Kentucky governor Happy Chandler once said Kentuckians are always either coming home or thinking about coming home. On the day that tornadoes devastated my home state, I was longing to be home. It was December 11, 2021, and I woke up in a New York City hotel room to the news that tornadoes had ripped…
Tag: america
Dances with Rabbits – Walker Thomas
I stood under the alligator juniper that shaded my tent in the oak woods. Effie squatted between my feet. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade called his receptionist Effie. But the Effie at my feet was no lady. I called her F. E. Cottontail in my journals. Cottontails are coprophagous – literally, Fecal Eating. That…
Missing Woman – Katie Hunter
In early October 2020, my partner Greg and I drove at sunrise to Zion National Park in southern Utah. On the way I swigged coffee and snapped photos of sandstone cliffs dip-dyed red by the sun. They dwarfed what I’d imagined while planning our pandemic-adapted vacation – a national park tour via road trip, starting…
I Can’t Recall a Time Without War – Casey Canright
The weeks that followed exploded into a patriotic frenzy. Red, white, and blue dotted every neighborhood – even our own. Old Navy’s Fourth of July T-shirts reemerged for the last few weeks of September. Dad brought home a flag – taller than me – which I demanded be hung by the front door, just like…
Spiders in the Drain, and Other American Horrors – Brett Bezio
The wolf spider gestured to me from across the tub, unfurling four legs from behind the metal cover obscuring overflow drain to greet me, naked and alone in a foot of bath water. This memory stands in isolation, as remote memories of a young child often are. The memory itself creeps from a drain, simply…
THREE POEMS – Carly Maria Hubbard
Carly Maria Hubbard earned her BA in Creative Writing from DePaul University. Her poetry has appeared in Crook & Folly, Pentimento, and Hooligan Magazine and her flash fiction in formercactus and Flash Fiction Magazine. She is an accidental one-time winner of the Uptown Poetry Slam and often suspects that the spirit of Lucille Clifton is trying to contact her. Currently, Carly is…
Where I Lived – Robert Boucheron
Robert Boucheron grew up in Syracuse and Schenectady, NY. He has worked as an architect in New York City and Charlottesville, VA. His short stories and essays appear in Bangalore Review, Fiction International, The Fiction Pool, Litro, London Journal of Fiction, New Haven Review, Short Fiction. Where I Lived As the Great Recession brought construction to a standstill…
THREE POEMS – DS Maolalai
Image: Andre Derain – Charing Cross Bridge (1906) DS Maolalai is a poet from Ireland who has been writing and publishing poetry for almost 10 years. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press, and he has a second collection forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019. He has…
ART – Nathalie Tierce
Nathalie Tierce was born in New York City and studied illustration at the High School of Art and Design and went on to receive a BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute. After graduating she worked extensively as a scenic artist in England painting backings for film and The BBC she settled in Los Angeles. This…
PHOTOGRAPHY – Jim Zola
Jim Zola has worked in a warehouse, as a security guard, in a bookstore, as a teacher for deaf children, as a toy designer for Fisher-Price, and currently as a children’s librarian. Published in many journals through the years, his publications include a chapbook — ‘The One Hundred Bones of Weather’ (Blue Pitcher Press) — and…
SHORT STORY – Alisha Mughal
This short story by Alisha Mughal appeared in the second print issue of Porridge which is available for purchase here. Alisha Mughal’s work has appeared previously in Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Nottingham Review, and Bad Pony Magazine. She has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, and she currently resides in Ontario, Canada. She was born…
ONE POEM – Loisa Fenichell
Loisa Fenichell is a Brooklyn-based middle school special education teacher. She recently received her BFA from the aptly named Purchase College, located in Purchase, NY, where she studied Creative Writing and Literature. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including Pink Monkey Magazine, Gandy Dancer, The Rising Phoenix Review, Electric Cereal, and Winter Tangerine Magazine….
Porridge 