Category: Fiction

“'Is it bad that this kind of headline – ‘Great White Shark with Red Mouth Washes Up on Beach in Rare Incident’ – is what gets me through the day?' I ask my sister...." by Elizabeth Rosen ... Read More

“What is your favorite color?” Cora asked, partially wrapped in twisted sheets ... Read More

I am in pain. I am from an ethnically ambiguous background, an underrepresented community, and my mom was an immigrant from the Middle East. I mean, she is an immigrant. She’s not dead, but she did emigrate to France when she was seven. That’s still trauma. Trauma that passes down from ... Read More

The water is cold against my bellybutton and I’m afraid a waterborne parasite will swim up my urethra. I cup a hand over my crotch. I’d never have thought a pond could feel threatening, but Bruce, Olivia, and Belle aren’t fazed—they’re grinning at the few hundred yards of water rolling ... Read More

He watched the couple through their window until it went dark then stumbled back into the shadows of his driveway and through the moving drift of the banana trees and elephant ears gathered at his front door.... by Taylor Melia Elyse Mahone ... Read More

It was a Tuesday afternoon when Ellen Wong decided to try the newly opened massage parlor five minutes’ drive from home. She heard it was cheap. Daughter at school, husband at work, colors in the dryer, whites in the washer. Honey barking at passing dogs three times her size from ... Read More

There was almost no way to get money. Fay, the Cat Lady, sometimes had a returnable Coke bottle or two to give away if I asked—the large size, twenty cents deposit each. Allowance was seventy-five cents a week, enough for a few candy bars, but I did the math: it ... Read More

My wife told me she was going out with Ashley, Kelly, and Courtney, that she’d be getting some drinks, doing some dancing, that she wouldn’t be home late, “… unless I’m home late!” I said no problem and I’d see her when she got home, that I’d wait up. I ... Read More

“Lunch with the Astronaut of the Day,” the sign said.  Adult:  $100, child: $50, 11:30 and 1:45.  Mirian signed up for the 11:30 slot.... Shanda Connolly ... Read More

Leah, my best virtual friend, is a writer like me. Writers know all the secrets in the world, and we aren’t ashamed to admit it, in writing. Paradoxically, she still knows more than I do. So, I paraphrase to myself the Bellman from “The Hunting of the Snark:” “I’m not ... Read More

“It’s an express,” my father says with a touch of awe. “Much nicer than the train I took when I made The Trip. You’ll be comfortable, they treat you well on rides like this. It’s not an ordinary trip, you know. Just follow the rules and stay the course....” ... Read More

Avital Gad-Cykman is the author of Light Reflection Over Blues (Ravenna Press) and Life In, Life Out (Matter Press). She is the winner of Margaret Atwood Studies Magazine Prize and The Hawthorne Citation Short Story Contest, twice a finalist for the Iowa Fiction Award and a six-time nominee for the ... Read More

She—some folks called her Jill—used to buy love at the shopping mall, but then all the malls died. She probably died, too, but she still went love-shopping ... Read More

"The fox stops, half turns, half stays. The way a fox will, being two things at once and daring both. Mottled coat, those delicate fairy tale feet, one poised as if to point the way, a way for me to follow...." ... Read More

"When I woke from surgery, I wondered where my arm went. / It was still attached, I was assured. I saw it there, hanging from my body...." ... Read More

"Odin’s spear struck Valhalla’s golden floor with a mighty thud, silvered veins of sorcerous power erupting from the point of contact, energy flying electric and jagged to the four corners of his vast throne room. This was One-Eye’s signal for quiet, and I went along. We all went along...." —Kurt ... Read More

Why don’t you bring Ashok over for lunch?” Nadine was an anthropologist and had to get to the bottom of things. All these days and months she’d gotten a second hand account and now she wanted to see the mystery man in person. I somehow knew she’d be disappointed, but ... Read More

On the second Tuesday of January the survivors gather for the annual survivor dance. They gather in the ballroom of the historic synagogue on Ocean Avenue. Like many things, the place is a shadow of its former self. Spanning half a city block, it now sits cavernous and crumbling, like ... Read More

"They were as light and fluffy as the small white clouds that floated across an otherwise spotless blue sky, of which Raffie and Kip had an unobstructed view from the balcony where they feasted on the fried scallops, clams, shrimp, calamari, and other seafood on the frittura platter. Raffie’s father ... Read More

Eckleburg is pleased to announce the Gertrude Stein Award in Fiction winners and finalists. Thank you to all who submitted. It is always a difficult task choosing among such talented voices and storytelling.  Gertrude Stein Award: First Place "Frittura" by Judith Goode Second Place "Little Sister" by Jarrett Kaufman Third ... Read More

Why does his family piss him off so badly? No clue. All he knows is that he wants to scream. He nestles each fly into his tackle box. In the kitchen, his wife makes tuna-and-tomato sandwiches, their fish smell pervading the living room. She fills Ziploc bags with carrot sticks, ... Read More

You cannot go back.  Leah had sketched the words on every scrap of paper, every grocery list, even the coupons she handed over at the store, the newspapers she bound with string and set out for recycling.  They, too, bore her new mantra beneath the bylines—four words from a soft-tipped ... Read More

You’ll stumble over the pronunciation of her name. When you ask your friend Aida, who is Puerto Rican, how to say it, she’ll tell you that she doesn’t know and that all Dominicans.... Kate Scarpetta grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania and spent her youth playing sports and climbing trees. She ... Read More

Here was the game plan: we were going to sneak into Mom’s house, stuff her cats into sacks, and drown them in the lake. A backyard bonfire for everything else—the towers of mildewed newspapers reaching almost to her living room ceiling; the army of painted figurines standing at attention all ... Read More

Back when Anna Gil could still walk, she avoided it. "God gives nuts to the toothless,” she said to the people who visited her, and there were still a few. The others reduced their visits until they slid over and out of the frame of her life . In the ... Read More

You must choose. Once the baby makes its way out—and he will make his way out in a splash of fluid after the kind of crowning you won’t soon forget—the moments that make up your life will cease to be ones you choose. It is August. The trees wilt in ... Read More

It has been years since it happened. She is a still mother. Meaning, she keeps her body very still and she still considers herself a mother. She is rigid about this.... Nicole Miyashiro writes fiction and poetry and is an editor for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book at Penn State ... Read More

His friends were also there to see what might go wrong, and Ned was fine with that.... Nicole Miyashiro writes fiction and poetry and is an editor for the Pennsylvania Center for the Book at Penn State University. She has published stories, poems, and reviews, including one Pushcart Prize nominee. She ... Read More

He's a man of his word. A man whose mouth shrinks against his teeth when he smiles, as if recently stripped of a mature mustache, and who wears socks with clogs in the summertime to account for Florida air-conditioning.... Nicole Miyashiro has recent or forthcoming work in Clever Girl Magazine, Life in ... Read More

Later the painter, the other cook (who was off that day) and the waitress who had the evening shift, all lamented over coffee somewhere. They were thankful that they had not been there. Someone mentioned the body count. "Eight so far. Owner wasn't there...." Vimi Bajaj is a writer living ... Read More

She was ninety-three and had nineteen nine-inch diameter chocolate birthday cakes from Bill Knapp's restaurant in her basement freezer. How could she say no? They were a free gift, no coupon necessary. Each cake came with a sixteen-year-old waitress smiling straight rows of braces; with a balding manager clapping chapped ... Read More

"Come with me, babe," she said, smoothing the greasy hair at the edge of my face. Her finger brushed a zit in the midst of my stubble and it hurt, man, like she'd stabbed a needle deep in my skin. People tell you a lot of shit about being a ... Read More

Gray, of Gray’s Agency, sat at his desk, the neon sign outside flashing, rain dripping against the window. It was dusk. He heard the door down the hallway open, and looked up to see a man in a mackinaw on his threshold. His face was sharp with shadows. “My name ... Read More