat,
beaning the fellow below writing trig.
“Eureka!” he quoted, but as he yelled “Scat!”
the cat disappeared while adjusting his wig.

Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.

COLLEEN ADDISON: Bee Hospital

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

“Half-sugar, half-water,” says my friend, as tiny forelegs grasp at the eyedropper. I peer at the drinking insect and note its wings, ragged from the neighbour’s mosquito repellent. Later we watch the bee burrowing into its nest of roses, of ripped-up tissues. We listen to its buzzing, sweeter now, sugar-happy.

Colleen Addison completed a PhD in health information and promptly got sick herself. She now lives, writes, and heals on an island near Vancouver. Her work has been in River Teeth, Painted Pebble Lit Mag, and Halfway Down the Stairs.

STEVEN LEMPRIÈRE: Rough and Tumble

Artistic, Submissions, Top Stories, , , ,

Wexford summers. Cousins. Some removed, others should be.

A bruising stick-and-ball game settles scores.

Red Lemonade, 99s, ice-cream wafers, crisps and slap-up feeds.

Ravenous teams jostle, devouring gritty ham or salmon paste sandwiches. Each liberally seasoned with sharp, salty silica.

At day’s end, sunburnt cousins dream, war-painted with Calamine lotion.

Steven is still picking sand granules from between his teeth years after the long hot summers of childhood holidays spent visiting family in Ireland.

KC SELBY: Our Spot

Submissions, Touching, ,

We were fifteen paces west of the boardwalk. The sun threw itself, orange and glowing, against the sea. You left to grab marshmallows.

Today I scooped a handful of sand from the spot. Brought it home and poured it on your side of the bed. Almost believed you were here.

K.C. Selby is a fiction writer living in the Midwest with her husband and too many houseplants. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Killer Nashville Magazine, Blink-Ink, several anthologies, and more. She can be found at www.kcselbywriter.com.

MIKE KEYSER: Shelf Life

Amusing, Submissions, , , ,

After decades of research, rewrites, and rejections, sleepless nights, and crippling self-doubt, my novel releases tomorrow.

As doors unlock, signing pen in hand… a gamma-ray burst—life on Earth, gone.

Behind now-wide-open doors, through which no human will pass, rests my book: The Universe Hates Me.

Mike Keyser hails from Wisconsin, where past and future share a beer. A seeker of alien abduction—and receiver of none—he feeds his off-world appetite through speculative fiction.

ROBERT CARLBERG: Missing Person

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“I’d like to report a missing person.”

“How long has this person been missing, ma’am?”

Huh. That required some mental calculation. “About eight years?”

“Eight years? Why are you reporting this now?”

Time to tell the truth. “Because I don’t want to be lost anymore.”

Robert Carlberg has occasional sleepless nights when he eats too much salad. On those nights he sometimes writes stories. Blame the bleu cheese.