New Year By Kate Finegan Know your route. Study the forecast. Decide it should be safe to venture out alone. Trust your tires, not too much. Tap the brakes on empty stretches to see if you will slide. Drive slowly, not too slowly. Don’t backslide down the hill. Don’t look too hard at the… [Read More]
Dark Holidays Zine 2019
A Letter from My Father’s First Wife to the U.S. Submarine Minneapolis-St. Paul
A Letter from My Father’s First Wife to the U.S. Submarine Minneapolis-St. Paul By Brendan Egan I stopped talking to my father after this past Thanksgiving. Finn and I took a train down to Baltimore, and over dinner Finn pointed a Springfield rifle at my father’s chest, asking for an apology. Larissa Mendoza, the woman… [Read More]
December, 1993
December, 1993 By Jenn Powers It’s a late night in the commuter lot along Route 10. The cold moon and the fluorescent lights paint our faces dead blue. We crowd the beds of pickup trucks with crocheted blankets on our laps. We pass around herby joints and glistening liquor bottles. My best friends wear Santa… [Read More]
Manchego
Manchego By Amanda Churchill My entire life has been cheese. The milking, the rennet, the balling, the forms, the washing and the waiting. And, I can’t forget the animals: the sheep and the goat. Through my childhood, even into my tender teenaged years, my very best friend was our only goat, Consuela. She was… [Read More]
Plainview Vanishing
By Maris Finn The congregation grew ornery. Word on the street was that the rabbi’s sermon would be the sermon to end all sermons. He usually reserved his best material for the High Holy Days, so a little rhapsody during Hanukkah would be a treat, even though so much running around still had to be… [Read More]
The Solution
By Julie Cadman-Kim Just before Christmas break, the new mandate comes out, the stamp of the superintendent of public education in the upper right-hand corner. This is after the half-baked mandate about keeping a bucket of rocks by the door. And the one that accompanied the same miniature novelty bats you can buy for ridiculously… [Read More]
Oktoberfest
“Octoberfest” by Elsa Nekola Coral sinks into her uncle Dan’s recliner, thumbing through holiday catalogs and Black Friday coupons for the Feed & Seed, JCPenney, Holstrom Tire. The men have gone to deer camp, and she’s stuck watching the three children with her aunt Irene, the house already stinking of their chili supper. She might… [Read More]