1. On my first day with what was to become America’s most profitable law firm, I had the last of my inherited wisdom smacked out of me: that our declining town is superior to the most prosperous cities, that...
I will grant you anything you want, the Genie of the Lamp said. Three wishes…but first you must provide three letters of recommendation. The villa in Italy where they serve you bonbons hourly, while you gaze...
I’m at Meth Park on a balmy day, and all the homeless meth users are spread out on blankets like it’s a picnic. Behind us, I see mothers with toddlers on the way to the playground. They cast resentful glares...
I like it when a thing and its opposite are both true, so it is like holding your hand up to a mirror, and regarding both your palm and the back of your hand with a single glance. I like it even more since I...
i am a student from bangladesh. Julia Smith circled the “i” and the “b” with her red-ink ballpoint pen, her purple glasses hanging over her nose. She was sitting in her office marking papers. This particular one had...
*Translated by Brian Henry “I saw how the planet fell” I saw how the planet fell. Hands became bumblebees. Apples sharpened my teeth in the first age of gold. Bumblebees became foil. The foil is recorded as A, as...
MY 1993 I lived in a closet. Also I lived in a closet Belonging to my then-best friend’s then-beau Who lived with three other men in a Central Square Walk-up, spacious and sunlit, except For the closet. The closet...
I’ve been keeping something from my husband. I don’t anticipate this changing any time soon, as I’m concerned about the aftermath of confession. I’m not afraid of Aidan. Don’t even go there. Aidan is one of those...
Nawaaz Ahmed’s Radiant Fugitives, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, is the story of a family and a country grappling with changing identity. The novel...
Dear Jinx Allen, I love the pseudonym you chose and wore like a rosary around your neck for protection. But those men on the sidewalk standing around the sewer medallions weren’t under your spell. They fanned out like a...
Mike checked the gauges, and the buncher hissed like it was satisfied with a cruel new law it had just made up. “What would you do out there anyway?” Mike shouted over the earplugs. He motioned at the window half hidden...
Hello everyone! My name is Kate, I am from Ukraine, and I want to share my story with you now. I was born in Dnipro – it’s a city located in center-east Ukraine. My grandmothers were born in 1939, and they still...
May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease, when a great peace will embrace the whole world and right now especially Ukraine; when all who live on earth shall realize we have not come into being to drop bombs on...
I wake up. Russia will invade soon. I eat my breakfast. Russia will invade soon. I go shopping. Russia will invade soon. I buy buckwheat and chocolate. Russia will invade soon. I take a bus to work. Russia will invade...
VIRUS AND STREAM It was August. The stream ran low but was busy with creatures seeking to cool off. One day a little human stood on the bank, and sneezed, and a virus entered the stream. Stream said, Are you singing...
