“The Imperfection” A Short Story by Mae Murray
Mira was in a hospital gown looking at her phone. The girl with the bleach-blonde pixie cut had been tantalizing in her OKCupid photo, but when they met last week, she noticed the deep-pitted acne scars peppering her jawline and the glaring red spots on her cheeks and between her thick brows…
“Called Home” A Short Story by Tanya Pell
El resented her father for calling her home. She stood in the backyard, arms folded across her faded t-shirt, staring out at the rows and rows of dry, brown cornstalks against an empty blue sky…
The History of Indie Publishing, Part 2
Before the actual crash of the midlist, the Internet was truly coming into its own. Online communities popped up everywhere. Smaller websites were able to code, or borrow code, to create message boards for groups of like-minded fans and authors…
“The Witch’s Aperture” A Short Story by Taylor Grothe
The bike seat pressed against my thighs, the wooden housing of the camera banging against my deformed spine. I was grateful for the misty shroud over my face. Were the neighbors to see me, they would whisper…
“Backseat Driver” A Short Story by Rae Knowles
A bleeding sun rears its angry head over the hills surrounding your childhood holler. You smudge a bit of dirt into your hairline and hurl your suitcase into the open trunk of your mother’s silver van, Mark glaring at you between the headrests…
The History of Indie Publishing, Part 1
The basic structure of publishing, with much groaning and stretching, has shifted in ways that render it barely recognizable to those of us who were around during its earlier iterations…
“What If It Were This” A Short Story by Nicole Dieker
It was a wet-fingered October morning, the air like a formerly-celebrated guest who refused to notice the repeated glances at the calendar, when Annilee Morgan Fox first performed real magic…
“The Fort” A Short Story by Alan Lastufka
Teenage best friends Aaron and Tim have their own hideout in the woods. It’s an old, reclaimed cabin nicknamed the Fort. And it just grew a new door…
“FFUNS” A Short Story by Johnny Compton
Holding the unlabeled black video cassette somehow reassured her of the legitimacy of its contents. With that reassurance came effervescent nausea, an ugly, unreal sensation befitting the place she was in and the sight that awaited her…