by Henry Relyea | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
Dried-Up Stars (Lightning Bugs in My Stomach) “Have you cried yet? I’ve only cried once.” My sister Thea’s speech is precise, like she’s not been wandering her mind across the sky. She’s poised against the brittle trunk of the only tree in the graveyard. She holds the...
by Melinda Mullet | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
Iconography—Holy Mothers Consider the work of God;who can make straight what he has made crooked?—Eccles. 7:13 (NRSV) I. Photograph, 1950s, somewhere in Oregon Her name was Elizabeth Kauffman. This is the only picture I have of her, my great-great-grandmother, and she...
by danah alfailakawi | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
mama sārah and me facing my mother in her lavish living room, i blow a red balloon. my younger sister, mellow with hash, tosses a yellow one onto the carpet while my older sister fretfully adds cheese sambūsa, warag ʿanab, and sticky toffee pudding to the menu. a sign...
by Bhakti Verma | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
Aging Like Fine Wine SINDHU AAJI ALWAYS opened the door with a smile and a list of questions. No matter how often this happened, I never felt prepared. I was unaccustomed to it—to questions about my life, about my work, about me—even when they came from my husband’s...
by Alison Iturra | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
Echo of Her Dreams FROM AN EARLY AGE, as the daughter of immigrants, you see resilience reveal itself in small, unnoticed moments. It comes as translating for your mother, sitting in waiting rooms with your imagination and alertness side by side, and watching your...
by Fernanda Cosenza | Jul 24, 2025 | Creative Prose, Creative Prose 2025
Before Running Out of Time THE MAN FACING me from the tabletop is aware of all my shortcomings. He looks strong, wholesome in his youth, with a big nose and heavy jawline. Because the eyes are too close together, he is almost ugly, but it just adds to his Apollonian...
