New World Writing Quarterly

Three cross­es on a hill made from rusty clothes­line poles watched over the town. The mid­dle one was taller than the two flank­ing it. “What’s a chig­ger?” she asked him once. He had smiled while she scratched her ankles.

–more

The baby girl is called Lani because her moth­er, Nell, feels the name escape from her mouth like a child’s laugh when she says it aloud. She first saw the name in the issue of Seventeen, which she hid behind in –more

Morning Swim

Last night I watched the wind and tide car­ry my mother’s ash­es out to sea. And now this morn­ing it seems to me that her favorite cof­fee cup holds an ocean. I can’t help but feel God-like cradling its entire­ty in my hands, even though my mind tells –more

CW: References to suicide 

We men­tioned it now and then, over beers at Red’s, but none of us knew where Rooster’d gone off and dis­ap­peared to. Odds were he’d gone a ben­der. He did that—vanished, then resur­faced with a sto­ry you could’ve just –more

Letter to a Version of Myself in a Dimension Without Insects

There are these crea­tures we have here. Or I guess first of all Hello. Does polite­ness exist in your dimen­sion & is it a good thing? They can have a hun­dred –more

1.

It doesn’t take a rock­et sci­en­tist to fig­ure out how to lose ten pounds but I call NASA any­way. The –more

How the chil­dren lived before they filled the sky—

Wailing under­neath lab tables. Grabbing for the sci­en­tists’ wingtips. Getting their grub­by lit­tle mitts into all the atoms.

There’s slob­ber on the pal­la­di­um! a sci­en­tist would cry.

–more

The daugh­ter took care of her moth­er, as daugh­ters are good to do. She had tend­ed to her well-being for many years, dri­ving her to doc­tor appoint­ments, buy­ing her beer and mak­ing sure it always stayed cold in a mini-fridge –more

It was a Friday late in the season—after Labor Day—and the beach­es were most­ly desert­ed, save for a few fam­i­lies and the fish­er­man on the piers. We got a first floor room at the Seabreeze motel. A bright blue motor lodge from the 1960s with a dis­tant –more

My father’s heavy boot crunched down onto the cheap, plas­tic hood of the RC police car, shat­ter­ing the red and blue lights, splin­ter­ing the black and white body, and col­laps­ing the top, send­ing it inward like a tiny white dwarf star, implod­ing, vibrat­ing, –more

I sat melt­ing into a lounge chair by the com­mu­ni­ty pool watch­ing my wife and young daugh­ter splash around in the shal­low end. We didn’t live in Swaying Pines, but we’d joined the pool as friends of the com­mu­ni­ty. We lived close by in San Anselmo. –more

Mom was sell­ing her house, the house we’d grown up in, me and my five sib­lings. Dad had recent­ly passed; prop­er­ty tax­es were going up. At that point, it was just Mom and my broth­er, Kent, and too much space. My sis­ters remind­ed –more

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

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

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

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

declut­ter­ing your home –more

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

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

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