New World Writing Quarterly

I’m try­ing to find out how you feel about me before the warm­ing of the globe caus­es seas to rise and floods the small coastal town I’ve called home for 30 years and tur­bu­lent waters smash sea­walls and inun­date base­ments caus­ing mold and mildew –more

Emily and Foster have been on the road to New Mexico for hours.  No one cries.  The cab smells of yel­low ros­es. Through the win­dow the land­scape becomes desert, tremen­dous sky, almost home.  The air swirling through holds that tin can scent of –more

1.

I lay on my back on the for­est floor, in the exact place they first arrived sev­en years ago. Aching from the hike and my gnaw­ing hunger, I stretch my body into a five-point star and stare through the trees at the sky. As the air grows cold and the –more

It’s almost always windy at the beach and most morn­ings on my walk, I see a man, about my age, fly­ing a kite (a red and gold Chinese drag­on, flap­ping, dip­ping and dive­bomb­ing in the wind). Ada, when she was lit­tle, would have gone nuts over a kite –more

A Gallery of Influences: Recollections of Childhood

Excerpted from The RF Handbook: The Definitive Guide on How to Become a Romantic Figure

Mama

Whereas the aver­age per­son has count­less pics of mom – mom as back­drop to a pout­ing infant, mom as prop girl light­ing a birth­day can­dle, mom as tech­ni­cian for a band of piña­ta-teers – the RF has but one pho­to­graph of Mama:  a crin­kled sepia –more

I’ve found it takes longer and longer to reload that buck­shot after that first crack echoes through the air. I hear it as a muf­fled buzz through my hear­ing aid and see the birds scat­ter across the barn­yard in a whir of feath­ers, but some­times the –more

Tom invit­ed Becky over to his apart­ment to have a beer and watch TV. Things had been going well until they start­ed argu­ing about a fake baby on the television.

All Tom said was, “So fake.”

Becky moved away from his embrace. “Are you seri­ous? You’re –more

Witness Holding Still

Prominent Moth

Dimitris offers you a bite of tree, his token of affec­tion. His medi­um-sized, brown­ish tor­so seems a short­er chopped-off ver­sion of that source, but of course he can walk away from less sub­tle approach­es. When dis­turbed, he freezes in –more

The hel­met lays in the mid­dle of the snow plow scored street, its plas­tic cracked and bruised like a piece of fruit dropped from an ele­va­tion. The silence of an exper­i­ment gone wrong, vapors dif­fus­ing, pulling away all the oxygen.

In the store, two –more

When I say Mary came along, I opened the door because she was knock­ing soft­ly. I had nev­er seen her before. She said “I’m Mary”. “Hey Mary, nice to meet you and… are you okay?” I said so unused to see­ing humans in the flesh.

The voice felt –more

I don’t know how I talked Mom into let­ting me go over that Friday evening–I’d nev­er been before– but I was going to Tilda’s, walk­ing across the dri­ve-in as it was grow­ing dark, dust ris­ing and grav­el crunch­ing beneath my feet. I ran part of –more

NBC Today Show: Guy Debord Interviews Edmund Jabès on Systemic Racism in America

Q:        They tell me you’re writ­ing a book?
A:        Liars. Knaves.
Q.        Can you explain for our view­ers what your new book is about?
A:        You are the one who writes and is writ­ten.
–more

NWW is seek­ing (again) prose sub­mis­sions at 100 words maximum. 

Everything seemed in place: the ran­dom café, the silent street, the stranger pass­ing, the cof­fee left untast­ed. The knock at the door first pro­duced an emp­ty hall­way, but Donovan expect­ed that, just as he expect­ed a sec­ond knock, the stranger’s return, –more

“To say that Wallace took The Drama of the Gifted Child to heart is to put it very mild­ly indeed. He returned to it over and over again; his notes were made at many dif­fer­ent times, in wild­ly dif­fer­ing sizes and styles of pen­man­ship, –more

The cab dri­ver wouldn’t drop her where she’d asked to go. Not so prop­er a lady, and not at this time of night. When she addressed the mat­ter in his native Marathi, how­ev­er, and pulled from her wal­let a bill that she fold­ed into a crude jet shape –more

Laws of Gravity

I toss an apple in the air to ensure grav­i­ty is still pulling,
ignor­ing that you told me apples are forbidden.

The roots of my garden’s trees grow toward Earth’s center.
Four times a day, tides ebb and swell.

The neigh­bors still groom their fine –more

Most of us crowd in Uncle Sam’s small house. He screams we’re evil, look­ing to do him harm. He kicks, swings at the air. Some of my lit­tle cousins race from the bed­rooms to the liv­ing room to the kitchen and loop back again. My mom and Aunt Carrie –more