New World Writing

The new issue is online now, com­prised most­ly of pieces we’ve pub­lished since the Summer 2012 issue. We’re fea­tur­ing Robert Pawlowski, Bob Hicok, George Saunders, Bobbie Ann Mason, –more

At Litquake 2012, San Francisco’s lit­er­ary fes­ti­val, dis­cov­er flash fic­tion with a sam­pler of read­ings from sev­en beloved authors and teach­ers of the short-short form. Blending poet­ry and prose, these tiny, truf­fle-like sto­ries are filled with a rare, –more

We are read­ing fic­tion, non­fic­tion and poet­ry. If you’d like to sub­mit, please fol­low the link below, leave a short bio note and any­thing else we might need to know. We are hap­py to read work of any kind, any length. Many thanks for your interest.

–more

Our friends at Mississippi Review have pub­lished, under the fine edi­to­r­i­al hand of Julia Mae Johnson, an anthol­o­gy of thir­ty years of sto­ries, poems, essays and inter­views pub­lished in MR when Frederick Barthelme was its edi­tor. –more

Sitting beside a suf­fer­ing, hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing zebra (real­ly a horse with stripes) was not new to the women in my fam­i­ly. My moth­er had expe­ri­enced it, as had my grand­moth­er and my grand­moth­er’s grand­moth­er. Now it was my turn

“For every pot there is a lid,” my moth­er said before she died. Nobody knew why she said it or why only females cried.

Here it was again, a life and death moment in the ani­mal king­dom call­ing for human com­pas­sion. In many ways this expe­ri­ence would be no dif­fer­ent than fish­ing for com­pli­ments from a bored hus­band on weekends.

We’ve just put up a new sec­tion of a new nov­el from Mary Grimm along with an inter­view in which Mary talks about pub­lish­ing on the Web, e‑books, and oth­er top­ics that might be of inter­est to our read­ers. Click the fol­low­ing link to vis­it Mary Grimm.

I still don’t love you; my arm fell off.

I see my ex at the gro­cery, peck­ing at fruit, those new mini-water­mel­ons. I catch the back of her head, her red hair, from the auto­mat­ic doors, her pur­ple tee from two years ago’s 5K for dys­tro­phy. One change: Her left arm is gone, the short sleeve tied into a knot at the shoulder. 

Congratulations to Dorianne Laux and George Singleton both of whom have had work from New World Writing select­ed for inclu­sion in the new edi­tion of Best of the Net, due out soon from Sundress Publications.

Driftwood

There’s no rea­son to call each oth­er Tic and Tac, but we do just to keep up with that kind of child­hood bond, the one formed acci­dent­ly because par­ents put us togeth­er in rooms and in cars, bound into seat­belts and bunk beds. You’re almost always wil­ing to share your caramels, sticky in the white bag, sea air melt­ing them wet. I say, “It sucks that dad’s a fag­got,” and you say nothing.

Julia knocked on the door and I answered in a pair of rat­ty blue jeans, hold­ing a put­ter and three golf balls. She had a friend with her, a teenage boy, who did all the talk­ing at first. He deliv­ered a script­ed speech about cre­ation ver­sus evo­lu­tion, and read from Hebrews some­thing that said

WE’RE READING NEW FICTION AND NONFICTION with an eye toward the April 2012 issue. If you’d like to sub­mit, please fol­low the link below, leave a short bio note and any­thing else we might need to know. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in work of medi­um –more

Self-Checkout

The man behind her said, “Let me ask you a ques­tion,” but she didn’t turn to see what the ques­tion would be.  Something about what he said both­ered her—it was the way he put it.  She was out of sorts today, but, nev­er­the­less, what he said was not the same as ask­ing, “Can I ask you some­thing?” Or say­ing, “Excuse me, I’ve been wondering…” 

Whoa, Hey

The mail­man deliv­ers the pack­age on Tuesday. I rip open the small white Fed-ex enve­lope and a clear zip-lock sand­wich bag falls out from between two pieces of card­board. Inside is the necklace—a large met­al cutout of two fists side by side with pinkies extend­ed. “Too much rock for one hand.” It hangs from a cheap met­al chain. 

Indoor Gardening

He had been watch­ing her for four years—watering her plants, groom­ing her plants.   First in grad school, then when they moved in togeth­er in Cambridge, and lat­er in their first house as a new­ly mar­ried cou­ple with house plants.  It had tak­en years for him to cred­it:  to observe, to sus­pect, to hypoth­e­size about, and final­ly to believe.