In the first weeks of lockdown, I paced my two-room Harlem apartment, feeling trapped while an unpredictable threat l…
Issue 040: May 2020
Fiction from Peter Molin: “Cy and Ali”
The following short story is based on the myth “Ceyx and Alceone,” as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Cy busied hi…
New Fiction from Rufi Thorpe: An Excerpt from ‘The Knockout Queen’
The following excerpt of The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe is reprinted with permission by A.A. Knopf. When I was ele…
New Fiction from Ken Galbreath: “Checkpoint”
In high school, I was invisible–acne and braces, last year’s wardrobe. I didn’t have close friends. My grades w…
Reading Camus’ ‘The Plague’ in 2020: A Dispatch from Lyon, France, by Jennifer Orth-Veillon and John Tyrrell
“It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another as it is to represent anything that really exis…
Poetry Review of Jabari Asim’s STOP AND FRISK
1. They say Stop-and-friskIs a brief and non-intrusive stop of a suspect.Which can be deadly in America where Statist…
New Essay by Anthony Gomes: Is There Finality in Death?
All beings in this world, all bodies must break up: Even the Teacher, peerless in the human world. The mighty Lord an…
New Essay by Lauren Kay Johnson: Things Received
A portion of this essay was originally published in Cobalt Review. It came by helicopter twice a week, if weather and…
A Review of Rufi Thorpe’s New Novel ‘The Knockout Queen,’ by Andria Williams
“Who deserves anything?” asks Lorrie Ann, one of the protagonists of Rufi Thorpe’s first novel, The Girls from Corona…
New Poetry from Matt Armstrong: “Covid Night”
Paris sirensPewter skyThe white laceOf a dogwood boughAt midnight Reach upClutch and huffHungry before bedFor the swe…