Author: laurenalwan

If you’re headed to AWP, March 8-11, be sure to connect with museum staff during the conference! This year, you’ll find our editors at the bookfair, as well as on a range of panels, at book signings, and at offsite readings. Here’s all you need to know to connect Where: The AWP Bookfair will be … Continue reading Join the museum at AWP in Seattle!

What I Know About Dismemberment, by Donna Miscolta My father’s ears My Filipino father had big ears. His Filipino father had big ears. I have big ears. Once when I was getting my hair cut, the stylist paid me a compliment. I thought she said I had good hair, which I do. Or did. No … Continue reading Americana Features—Flash Nonfiction

Rural Hours, by James Gurley — Susan Fenimore Cooper, naturalist and author of Rural Hours, after the death of her father, James Fenimore Cooper, returnsto their favorite haunt at Lake Ostego, late September, 1851 – I gather asters, everlastings, golden-rod, carry them to the shore. I hold a hand up against the sun, catching this dissolving … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

An America—by Sara Eddy Give me an America of picnic tables, ice cream, jimmies, chocolate dip.Give me an America of students gone home for summer, locals strollingquietly as evening cools off, the pavement still sun-warm, ticking.Give me an America of migrant farm workers picking cucumbers and falling in love, chatting at the next table about sublets and beer.  Pay themwhat they’ve … Continue reading Americana Stories: Poetry

Never About the Fish—by Don Noel In his retirement years, my dad liked nothing more than fly fishing in the battering rapids of the Madison River near Ennis, Montana. He had grown up in Butte, serving an underground apprenticeship in the mines—it was copper, not gold or silver that made Butte “the richest hill on … Continue reading Americana Stories: Nonfiction

Animals—by Diane Pohl Conversation with my sister I spoke with dad today and he said he might go swimming this afternoon also.  He said he wants to see the animals underwater. He said he was swimming the other day also, which is kind of true because I take his swim trunks with me to the beach … Continue reading Americana Stories: Poetry

LL BEAN BOOTS, NAVY SURPLUS PANTS, HAIR TO MY WAIST—by Nancy L. Meyer On Apple Valley’s long dirt road,our geodesic dome, painted electric-blue.We bought a beat-up hearse for a camper,then bedded it with straw for our gooseafter the fox killed his mate. Thought we hidthe pot plants between our corn stalks;their spiky green canopied two … Continue reading Americana Stories: Poetry

Biblical Erotica—by Daniel Edward Moore Mountain men are clear about bearded Gods and bullies, how introductions can break like stone covered in commandments. I, for one, prefer the edge of razors, as the wilderness ends in every mirror framed with spiders blushing. He said, the bed, burned like salt in the wounds of sleep where … Continue reading Americana Stories: Poetry

I Almost Got to New York Once—by Ioana Cosma Was on Broadway and all, and my play was gonna be produced,and I was going to waltz into New York as if I was Elliott Smithon Waltz no. 2. Or a supernova woman on the first moon. Instead, I stayed, as the Killers would say,in this … Continue reading Americana Stories: Poetry

Coming Home—by Thomas Johnson Miller went back to the bar after his discharge from the Army. Going home excited him with memories of his friends sitting around a table filled with pitchers of beer. He enlisted in the Army two years after he graduated the university and he did not return until his hitch ended. … Continue reading Americana Stories: Fiction