New World Writing Quarterly

Nonfiction
A strange phe­nom­e­non’s seep­ing into lit­er­ary fiction.

It’s tricky to describe, tricky to under­stand; ultra-tricky to thwart or deflect. But it’s no less dis­turb­ing for all that—a kind of ele­phant-in-the-room of con­tem­po­rary fiction.

Because –more

Nonfiction
How are you hold­ing up?

Fine. Just fine. Actually, pret­ty good. Can you see me okay? You look a lit­tle pix­e­lat­ed. It’s prob­a­bly my Wi-Fi, sor­ry. Anyway, I’m doing pret­ty well, con­sid­er­ing. It’s inter­est­ing because I think this whole –more

Nonfiction
My cousin Terry Ann went into labor at my Aunt Honey’s annu­al Labor Day pic­nic. (Possibly she was already in labor when she got there.) Her sis­ter Jackie timed her pains while Terry Ann –more

Biddy Doro, head­ing out this fine sum­mer day, dressed in britch­es of burlap sack­ing broad­ly stitched every which way and belt­ed by a length of bit­ter­sweet creep­er, and cloaked in a weave of rag strips and hon­ey­suck­le with big patch pock­ets of every –more

Tuesday meet­ings are stan­dard. Sure, bring your lap­top. Will some­one please take the min­utes? Interoffice mem­o­ran­dum. To pre­serve employ­ment, there will be no sug­ar, cream, lunch meat, or pay­checks from here on out. White boards. –more

1998. It’s August. There’s hard­ly any­one on the beach. The morn­ing sky hangs low in an over­cast, cre­at­ing coins of light flip­ping on the ocean’s sur­face. The sun seems fur­ther away than usu­al. Under it all, there are two fish­er­men sit­ting beside –more

Nonfiction
For over a thou­sand years, peo­ple walked The Way of Saint James toward Santiago, stop­ping en route at oth­er sacred places.  By the mid-20^th cen­tu­ry, –more

for Karen Solie

a storm is blow­ing in from Paradise —Walter Benjamin

Backward angel, car­ry­ing a love/hate mouth
to match the hands, pump­ing gas on high­way asphalt,
your tar­ry brawn push­ing my tongue
across North American lan­guage. –more

Kindness of strangers

I stag­gered into the show­er-tiled wall at Park Street Station. The Wronged Man made a bee­line for the stairs, dis­ap­pear­ing with all The Not Involved People. He was try­ing to out­run his fist, which prob­a­bly stung cour­tesy of my –more

Rabbit

Clemency is always sur­ren­dered to the quick foot­ed.  There was noth­ing left to defend.  The grand­moth­er who pos­sessed the famil­ial third eye had been gone for years, and you’d inher­it­ed her con­nec­tive tis­sue, a tan­gle that kept you teth­ered, –more

The neat­ness of Greg’s new digs was sur­pris­ing. At Jackson Street the bed-sit had lacked the room to swing a cat. Here in the Commission place the bed­room alone was larg­er than the whole of the ear­li­er space. On the wall above the couch three long –more

and then for a long time i didn’t write at all. this meant i knew what it was like a lit­tle bit final­ly to be like mom or dad, to not write, i knew what it was like to have giv­en up on some­thing you thought was your life –more

My mom is talk­ing to a stranger, a bald man with luke­warm brown eyes, wear­ing a sil­ver jack­et, his legs stretch­ing out of his shorts, gnarled like tree roots, a gad­get on his wrist, chang­ing col­ors, hiss­ing. He claims to be from Galaxy X, and my mom –more

Preparation

She dri­ves past the house a third time. She wants to be a nat­ur­al. The blinds are clos­ing. Maybe that’s enough for today.

Rumors

The rumor starts out with flamin­gos. The zoo is near­by, and since their clipped wings grow back, it’s com­mon­place –more

Of Interest is a recur­ring post link­ing to things of interest.

Nonfiction
What the police think at VOX

Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Niqab woman arriv­ing late for break­fast was one of the teach­ers of a small group of mid-teens. Four girls sat at an adja­cent table and a half dozen oth­ers sep­a­rat­ing them­selves down at low­er ground. A madrasa excur­sion per­haps, though these were not –more

My Mother Mourns my Step-grandmother

My step-grand­moth­er laid on the porch
An eagled spread below the sky
Her flail­ing. Body only a con­tain­er of the soul.
Her body only a con­tain­er of cancer.
You have been old since I knew you.

I –more

It’s a long stretch speed­ing down the high­way from Atlanta to New Orleans, and most every­one dozes off. But the moon is just right, and for a moment, through the gums and elms and oaks and dog­woods of the road­side for­est tonight, a dwelling stands –more

Reaction

We’d reached a turn­ing point. We didn’t want to tell our friend Cynthia what we thought of her choice of hus­bands, and we didn’t want to ask her what she saw in brawny reac­tionary types. What did her three choic­es of hus­bands have to do with –more

I  lost my good mood at the store tonight. That was after I lost my job at the hair­dressers, where I hadn’t  lost my good mood because it was not unex­pect­ed that Sheryl, the girl with the pout, would replace me (she was faster and sassier). And –more