I can’t find my footing on this sliver of a sidewalk. I curse whoever slappedthese streets onto this hillside, tipping the contents of the steepdriveways into the streets,tipping the streets down the slopes into the valley.The main plaza is cleared and flat so the grand buildings can stand,but the streets start climbing immediately all around […]
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The new mask doesn’t squeeze, scrunch my ears.End of day, indentations where it pressed against my facein the staff bathroom mirrorlike marks around my eyes after swimming, unclamping my goggles, lines—here, my skin said yes, here no. I am jealous of the way my body asserts legibly. Wish it could etch how I feel about returning to the pool, starting […]
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awe-struck at our smoothbrained lexiconspeaking in diluted idioms (esperanto is giving failure)which is beautiful in this Dark Age apocalyptic way, we’ll soon begiving monk, we’ll be monkbossing intothe sun, and she is just like me for realour very own Hands Across the World are people still playing songs backwardslistening for secret messages? i feel hot and gauzylike i’ve been set […]
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after the Highland Park Shooting on July 4th I feel safenowhere at all.Not in my tiny tin home. Not driving through town–bleached storefronts, red caps,flags waving blue lives ahead. Not hiking through the forest,camouflaged a target,deer lurking, hunters licensedand hungry for a kill. They claim the fear of bulletsis a fear of the humanwho commands […]
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Soje is a poet and the translator of Lee Hyemi’s Unexpected Vanilla (Tilted Axis Press, 2020), Choi Jin-young’s To the Warm Horizon (Honford Star, 2021), and Lee Soho’s Catcalling (Open Letter Books, 2021). They also make chogwa, a multimedia zine that features one Korean poem and multiple English translations per issue.
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Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators Black Joy Unbound: An Anthology Inspired by a deep longing for writing that embodies the vivacity of Blackness and Black life, Black Joy Unbound is a multi-genre collection that encompasses a broad spectrum of literary writing on Black joy. Maps You Can’t Make by Mariella Saavedra […]
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The blow-up castle blooms like a ghost in their backyard. It’s bubble gum pink. Mara’s boyfriend can’t see it, gives her a look like not now, please when she points out the kitchen window. His mother is here for Christmas. They’ve removed certain books from their shelves, have taken down Mara’s paintings of naked women […]
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This concrete-jungle had been painted green for my arrival, which was in great contrast to the sandy oasis of the Phoenix valley that I previously called home. Rumbling over the Whitestone Bridge, I caught the first glimpses of the Manhattan skyline delicately balanced on top of the shattered-glass East River. The taxi swerved around highway […]
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Kweli Fellowship Program (until 10/13): Early career vocational writers living in New York City, who are not enrolled in degree-granting programs, who have not yet contracted to publish a book, and who self-identify as Black, Native/First Nations, POC, and/or Arab American are invited to apply for Kweli’s year-long fellowship program. To apply, upload a cover […]
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Allison Liu (she/her) is a queer Chinese American photographer and writer currently studying in the Boston area. She can often be found working on her novel, reading speculative fiction, and conducting bioengineering research. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Yellow Arrow Vignette, The Violet Hour Magazine, The Foredge Review, Crashtest Magazine, Cloudy […]
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Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators As If She Had a Say by Jennifer Fliss Who has a right to tell us how to experience our grief? How to perform—or not perform—the roles society prescribes to us based on our various points of identity? As If She Had a Say, the second story […]
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While reading Tiffany Troy’s When Ilium Burns the line “brain to dissociate, / and to upgrade itself into running faster and harder” jumped off the page for aren’t we all in a semi-constant state of dissociation? Multitasking at breakneck speed, instant messaging and downloads, always becoming more efficient and readily accessible. Within this constant state […]
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i have decided to stop swearing. instead, i will sweat off love foreverand wake up each day swimming in gentleness, kisses to the napeof my neck, declaring i need you and i want this and lets stay herelouder and louder for the people in the back! until even the sun hearsme and winter starts coming […]
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The Visayan urban myth of Maria Labo goes like this: In another country, an Overseas Filipina Worker (OFW) is gang-raped by a group of men. She survives by turning into the flying half-woman-half-demon, Tiktik. Newly transformed, she rides the sea to return home…only to consume her children, get hacked in the face by her husband, […]
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a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath I have long wanted someone to think aboutwhen sleep will not come and exposed time—born to takewhat it can—scratches me so I crack open with sorrow. But I—with my rottingdepressed mind with all my tortured experience of the world—have no one. I am different from other […]
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Jaden Kristoffersson is a trans gay artist working since high school who’s really pretty melancholy, and wants to give other trans people hope and love and a bit of escapism through art that makes you feel something. Working in mixed media and digital. @splatbones
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Walking into my dorm room, a wave of freshmen that could capsize a navy liner. We sprawl about, making use of every available mattress and pillow after most of us spent the last four hours at a function growing from strangers to strangers who are having a sleepover. Because my roommate is off skiing in […]
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When Carla woke between them on Saturday as a small fish, flopping and gasping under the duvet, they decided to put her in the bathtub while they figured out how to get her back. They argued for a while over what temperature the water should be. Lorna said cold and Alex said lukewarm. Actually no, […]
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Applications for the Tin House Editorial Internship are now open. This remote and paid internship seeks applicants with a passion for contemporary literature and discerning taste in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Candidates should have an interest in learning about the editorial role at an independent publishing house. The intern will work directly with the […]
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Some pictures in my bird book(c. 1949) are missing. You’ve been missingfor a long time. Even when you were here you were missing. I bring back no words from my sighting of you at nightstumbling down 72nd street. In my book, the nighthawk is missing.The nighthawk is constantly in the air. Flyingin a zig-zag path. You, sleepless […]
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I I look out the window and seemyself looking out,the mountains blue in the rain, my profilea cliff under the lamp’ssilver arch, and there’smy forehead,a landscape burned by the moon. II Saturday’s wine tastesof last year’s forest fires.My footsteps go sideways,I hit the hallway mirror andrun into myself on theother side. He adjuststhe frame, exits […]
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Churning sea of goop,The broth that is left of my body. Primordial soup That I will emerge from againThe way I decomposed long ago. Vulnerable, Even inside the walls I constructed. Walls that protect me, Walls that may be my doom. I lay in wait,Waiting for the door to open,The threshold that I cannot cross, Yet. Learning […]
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Teeter by Kimberly Alidio Comprised of three long poems, Teeter knows experimental forms can be as intimate as mothering; knows we can understand languages we do not speak. From “Hearing”s intensities of attention, to “Ambient Mom”’s familial Filipino immigrant soundscapes, to “Histories”s careful scrutiny of the socially-sanctioned narratives and trajectories to which we are meant […]
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SAPPHIC SCENES (she/her) is a 27 y/o multidisciplinary lesbian artist originally from the Southern US and now living in China. She is inspired by queer love and liberation, and identifies as a long-time sapphic and late-in-life out lesbian. In addition to the visual arts, she is an avid language learner, reader, and writer, also making […]
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(Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 46 pages, 2022, hand-sewn chapbook) Far Cry, by Tom Daley, is a tribute to a friend passed and a searing elegy of a friendship lost. Daley writes in the Author’s Note that Far Cry is addressed to an estranged companion, Phil Herbert, who passed away unexpectedly in 2020. Though we […]
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Undertaker was certain he had a quarter somewhere. But even if he managed to find the dull, ridged coin, he was unsure whether it was appropriate to tip the bag boy who ceremoniously carried groceries to Undertaker’s Scream-Mobile. In this particular case, the young man’s head was not even visible over the towering stack of […]
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In the sweltering Nashville summer, I’m wandering through the farmer’s market with my parents. In my mind, a Fall Out Boy Song is playing as my eyes skim the tables full of handcrafted goods. I notice a jewelry stand. Then, I see a leather bracelet, held together by black yarn, with a rainbow pattern embroidered […]
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Epiphany Lit is currently open for art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry submissions for their Fall/Winter 2023 issue. For poetry submissions, submit up to five poems in 12-point font. For prose submissions, submit one piece at a time, double-spaced, in 12-point font. For all submissions: only previously unpublished work considered, all work considered for online publication, […]
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Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators Sex With My Family by Jessica Anne Musings on infertility, cows, longing & freedom by an anemic woman in the winter of her 41st year. Glass Essays by J. A. Bernstein Glass Essays juxtapose the miracles of parenting and birth with the mysteries of death and […]
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I wish I could quote for you the entirety of Julie Weiss’s chapbook The Jolt: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich (Bottlecap Press, 2023). Listen: “I want to remember you like this, / flushed in nothing but color: fuchsia, violet” (from XVII). Listen: …On your lipsI taste the zesty beginnings of a couplet […]
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i am an aries so the tips of my fingers ache raw from biting my nails down to the quick with a pisces moon so i take four to six aleve a day for headaches and cramps and everything i own is blood-stained with an aquarius rising so the lines in my irises are an owl’s broken legs so i pop […]
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January, I spill my heart out to you.the last time I met you I was rotting in my bed,melting into my own skull. only flower-flavoredice cream and mother sweetness brought meback to the land of the living. do you remember?I try so hard to forget. to move on. I’m afraidI’ve never moved past a single […]
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although the morning glory flashes its pink striationsalthough the sweetness of spiced cream in the morning cupalthough the lone gull creaking in the copsealthough garden lanterns spin like paper satellitesalthough you laugh when you drop lettuce in your lapalthough one crow alights on the jetty and then anotheralthough your palm presses carrots into velvet muzzlealthough […]
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From Jacelyn: Peach Hell (4 pieces) is a little series I drew during the height of COVID-19, having graduated from university feeling isolated and confused. The soap I used obsessively throughout that period was peach scented, and I’ve come to associate it with the hellish feelings from that time. Peach Hell Jacelyn recently started her […]
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I’ve been estranged from my parents for five years, and this is not the first time I have been estranged from them. In movies it is often a single event, a concrete conflict, addiction, or an unfortunate event that leads to estrangement. In my case, and I suspect in many cases, the problem is not […]
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In a modern-day miracle, one of my friends fell out of a tree and missed the ground, swooping up into the sky like a kite cut free of its strings. One of my friends tweeted oh my god oomf fell out of a tree but before she hit send, she got distracted by a TikTok […]
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in this poem, you don’t hurl my body against gravel as my memories of you bleed into grief. my blood staining the stones your favorite color: my hurt. in this poem, i scream and someone hears. when i’m released from your grip, your fingers don’t leave imprints on my body. in this poem, there is no reminder of the […]
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There’s no AC and there’s a heatwave in Seattle. Experts say it’s the hottest, sweetest day on record. We’re two creatures drunk on THC, held by the floor, sung to by the wings of plastic fans. We take turns wiping sweat off each other’s temples. The earth is dying. I love passing away with you. […]
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Nicole Flaherty Kimball (she/her) is an emerging Jewish poet and artist from SLC, UT. A several-time Best of the Net Nominee, her pieces are published or forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Radar Poetry, Sunspot Lit, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. Nicole is a Creative Writing student at Southern New Hampshire University.
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which is categorically the best kindof end poem. Not by choice; by absenceof leaving. This year, we learned aboutdetritus, Tik Tok algorithms, how to tracethe leavings-behind of extra ordinarycreatures. Our oldest cat, oncea neighborhood apex predator, hashad her butthole shaved for hygienic.Let the new year grant us all some kindof discretion. Last night, I followeda […]
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Jillian Clasky is a writer from Toronto. She currently lives in Ottawa, where she is pursuing a BA in English and creative writing. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Claw & Blossom and Polyphony Lit, and she was commended in the 2022 Adroit Prizes. She serves as Managing Editor of Common House, the University of […]
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Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators This Conversation Is Being Recorded by Hannah Kezema Hannah Kezema’s hybrid debut, This Conversation Is Being Recorded, is a vibrant collection of poems and erasures of painted, dirtied, and flora-filled legal documents and interview notes from her experiences as an investigator and editor in the insurance […]
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Nothing makes a work of art more welcoming to me than a warning label. Like the parental advisories on CDs when I was growing up, warning labels still offer a childlike thrill but also come from a place of mindfulness. Starting off with a subject matter warning, one author’s statement, a publisher’s disclaimer, and a […]
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Game Over Books is open for full-length poetry, chapbook, and hybrid submissions. Manuscripts should be in Times New Roman, size 12 font, include a title page and a table of contents, your name, genre, and page count on the title page, and an acknowledgments page, if applicable. Individual poems/stories may be previously published, but the […]
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The day I promised to love you forever, I’d spent my morning tending to a patient awaiting a heart transplant. His heart was failing, the left ventricle weak, baggy, sagging like the overstretched neck of a favorite old T-shirt, no longer able to contract enough to push adequate blood to organs and extremities. A colleague […]
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The goddess of love sat in the row in front of me, two seats to my right, during the first lecture of Classical Mythology in Art and Literature. I don’t hyperbolize or lie; it was really her. She asked to be called V, which may have fooled the rest of them, but not me. It […]
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Highlighting recently released and forthcoming works by marginalized creators Black Avatar and Other Essays by Amit Majmudar Black Avatar and Other Essays is the first nonfiction collection by internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, and translator Amit Majmudar. Combining elements of memoir, biography, history, and literary criticism, the eight pieces in this deeply engaging volume reflect the […]
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with Images & Phrases from Shakespeare’s sonnets for C.M. Nathan Erwin is a land-based poet who was raised on the Allegheny Plateau, the northernmost tier of Appalachia. An IAF and Harvard-trained organizer, Erwin currently operates at Boston Medical Center to prevent overdose deaths and at the Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust building healthy futures for farmers and […]
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The cedar chest lives in the living room. I am six, cracking its polished skull open to the lightasking Mom why it smells so funny— Cedar protects the delicates like fabrics and old papers from being eaten by moths keeps everything dry from mold, fungus, oils, fumes. You know this part in the story. She doesn’t come back. A […]
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it’s wild that some homophobes think queerness emerges from a lack a victim chalk outline where some better dad should be where pavement collects and america is a freedom ambulance stuck in freedom traffic bald eagle tears rotten apple in this scenario only one can live a broken […]
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VAGABOND CITY 