1.
I remembered someone telling me that the worst thing that could happen was running out of desires, but I just wasn’t wired like that. I was in the back of my car, on New Year’s Eve, with a boy I’d just met. He ...
Bites/Being in Love by Nicole Sellew
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
This small town, the place where I grew up and occasionally return to, is beautiful, but dull. When I am away, I long for the town’s routines, which, as a teenager, bored me: the boats lowing in the morning; the fog ...
California Romantics by Becky Peterson
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Heatstroke
I marry a blond man. When I kiss him on the lips, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Flowers of all colors rain down from the sky, and the sound of cheers and applause begins to rise. My wedding ...
A short story by Fereshteh Ahmadi Translated by Siavash Saadlou
LAR Online, Translations
In addition to the heavy casket, there’s the crunch of weak ankles carrying it. The orange smeared on my hands is not from marigolds but from bug repellent layered on my exposed body. I’m not a fan of distraction ...
In the Meadow by Mercedes Rodriguez
Poetry
I took Barb over to Big Sky a few months back. The time had come to either figure it out or put it to rest between us. We did the whole thing—the skiing and snowshoeing. We got drunk and ate well: beef steaks and elk ...
I’m Still Here by Corey Millard
Fiction
The Fault by Marcela Sulak
Review by Brandel France de Bravo
Black Lawrence Press
July 2024
ISBN: 978-1-62557-076-5
Pages: 90
Marcela Sulak’s The Fault invites us into a doubled world: the very real and ...
The Fault by Marcela Sulak Review by Brandel France de Bravo
Book Reviews
Three days a week, David sat at Ms. Bowen’s kitchen table and repeated back, say, sun, soup, sip, sick, said, sail. When he did well, she rewarded him with a chocolate from the freezer, hard and tasteless. When ...
Say, Sun, Soup by Michael Stewart
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
2020
The first fall of my empty nest, a white-hot aloneness. Covid-19 raging, and no vaccine against it. No café, no colleagues, no classes except on my laptop.
And suddenly it’s raining ash. Stay inside, seal ...
Fire Song by Samina Najmi
LAR Online, Nonfiction
No one believes I could be so wise. It’s not that difficult because, like all my kind, I can smell situations. A dog’s responsibility is to mind the house and its owner, to sniff and stay alert, and to be quick on ...
Watermelon by Nasim Vahabi Translated by Parisa Saranj
Translations
So little of my work gives you joy.My vocab so little. The moon cares about so little.From you I’ve heard so little. The window unit drips.So little love you gave to the azaleas that I grew.When I write, I think so ...
Serenade by Weijia Pan
LAR Online, Poetry
The first time I visited, I was only seven years old. It was beautiful, of course, and not just because, in memory, it is preserved in the amber glow of the hottest, dryest summer of all time. It was beautiful ...
Sand by Ben Tufnell
Fiction
they talk of your nervesthey prescribe country air to tame your ghostsbut without voiceabove allwithout voiceI cradle you~we know nowshe never boardedthe ferryshe’s dead it’s clearbecause listento the roarthe roar ...
Poems by Tania Langlais Translated by Jessica Cuello
Translations
It was like clockwork, the way the sun fell behind the horizon leaving only the breeze of encroaching night. Although, I suppose it’s clockwork that reflects our position around the sun, not the other way around. ...
Barbarians by Corey Lee
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
1Лишь скажи: «Приди!», и я приду -По воде, по воздуху, по огню,По серебряному, словно зеркало, льду.Бриллиантом маленьким ...
Two poems By Milena Makarova Translated by Richard Coombes
LAR Online, Translations
The Under Hum by Simone Muench and Jackie K. White
Review by Jenny Grassl
Publisher: Black Lawrence Press
Publication Date: 2024
ISBN: 978-1-62557-070-3
Pages: 66
Single image photographs are often perceived as ...
The Under Hum by Simone Muench and Jackie K. White Review by Jenny Grassl
Book Reviews, LAR Online
The summer is fleeting & I am young & I refuse to find myself within the haunted housecalled my home -- my father stripping the walls to their flesh then abandoning them, the skeleton of the ancient tin ceiling ...
With Which A Fox Blooms In The Winterport Graveyard by Denise Bickford Hopkins
LAR Online, Poetry
I decide to have an affair the day after my husband starts filming. The idea first sprouts when he mentions audition and romantic lead in the same sentence. It metastasizes when he says he has a call back; festers when ...
The Role by Ashley N Roth
Fiction, LAR Online
I’m learning how to be a good neighbor. On my walks to work I turn and turn again, charting through the network of neighborhood dogs. Set on edge by the unfamiliar click of my heels, offended by my proximity, they ...
GOOD NEIGHBOR by Gabriela Valencia
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Crawling
What does it mean to crawl sideways in a continuum? Here might you please find the wisdom of experts who gather around the baby, this child who looks at a destination but then scoots backward, face beaming ...
Two Fables by Edie Meidav
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
1.Ты родной мне по крови, по духу,По способности к состраданию, доброте,Мои мысли блуждают по кругу,От тебя до тебя, от ...
Three poems by Lyudmila Knyazeva Translated from the Russian by Richard Coombes
Translations
Windows 85 by Chris Campanioni
Review by Fernando Trujillo
Interview by Tiffany Troy
Publisher: Roof BooksPublication Date: November 2024ISBN: 979-8-9896652-7-3Pages: 160
Trick of the Eyes: Review of Chris ...
Windows 85 by Chris Campanioni Review by Fernando Trujillo Interview by Tiffany Troy
Book Reviews, Interviews, LAR Online
Mom is cooking Saluna.Lamb stew boiling and eggplants frying, ginger and turmeric permeate the house.The oval satinwood table and four Chromcraft leatherdining game chairs fill the middle of the kitchen.I’m 13, taking ...
In the Middle of the Kitchen by Nabeal Twereet
LAR Online, Poetry
A MAGIC TRICK
Marvelous Melvin said I was the bravest girl he’d ever met.
The magician came to my elementary school every year in the spring. On a Friday afternoon, our teachers packed us into the gym, where we ...
Two Works by Joanna Grisham
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Fish
_
I’m a little girl. Not just any little girl, I am myself as a little girl. Héctor is holding my hand. This is how I know I’m a little girl in the dream, also because we’re in Cabo de Gata, the ...
Excerpts From Little Animals by Lucía Alba Martínez, Translated by Alice Banks
LAR Online, Translations
Aditi Bhattacharjee is an Indian writer and educator, currently based in New York. Her poetry and nonfiction has appeared or is upcoming in Alipore Post, Gone Lawn, Lunch Ticket Magazine SLAB, ...
Safety Manual by Aditi Bhattacharjee
LAR Online, Poetry
She remembered the rain, how it used to beat down on their windows, a gentle drumming easing her to sleep. When last did they have rain? Now it seemed imagined, as if she’d dreamed it up in a fit of madness. The ...
Approaching Day Zero by Tara Manshon
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
I would like to believe that when the heavy elevator doors slammed shut, separating me from my 81-year old parents at The Louvre, that it wasn’t a big deal. Except that it was. It was a really big deal, though I’m ...
Let’s Try Not to Get Separated Again by Liz Rose Shulman
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Ghazal to the Camel DriverOh camel-driver, slow your pace. That's my soul's peace that goes away.The heart I had now leaves with her, a piece of me she stole away.Parted against my will from her, helpless and weak and ...
Two Poems by Mushrifuddin Sa’dī Translated by A. Z. Foreman
LAR Online, Translations
Nicole Santalucia is the author of The Book of Dirt (NYQ Books, 2020), Spoiled Meat (Headmistress Press, 2019), and Because I Did Not Die (Bordighera Press, 2015). She is a recipient of the ...
We Had a Picnic by Nicole Santalucia
LAR Online, Poetry
“Your parents don’t mind how long we stay?” I asked.
“There’s some kind of a tax thing. Like it’s better if it’s occupied.”
The farmhouse was south of Charleston, halfway between Marlinton and Lewisberg. ...
Quarantine by David Bobrow
Fiction, LAR Online
SAD GROWNUPS by Amy Stuber
Review by Molly McGinnis
Publisher: Stillhouse Press
Publication Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 978-0-9969816-6-8
Pages: 224
Surface-level observations often pass for wisdom on the internet. ...
Sad Grownups By Amy Stuber Review by Molly McGinnis
Book Reviews, LAR Online
Death Is OptionalSo, you’d like to escape an apocalypseof your own making. We could hang youupside down in a tank of liquid nitrogen,or upload your brain to the cloud, but we believethat hardcore biohacking is the way ...
Two Poems by Nicholas Montemarano
LAR Online, Poetry
It was a frustrating book to read. He never actually saw the text shift before his eyes, never saw a sentence blur into something else right there on the page. Every time he flipped through the first half of the book, ...
The Ever-Changing Book by Arthur Mandal
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
I.
The trick to cleaning up the lyrics of a song about sex, like Ariana Grande’s “Love Me Harder” is to swap the words and/or phrases about copulation for ones about singing. The family-friendly company that spells ...
Idolatree by Courtney Miller Santo
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Rivers in pipesburied rivers are screamingin voices of seaweed-eyed sirenslungs pierced by the spires of St. Anne’sthe rivers were left to babblein pipestheir water archived in fonds, in mapsthe rivers promise to ...
Three Poems by Alina Borzenkaitė Translated by Dave Seter
LAR Online, Translations
to learn things i didn’t know i didn’t know where love livedwhere love had taken shelter found refuge where it had hidden and whispered to itself and been patient and taken root decades of saying i ...
i made a drawing of myself by ire’ne lara silva
LAR Online, Poetry
(CW: Physical violence, self-harm, fatphobia, homophobia)
My mother hates the way I look. I hate the way she looks at me. I hate the way I look too. I am not bad looking. Five-feet-eight, medium build, caramel skin. ...
My Mother is a Cannibal by Priyanuj Mazumdar
Fiction, LAR Online
DEPTH CONTROL BY LAUREN W. WESTERFIELD
Review by Courtney Kersten
Publisher: Unsolicited Press
Publication Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-956692-94-5
Pages: 152
Louise Bourgeois’ Femme Maison series (1946-7) ...
Depth Control by Lauren W. Westerfield Review by Courtney Kersten
Book Reviews, LAR Online
Radio«Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.Escribir, por ejemplo, “La noche está estrellada…».Ese era Neruda desde un pequeño radio portátil de plástico,azul, con botones blancos, cuando yo tenía ...
Two Poems by William Archila, Translated into Spanish by Mario Zetino
Dual-Language, LAR Online, Poetry
“Do you remember when I told you about going skiing that one time with my family–when I was a teenager? And I met that girl and we hit it off, but something happened and I lost track of her and I didn’t know her ...
The Memory Place by Christopher Thomas
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
When I think of my mother, when I try to see her in my mind, I can only see her hands. Though they must have been beautiful once, in my memory, her hands are gnarled roots.
They’re calloused and yellowed by tobacco, ...
Every Tree is a Mother, Every Mother a Tree by M Jaimie Zuckerman
LAR Online, Nonfiction
SterilityOh, don’t have me return to my former painful life:don't you know that it would be like wanting to plant grain in a cemetery?And who would you want to eat of such breadtomorrow?Not even a hungry ...
Five Poems by Antonia Pozzi Translated by Amy Newman
LAR Online, Translations
At dinner time, Ankit leans over the table and spits on Raunak’s food. Ankit’s followers—“gang,” as he calls them—laugh.
“Ignore him,” Shashi, who sits next to Raunak, whispers.
At bedtime, the boys ...
Lesson by Mohit Manohar
Fiction, LAR Online
From SiedliskoYou say I shouldn’t praise the day before evening comesbut I’ll do just that.I praise the dovecote in Trzebiechow and how the dovesscatter as we drive byon our way to the lake.I praise the mallow ...
Three Poems by Nathalie Schmid Translated by Ellene Glenn Moore
Translations
The Tears & Smiles of Things by Andriy Sodomora
Translated by Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi
Review by Nicole Yurcaba
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Publication Date: 02/13/2024
ISBN: 979-8887194387
Pages: ...
The Tears & Smiles of Things by Andriy Sodomora Translated by Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi, Review by Nicole Yurcaba
Book Reviews
When you walk through the anteroomthere are geraniums placed purposefullyon the entryway table, as if they have been waiting for you.Did you notice them, the geraniums?The color is a grayish blue, a slight mauve,but ...
The Anteroom by Daniel Mills
LAR Online, Poetry
When a snake is coiled, she is ready to strike, though sometimes the coil is a defensive bluff, pure tactic, and she’s protecting herself, her soft vulnerable underbelly, from predators or threats, real and perceived, ...
Coiled by Ana Maria Spagna
LAR Online, Nonfiction
Consequences
My wedding dress was sewn by a circus dwarf. Her name was Rita, one day she left the big tops and started working as a seamstress like her mother. She sewed for eveyone in the housing project, for a few ...
Consequences by Giovanna Daddi translated by Anne Milano Appel
Translations
My mother was an amphetamine addict who left me in a gas station bathroom somewhere east of Maniac, Georgia, when I was four. The last thing I saw of her was her hand, held up, not waving but still. Soon after, I was ...
The Dead Cat by Whitney Collins
Fiction, LAR Online
A hand touching a neck. Tía Puy shuffling her deck and the king of batons. Passion. The lifeline. The bar Zulo and Santa Justa Station, simultaneously. Foolishness. But that was what he said.
Just thinking about it ...
Queen of Batons by Julen Azcona, Translated by Slava Faybysh
Translations
Data Mind: Poems by Joanna Fuhrman
Review by Christine E. Hamm
Publisher: Curbstone Books
Publication Date: October 2024
ISBN: 0810147742
Pages: 96
When speaking of a virus, we tend to think of it in negative ...
Data Mind: Poems by Joanna Fuhrman Review by Christine E. Hamm
Book Reviews
Hard leather valid as the exchange between AJ & Free, solid as the greasefrom the hour prior I cooked intoa charade of dark. I’ve heard love is known by three names though it has only shared one with me. I shout ...
Pelle Pelle by Olatunde Osinaike
LAR Online, Poetry
The ramps by Midpark were flooded and now the loons thought they could make their homes anywhere. John-Mark and I had visited his side of the family in Manila, and the flight back was turbulent. We were watching that ...
Covenant by Mason Koa
Flash Fiction, LAR Online
Untitled an old cemetery along the streetcar linethe fence isn’t tall—just up to your throat.from the streetcar windows you can seeold graves,trees smashed by artillery shells.the cemetery fence looks like a ballet ...
Four Poems by Dmitry Blizniuk, Translated by Yana Kane
Translations
Boss, we have a problem.
I hear Little Gu’s frantic whisper through my walkie talkie. Little Gu is only three years out of college and already my best worker.
I survey our tables as I walk towards him. ...
Freedom by Catherine Wang
Fiction
A Romantic Love
by Ádám Nádasdy
It began when I was nine years old. Don’t be so shocked, there’s love that can begin at such an age: little Dante was also just nine when he fell in love with Beatrice. When I ...
Nonfiction Short Story from I Slung My Hook by Ádám Nádasdy translated by Austin Wagner
Translations
AMERICAN DIVA: EXTRAORDINARY, UNRULY, FABULOUS BY DEBORAH PAREDEZ
Review by Catherine McNulty
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Publication date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781324035305
Pages: 239
The Divas Electric, ...
AMERICAN DIVA: EXTRAORDINARY, UNRULY, FABULOUS BY DEBORAH PAREDEZ Review by Catherine McNulty
Book Reviews
Arin and Rachel take shrooms on the same dayI skip my meds so we can all trip together.Every time I am sitting with friends on a blanket at Grange Park at 6pm drinking carton rosé I’m like,This is what I was born to ...
I Love My Friends by Rob Macaisa Colgate
Poetry
Dedicated to Tortuguita*
What if it was not Icarus who flew too high? Perhaps, instead, it was Daedalus who arced ever-upward, broad wings beating, too entranced by his own creation to turn around. Higher he went, ...
Sun Rise by Zack Fox Loehle
Flash Fiction
Her baby blew a spit bubble and reached for her with its squishy, underinflated arms, and they both giggled. She and her baby had been spending their days at the sticky, fluorescent food court in Glenwood Mall, which ...
NUMB-NUMB by Marc Tweed
Fiction
WOUND IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WONDER By Maya C. Popa
Review by Dustin Pickering
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Publication Date: November 8, 2022
ISBN: 9781324076216
Pages: 96
Scripting the ...
WOUND IS THE ORIGIN OF THE WONDER By Maya C. Popa Review by Dustin Pickering
Book Reviews
for A.E.M.There’s nothing obscure about our sorrow— no reason to coin new terms for this needto pace the suddenly bare room wailing,wadded tissues scattered ...
After Chemo Failed by Dawn Manning
Poetry
Some time ago in a Sardinian literary magazine, La terra dei nuraghes, The Land of Nuraghes, I read this legend, charmingly recorded by Pompeo Calvia, one of the finest Sardinian writers.
It tells the story ...
San Pietro of Sorres by Grazia Deledda translated by Anne Schuchman
Translations
Hunter has been shutting himself in the home office lately, curling his body over the computer, losing himself in the steady rhythm of his work. His daughter, who seems equally set on self-isolating, won’t ...
Ducks & Epitaphs by Aimee Clemens
Fiction
When in major chronic illness flare-ups or activated trauma states or brain fog arising for any number of reasons, I sometimes gain a stutter. Because of childhood trauma, I also have historically not been fantastic at ...
Stutter, Stammer, Stumble: On (Not) “Speaking Well” by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
Nonfiction, Uncategorized
The Animal is Chemical by Hadara Bar-Nadav
Review by Shannon Vare Christine
Interview by Tiffany Troy
Publisher: Four Way BooksPublication Date: March 15, 2024ISBN: 978-1961897007Pages: 120
When it comes to pain, ...
The Animal is Chemical by Hadara Bar-Nadav Review by Shannon Vare Christine, Interview by Tiffany Troy
Book Reviews
ANSWERWe cook fish in the dark. All day I thinktoday is yesterday. I soak a video in saltwater. There I return tothe inky sea of childhood. There is nothing to eat. Spring fallsin layers: first the naked green ...
Two Poems by Julia Anna Morrison
Poetry
There is a place in Ellen’s right big toe where she keeps her opinions on her mother. Sealed shut. Nail-chipped, ball-stubbed, doubly calloused, she wears socks most of the time.
In her ...
Ellen by Rya Vallabhaneni
Flash Fiction
Henri Meschonnic (1932-2009) is best known worldwide for his translations of the Old Testament and the 710-page Critique du rythme: Anthropologie historique du langage. He ...
Three Poems by Henri Meschonnic translated by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes
Translations, Uncategorized
Long before he travels through the black hole, ripping the fabric of his life, they are looking for the perfect house, the sort of place you could raise a family on modest salaries. First, they have to say goodbye to ...
Inside a Black Hole by Andrew Bertainia
Fiction
A narrow winding creek cuts through flat plains of sagebrush. Slender elms line the banks beneath granite cliffs still topped with snow in summer. The term “American Alps” gets thrown around about this place but ...
Heber by Kent Quaney
Nonfiction
The Last Song of the World by Joseph Fasano
Review by Nicole Yurcaba
Interview by Tiffany Troy
Publisher: BOA Editions
Publication Date: October 4 , 2022
ISBN: 9781960145352
Pages: 178
Over the Myths and Through ...
THE LAST SONG OF THE WORLD BY JOSEPH FASANO Review by Nicole Yurcaba, Interview by Tiffany Troy
Book Reviews
It’s a sin to call the horses beautifulbut they were, their hooves a miracleflaring fire with each beat—I shouldn’t remember it this way,but it was August. Or December.Creepers choked trashcans & stucco,the ...
Only Once Driving to Cincinnati by Kirk Schlueter
Poetry
I got a new smell. It’s oily, leathered, minklike. It turns heads on the bus, clears whole cars on the train. Most times it walks five paces ahead. I follow it into any number of restaurants or bars, sliding past ...
New Smell by Eric Cecil
Flash Fiction
Rothko wanted to paint basic human emotion. So he painted red over red over red. Behind the colour he was looking for light. In 1942 he painted The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, where Iphigenia is not a girl, but a black ...
Rothko/ On Fear by Ollie Cowley
Poetry
Samuel and David were born in the same year at opposite ends: New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve. They only knew their birthdays because their mothers were able to labor in peace, and that’s something their mothers ...
Make by Misha S. McDaniel
Fiction
“Mom.”
“Mom.”“Mom!”“Momma, look!”“Mom!“Look, Momma!”“Look!”
My coffee will never be strong enough. I stir the pancake mix while the pan heats. A little bowl of concrete. The morning ...
You’re Gonna Miss It by Jen Eve Thorn
Flash Fiction
It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw
Review by Robert Dunsdon
Publisher: Lily Poetry Review
Publication Date: March 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781957755359
Pages: 92
It takes a degree of confidence, and no small ...
It Will Have Been So Beautiful by Amanda Shaw Review by Robert Dunsdon
Book Reviews
boy to boy to the sidewalk, fingers that tingle like grass and touch. boy to boy to arms embracing and the streetlights all go out at once. boy to boy to hunger, to Yom Kippur, to Jewish holiday psalms and songs that ...
boy to boy to bed by Sam Herschel Wein
Poetry
When I wake up, the world is upside down. The car is ragged plastic and skin-stained glass. Ryan’s body crumples against the passenger door, right arm bent around his back like he’s scratching a hard-to-reach itch. ...
it keeps going like that by Leah Francesca Christianson
Fiction
Step 1:
Look down. It isn't. It is. View the absence. The dead space before realization. All the hands to mouths, eyes crowning, light like a holy orifice breaking open to speak what you've done. Look at your ...
How to Stop What Could be Born Inside of You by Maisie Williams
Nonfiction
There was Christmas; there was Venice. Both arrived too late for us. The word, alluvione, meant flood but sounded less frightening, and—like everything in this country—it ran precipitously off our tongues. Then it ...
Alluvione by Vincent James Perrone
Flash Fiction
So, this is just college, says M, age 11. It is, I say, looking around at what I look around at all the time, especially the space where the historic sycamore used to be. All the ghosts, probably.
I can’t say I have ...
Votive by Mary Ann Samyn
Nonfiction
unalone by Jessica Jacobs
Review by Deborah Bacharach
Publisher: Four Way Books
Publication Date: March 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781954245822
Pages: 208
Resee, Remix, Remake
Take nothing for granted. In her second full ...
Unalone by Jessica Jacobs Review by Deborah Bacharach
Book Reviews
Crack Let us be fog horns on a murky nightLet them call us flawed, bitchyLet them say you have a tailLet mystified children keep looking for itLet them be blind to the glittering trail we left behindLet them be ...
Three Poems by Gonca Özmen Translated by Jeffrey Kahrs and Mete Özels
Translations
“Did I ever finish my story? I mean this woman was seriously one of the worst customers I’ve had in a while—a total hair-mare.” June nudges Laine, who nods but doesn’t look up from her nearly empty ...
Wig Shop by Rebecca Bernard
Fiction
History of Forgetfulness by Shahe Mankerian
Review by Alan Semerdjian
Publisher: Fly on the Wall Poetry (October 22, 2021)
Paperback: 86 pages
ISBN: 1913211622
The Memory Singing: Shahe ...
History of Forgetfulness by Shahe Mankerian Review by Alan Semerdjian
Book Reviews, LAR Online
