• Michael Lauchlan ~ A Story’s Truth

    No one gets it–its slip­pery gift
    for wrig­gling away, like the gaunt cat
    we found in an alley and tried to stash
    in Old Steve’s garage until one of us
    could con­vince a mom to let her inside.
    After a week of eat­ing, –more

  • Roberta Allen ~ What is (not) made up

    What is (not) made up is the cock­tail par­ty in a city where the host tells the woman that she will nev­er go to a trop­i­cal rain­for­est because of the spi­ders. But she gets a thrill hear­ing about them because they are –more

  • Young Rader ~ Those Uncertain Days

    When I took my final breath, I felt no pain and so I thought, fleet­ing­ly, that I had escaped death. In the time it took to inhale and exhale, a deeply tucked-away image burst on the sur­face of my mind.

    Years ago, a vol­cano –more

  • Peter Leight — Poems

    After the Fall

    After the fall I picked myself up,
    slip­ping my collarbone
    under the collar
    and smooth­ing the lumps in my pants,
    lift­ing up my arms as if I’m reach­ing for some­thing that’s out of reach,
    how do you know if it’s out –more

  • Glen Pourciau ~ Two Stories

    Mr. One

    If Nathan want­ed to know where I was, I was think­ing, he could come and look for me. He couldn’t oblig­ate me to sit at a table with that man when he was the one who accept­ed the invi­ta­tion. I’d told him to decline –more

  • Tiffany Troy ~ A Conversation with Xu Xi

    When the real becomes unre­al and the unre­al real:  A Conversation with Xu Xi about Monkey in Residence & Other Speculations

    Xu Xi 許素細 has authored or edit­ed nine­teen books, most recent­ly This Fish Is Fowl –more

  • Nadia Kalman ~ The Optical Illusions Eye Shop

    My moth­er was an opti­mist, my father was an optometrist. They opened up the shop at a time in Brooklyn when you did­n’t have to be so seri­ous about a thing like that.  You could have a lit­tle fun, you could put some of your­self –more

  • Gerri Brightwell ~ A Vaster World

    When I was young, bed­time meant shrink­ing beneath the cov­ers in case the Devil found me. My par­ents said you could tell he was there by a sud­den sense of dread, and the smell of excre­ment on the air. The small cru­ci­fix they –more

  • Andrew Cusick ~ Star Wars and Subway Surfers

    X lives over the USA Fried Chicken and Pizza Halal on Hancock Street. He goes by X because he doesn’t have a name and the peo­ple at the boys’ home in Williamsburg said that he was wear­ing a raggedy Star Wars t‑shirt –more

  • Michael Howard ~ Paint a Pretty Picture

    A small light­ed cruise boat crawls around a bend in the canal. The murky brown water is shal­low today and much of the garbage that’s nor­mal­ly con­cealed is vis­i­ble. It floats here and there. Some is stuck to the mud­dy bank.

    The –more

  • Julie Benesh ~ How to be it

    These are the first days of spring. The breeze at dawn
    pumps pet­ri­chor to the tune of birds chirp­ing relent­less cheer;
    that gap between pound­ing heart and slug­gish mind. A woman
    and cat lie in bed, wait­ing for the day to begin.

    The cat says let’s eat –more

  • Myles Zavelo ~ Broken, Clown, Smell

    The dream starts, stops, picks itself up. Suppose I breathe some­times. So what! Not easy! Never was. To relax. Do noth­ing. And breathe. Well, it must be nice: all that noth­ing, all that breath. Anyway, here’s what –more

  • Richie Zaborowske ~ In the Offing

    This morn­ing, the doctor’s nose twitched along, trapped in a web of spi­der veins, as he used jar­gon and acronyms. As he said can­cer of the breast, instead of just say­ing breast can­cer. As you sat there, wear­ing that damned –more

  • Julian George ~ Everyone Loves Heroin

    Heroin is a moth­er drug. It puts you in the warm safe­ty of the womb where everything’s fine.           – Tom Verlaine

    Everyone loves hero­in. Opium, mor­phine, lau­danum (those were days), methadone, codeine, Robitussin, –more

  • Rachel Becker ~ Four Poems

    Juvenile Delinquency

    I swear the boy at the bus stop
    will nev­er get away with
    what­ev­er he thinks I am,
    fuck­ing cunt he says,
    kick­ing a spray of rocks and gravel
    that peck like roost­ers at my bare shins.

    Because I’m fif­teen, I fork his lawn,
    white plas­tic prongs –more

  • Steve Gergley ~ House Sitting

    The day after I fin­ished my first semes­ter of col­lege, I drove up to Utica to house-sit for my aunt and uncle. Having near­ly failed out of my com­put­er sci­ence pro­gram three times in less than a year, I decid­ed to ditch the –more

  • Greg Sanders ~ Le Flâneur

    Under more typ­i­cal cir­cum­stances I’d show up at your place wear­ing my stir­rups, car­ry­ing a bot­tle of chardonnay.

    But not today. Don’t ask me to come around.

    I would love to “drop in,” as I used to do, sport­ing a fez –more

  • NWWQ ~ JANUARY 2023

    We thank every­one who sub­mit­ted to this issue. Special thanks to Senior Editors Kim Chinquee and Elizabeth Wagner. The next issue will be April 2023, accept­ing sub­mis­sions April 1–14. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the readings.

  • Kathleen Ma ~ Four Poems

    Don’t sleep on the wormup!

    Don’t sleep on the wormup!
    You’ll nev­er make it out if you try.
    On Long Island we saw a dead eel,
         silver-blue
    Stomach leak­ing in terror.

    It looked like a sausage.
    No one ever tells you life is going to be so inspir­ing.
    –more

  • J. G. Steen ~ Triptych

    1. We Become Death

    We watched the first explo­sion from our lab­o­ra­to­ry and it freaked us all out. I looked at Ed, his big thick framed glass­es reflect­ing the mush­room cloud: a tow­er­ing mon­stros­i­ty, a hand of des­o­la­tion reach­ing up from the desert, –more