• Mathieu Parsy ~ Paper Tigers

    I fold orange con­struc­tion paper along the lines the teacher drew in Sharpie. My son beside me—six, gap-toothed, entire­ly absorbed—creases his own with unsteady fin­gers, his tongue pok­ing from the cor­ner of his mouth like –more

  • John Holman ~ Strawberry

    My old­er broth­er Clay had come to vis­it me in Georgia for my 66th birth­day, but our plans were inter­rupt­ed when a neigh­bor need­ed a ride to the emer­gency room. I couldn’t say no, of course, so we turned off the pre-game analy­sis for an NBA finals –more

  • Julie Benesh — Intermittence

    Be qui­et and let the poem (unlike life) end on together—Mark Halliday

    After mid­night at the Hy-Vee
    on First Avenue, sum­mer ‘75,
    my moth­er and I, dis­guised as shoppers,
    peo­ple-watch the round man in the –more

  • Peter Krumbach ~ Eight Short Shorts

    Phone Call with Mei, Age 85

    How did he look? I asked. He seemed skin­nier, she said. People look thin­ner in the cas­ket, I said. And they put so much make­up on him, she said, I don’t like see­ing rouge on the corpse. Me nei­ther, I said. So how was the –more

  • Naomi Hsu ~ Swedish Death Cleaning

    We were at the mall in Palo Alto, the nicer one, look­ing at the Prada bag dis­play, and that was when you told me about the new book you read, The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, a method of 

    declut­ter­ing your home –more

  • Awards for NWWQ writers

    Congratulations to Pamela Painter (“When Flashers Meet”) and Nora Wagner (“A Sky Full of Clouds”) whose NWWQ sto­ries have been cho­sen for the Wigleaf Top 50.

    Congratulations also to George Singleton (“ –more

  • April 2025 Issue

    Open for sub­mis­sions 4/1/25 — 4/15/25

  • Peter Leight ~ Four Poems

    Western

    The hori­zon backs up
    the landscape
    is full of real estate.
    The light is bright
    then goes out
    alto­geth­er.  Roundup—

    it’s time to consolidate.
    Trot and gallop
    then sag.  Straighten out
    in order to circulate.
    Red hills pop up
    in baby blue air.

    The –more

  • Barbara Westwood Diehl ~ Four Pieces

    After Math

    Were we ever the alge­bra­ic equa­tion we thought we were. Symmetric at each step. A mar­riage of tuxe­do, satin dress. Matched as brack­ets. As paren­the­ses of veil, lapels, clasped hands. A math­e­mat­i­cal cer­tain­ty. At least a par­a­digm for cer­tain­ty. The –more

  • Michael Thériault ~ An Enviable Life

    Matteus told me he believed the dog was stolen. One moment it was with him out­side the cor­ner gro­cery on Mission, on the side­walk where he spends his days wait­ing to see Camila, the next, gone. I’m a store reg­u­lar. I know –more

  • Lori Barrett ~ Oppositional Defiance

    Delores woke to a wheez­ing sound, float­ing up from the heat­ing vent, a sound sim­i­lar to what she heard when her daugh­ter still lived in the bed­room below and thought no one could hear her cry. Now away at col­lege, Tillie was –more

  • Joshua Hebburn ~ The Window

    On the sec­ond floor of a beige stuc­co ding­bat apart­ment com­plex in my Dad’s neigh­bor­hood there’s a win­dow with blue cur­tains. I’m often vis­it­ing my Dad, late­ly. After (or some­times dur­ing) a vis­it I take a walk. The win­dow –more

  • Katherine D. Stutzman ~ Prayer

    It is almost Halloween, and the lit­tle girl is in cos­tume as a bal­le­ri­na: a fluffy skirt of pink tulle, a shiny plas­tic tiara on her head, thin slip­per-shoes on her feet. But no tights because the day is unsea­son­ably hot. –more

  • Kim Magowan ~ Recommendations

    Last night, I had a dream in which my ex-girl­friend Pamela sent me an esca­lat­ing series of out­ra­geous requests. In her first email, the sub­ject of which was REQUEST, Pamela informed me that she was apply­ing to study alter­na­tive –more

  • Richard Hoffman ~ Five Poems

    Next to Nothing

    A poem is an instant of lucid­i­ty in which the entire
    organ­ism par­tic­i­pates.            — Charles Simic

    I was just about to under­stand the graph
    the sun through the blinds made on my desk,
    when a cloud, as –more

  • Lydia Gwyn ~ Two Poems

    Memory of Arms

    The neigh­bor’s chim­ney cin­ders the air in a new breed of fall days. I walk through, breathe it in, merge with it. My side of the for­est, bare-limbed and damp.  Beyond the fence, back fields hold the steps of my chil­dren run­ning through, cau­tious of –more

  • Mary Grimm ~ The Ghost President

    It had not been nec­es­sary to vote for the ghost pres­i­dent. I remem­bered this at odd times, when they seemed more tan­gi­ble. For instance when they were giv­ing a speech on tele­vi­sion and they were less trans­par­ent than usu­al, when you could see the gleam –more

  • Scott Garson ~ Tell Me What It Is

    1. Nothing.

    2. Just some­thing on my phone, that’s right.

    3. Words.

    4. What time’s soc­cer practice?

    5. Nothing real­ly. It’s just—I need—

    6. What if we just step outside?

    7. What if we—

    8. Let’s sit.

    9. Right here.

    10. Sit down.

    –more

  • Francine Witte ~ 2 AM at the Booth Bay Diner

    Roy orders the fries. He knows by now that his cheapo friends, Megan, Scott, and Wendy, will eat most of them, so he makes it a dou­ble. He wish­es for once in their god­damn lives they would offer to chip in. Okay, maybe not Megan, who he hopes, like –more

  • Chila Woychik ~ A Lost Sister Lyric: Coyotes Against an Empty Sky

    For my sister

    They say coy­otes are relat­ed to wolves in fam­i­ly and genus. We have few wolves in Iowa, but a coy­ote can be found at the abun­dance side of every corn row, and behind each stalled trac­tor. One stood in our dri­ve­way a few years back, stared –more