When my family was escaping, my great grandmother saw that all of the grain that was collected from them was being thrown in the sea.
She only recognizes the girl in her photographs. // The boy I am recognizes her in photographs.
The older generation of course, they didn’t teach their kids about the horrors of Stalin, because they didn’t want them to have that memory.
(Dispatches from Ukraine)
He remains in place next to the stove, watching everyone, observing their flaws.
(fiction)
There was an air alarm, so an ambulance couldn’t get to us and bring this child to the hospital, so we decided to treat him right there.
(Dispatches From Ukraine)
the cup’s round mouth // gives a satisfying quiver / between the teeth
I told my wife I was opposed to leaving Vinnytsia. She said, What happens to you, happens to me.
(Dispatches from Ukraine)
just a slight breeze, early in the morning / as you lie asleep and the bulb / you planted pushes through the soil
Now I remember it like a dream, but it was terrible.
(Dispatches from Ukraine)
Grigor, as everyone who met him agrees, had been dropped on his head as a baby. Or else nursed on straight vodka.
(fiction)
The rage rolls out of my gut like a stream of regurgitated frogs, leaving me purged and primed for violence.
(nonfiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“The next morning, my training began at Achieve English. In a week, I was teaching. I’d never taught anything.”
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“We didn’t think to ask / what we might lose, / what it would cost us”
Four poems by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French (Congo-Brazzaville) by Nancy Naomi Carlson
He rejects the idea that Humankind descended from the apes, otherwise why has he, the gorilla, remained at the animal stage?
(poetry)
“If I go into the forest, I can hear the birds and crunching of the leaves. It’s about the sound of the whole forest, not isolating the sounds,” Janice Lee tells interviewer Margaret Juhae Lee.
“wind unravels the light / seeks a face / for the coming storms”
“Because what she wanted was the kind of radiant glamour that her mother possessed, that she lived and exuded: a rarified air of such pure grace that only a handful of humans might possess it.”
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I fell in love with a sweet-lipped / bitter-eyed / girl from Balkh”
(poetry)
“Being a mother is dynamic, and the dynamism of motherhood lends itself to narrative,” Julie Phillips tells interviewer Margaret Juhae Lee.
Apply between January 15 and March 17; the portal closes at 120 applicants.
“mixed chalk with oil / twirling brushes / making clouds talk”
(poetry)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“We washed our hands vigorously after reading all these things. We wiped down our doorknobs and our computer keyboards.”
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“The rooms become increasingly more expensive, as one gets closer to the Abyss.”
(fiction)
sharp lady heels sinking into the future // drawn fatefully in my tat of moth lace
(poetry)
I can finally legitimately stroll into a Victoria’s Secret looking for a bra-and-panty set for myself and not pretend to be doing Christmas or birthday shopping for my wife.
(fiction)
This is the first piece in our new DEBUT section, which showcases the first literary work published by a writer, beyond a campus-only magazine.
“There were no pens allowed at Carrollton Springs because of the possibility of someone hurting themselves with one”
(nonfiction)
Everything / about bleeding and nothing about how to get this stain out.
(poetry)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I am doing well, but soon I feel / the rolling thunder of an evil rudo / with a toxic fanbase”
(poetry)
AGAINST THE WRITTEN WORD takes heaping helpings of alienation and disillusionment and shoves the mixture through a grinder of sarcasm and satire.
(reviews)
The shadows of the bamboo leaves shivered across Cassandra’s face. Even in the moonlight, she looked like she was planning something.
(fiction)
I began my story. I told him I was born in Italy and moved to Venezuela when I was eight years old.
(nonfiction)
With every photo either zoomed in or close-up, I tend to forget how small they are. Nudibranchs range from four millimeters up to 520 millimeters.
(nonfiction)
Beer’s truth is her joyfully cynical perspective on the world as it unfolds before her.
(review)
Burden intentionally did not tell the staff of the museum so that a tension would be created between his artistic intent and the museum’s staff concern for his health and safety.
(audiovisual)
Too big, too small, just right? Pillows for lovers. Erogenous zones. Never used for feeding babies. Strap them down when they get in the way. Pinup worthy, so I once was told. Now they’ll be diminished, I’m leaving a part of me in the past.
(nonfiction)
Adler, in full command of her signature style, presents herself a new challenge, to retrofit her revolution with a few choice accoutrements of tradition.
(reviews)
But the answer, I like to think, is that the Raven Grill offers not so much “nevermore” but “furthermore.”
(nonfiction)
When the train lurches, I move like the world’s clumsiest pole dancer. Are third-trimester pole dancers a thing? No doubt someone’s into that.
(fiction)
They trained me up, taught me how to alpha. Posture, voice, aspect. Then they gave me all the accouterments. Even I was impressed with myself afterward.
(fiction)
Performing for the troops, who were more and more dazed and battered as the days went on, Cohen found a kind of personal artistic and spiritual redemption, and the soldiers for whom he performed, touched and a little awed by his presence there (as were the musicians who accompanied him), did, too.
(reviews)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“Folklore across the African diaspora maintains that captive Africans were born with the ability to fly.”
(nonfiction)
Now the extent of my friend’s madness was clear. I couldn’t understand how I’d failed to realize it earlier.
(fiction/translation)
His job was merely to photograph: to catalogue the state of the problem. Save the radiology for radiologists.
(fiction)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“No, I went through one marriage,” Aunt Mildred insisted to the jury of her siblings. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
(nonfiction)
She didn’t go to a hospital—with the traffic in Bogotá, she’s sure she would have ended up giving birth in a taxi!
(fiction)
Another Chicago Magazine 