Alexis Rhone Fancher / “Perfect Form”
An acrobat trains on the Windward Pavilion in Venice Beach, California (5/1/11).

Fiction

Elizabeth Anderson, Daredevil

Sam Katz, Island 821

Mimi Lipson, Moscow, 1968

Michael Pearce, Hostage

Joel Smith, After St. Ex / Hatemann is Not a Friend

Poetry

Alicia Mountain, (I began to see) / (The most elegant way to win)

Celia Bland, For My Daughter in Fear That She Will Become My Son

Blas Falconer, Foreigner / Use Your Words

Ted Meyer, His Father the Lawyer His Mother the Nun

Dylan Pasture, Grim Hallway

Lucas Rivera, The Hall / The Sky is Overcast

Eleanor Stanford, Tropicália

Nonfiction

Julialicia Case, Your New Neighborhood

Titi Nguyen, Weekend

Kristen Radtke, Utah

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Witness blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to his or her times. Launched in Detroit in 1987, the magazine is best known for showcasing work that defines its historical moment; special issues have focused on political oppression, religion, the natural world, crime, aging, civil rights, love, ethnic America, and exile. The issues “New Nature Writing,” “The Sixties,” “Sports in America,” and “The Best of Witness, 1987 – 2004” eventually appeared as university press anthologies. In 2007, Witness moved to Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The magazine publishes one print issue and one online issue a year, and increasingly seeks out work that contextualizes the American experience by highlighting issues of global concern.