DAWN PARKER: Late Bloomer

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Spring is fading into June, but the tree through my window, after a hearty hibernation, finally stretches its limbs to allow buds to burst from its veins. Its brothers lining the street already loosed their white petals, lining the sidewalk like pollinated snow. My tree waits, awakening alone and spectacular.

Dawn Parker earned her Bachelor’s in English Creative Writing from California State University Fresno. She is the recipient of the 2025 Larry Levis Poetry Prize and the 2025 Fresno Fiction Undergraduate Prize.  She has published poems and stories in hais: a literary journal, Elephant Eyes, and Behemoth Magazine, with more to come. Within her writing, primarily in fiction, she focuses on experimental forms and themes of family.  Dawn served as the 2024-2025 Co-Executive Editor for the San Joaquin Review journal.

BRENDA FINDLEY: Epiphany

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In the kitchen, he asked, “Has it been a good life?”

Such a profound question. It’s forty years together. Betrayals, indifference, hot burning anger, flashes of joy, perfunctory kisses.

“Not really,” I say. It’s a revelation.

“Get your hearing checked,” he shouts. “I asked, have you seen the good knife?”

Brenda is a retired university administrator. Someday she will finish writing the Great American Novel, and it will be Great, and her family will say, “Finally! Thank goodness.”

NINA FEINBERG: Questions for the Woman Crying in the Office Bathroom

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Do you need a tissue?
Is everything okay?
Are you a person full of fear about the way we treat each other, just like me?
Do you ever wonder how we found ourselves in offices, checking in and touching base under artificial light?
Can you go home for the day?

Nina Feinberg is a writer, photographer and distance runner. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and works in product design at The New York Times.

MOHAMMAD ABEDI: Midnight

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At exactly midnight, the clock struck, and Ramin Taham stood before the door, though he had no memory of arriving. Behind it, another room. A man in a suit handed him a letter, sealed with no name. “Your fate,” the man whispered, vanishing. Ramin opened it. The paper was blank.

Mohammad Abedi is a novelist, filmmaker, and child rights activist.
His novels have been translated into more than 15 languages, and his films and screenplays have been nominated for, or awarded prizes at, over 130 international flim festivals.
He is the founder of Hermes magazine and of Teachers Against Poverty (affiliated with Academics Stand Against Poverty). Abedi has completed some 30 academic courses at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Edinburgh, and the University California. He holds two honorary doctorates, in Philosophy and Social Justice, and teaches cinema, philosophy, and Persian literature. See more at mohammadabedi0.wordpress.com.

ROBERTA BEACH JACOBSON: Before and After

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I entered my marriage with a moving van full of living room furniture – a couch, love seat, accent chairs, a maple desk, and three nested tables.

The legs wobbled. The colors clashed.

I walked out of my marriage carrying a gym bag – jeans, tops. shoes, books, and a turkey sandwich.

Roberta Beach Jacobson lives in Fairyland. See more at linktr.ee/roberta_beach_jacobson

JENNA MONTOYA: Laughter Leaves

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You laughed when I said I wanted to be a tree.

Time and age chewed on my youth, wrinkles turned my smooth skin to bark, and my bones creaked when the wind blew hard. You planted me deep down.

Our great grandchildren laugh in my shade.

Jenna is a religious fanatic, a marriage fanatic, and a motherhood fanatic. She has too many farm animals and not enough farm in Houston, Tx with her husband and three beautiful, brilliant babies.

ANGELA CARLTON: Plenty

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You took my bliss, stripped me of warmth, a bandit of sorts.
You broke me, fled.

I’m guessing you think you had the last word, dear, but I’ve got a few. The July sun’s rising-rising-rising, flesh stinging as I scribble-scribble, plenty, to your pregnant wife on our fancy hotel stationery.

Angela Carlton’s fiction has been published in Every Writer, Everyday Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, 6S, 50 Word Stories, Spillwords Press, The Dribble Drabble Review and Friday Flash Fiction. In 2022, “A Jigsaw Life,” a collection of stories was released. In 2023, her story “Swallowed,” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. See more at Angela Carlton Stories on Facebook.

LORI LINDSTROM: The Nest

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Each spring, without fail, a robin builds a nest above my front door. For weeks, she sits quietly. A mate arrives, worm dangling from his beak, and feeds their brood. The pair take turns. Two weeks later, flight beckons. The nest is silent and empty. Above it, only blue sky.

Upon retiring as a financial manager at NASA, Ms. Lindstrom took a memoir writing class to explore her childhood and began attending writing conferences, retreats, and workshops to hone her craft. Six stories about her childhood have appeared in online publications under her pseudonym, Lori Lindstrom. See more at lindstromwrites.com.

DANIELLE MARIE CAHILL: Moonbathing

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I met a fox on my moonlit walk. He stopped on the roadway to look at me: eyes aglow. I paused too. Did my eyes glitter like his?

When I moved, he trotted forward on the other side of the pavement. Each on our own journey, we moonbathed together.

Danielle Marie Cahill is a neurodivergent poet, novelist, mother, witch, and soprano living in North London with her family and two enchanting cats. She studied English at the University of Cambridge, and in 2024 she won The Caledonia Novel Award. Danielle’s words have appeared in Bangle, Witches, Livina Press, Suburban Witchcraft, Witchology, Underbelly Press, Quarter Press and MoonLit Getaway magazines.

JOEL SAVISHINSKY: A Drink on the House

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His teaching reputation finally did him in. Facing termination, the guests at his farewell raised a vessel from the administration decorated with a Greek meander. “Half-empty or half-full?” they asked. “Can’t tell,” he replied, balancing it on his hand. “But it smells like hemlock.” And he slowly drained the cup.

Joel Savishinsky is a retired anthropologist and gerontologist. His Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, won the Gerontological Society of America’s book prize. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and a California Quarterly, Cirque Journal, Passager, Third Wednesday and LIGHT Magazine award winner, his poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in Beyond Words, Devour: Art +Lit Canada, The New York Times, and Windfall. The Poetry Box published his collection Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. He lives in Seattle, helping to raise five grandchildren, and considers himself a recovering academic and unrepentant activist.