Call for Submissions: August Reading Period Now Open!

The author with her mother, father, and aunt, circa 1969 Farmer John’s breakfast sausage smelled like divorce. As a child, the aroma of all that hot grease in a cast iron pan was both delightful and terrifying.  Mom would pull the tidy pack of sausages from the refrigerator, the little fingers snuggled close to each … Continue reading American Breakfast  |  صبحانه آمریکای, by Mahru Elahi

The long list of people who want to run away with the circus, by MJ McGinn graffiti pirate ship hold outsasleep in hammocks stickand poke smilesthat feeling when you’re really doing itcombing your hair with fingers and sea shellsmaking coffee in a travel French press pullingwater from a river when your phone midnights to lifeand … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

Cityscape After Our Old Cat’s Death and a Summer Shower, by Susanna Lang Ronan Park, Chicago All the traditional June flowers—once-blooming roseslike red velvet blankets thrown over fences, purpleclematis, orange daylilies that only last the day—allmore vivid after the rain; sharper smell of garden dirtand honeysuckle and urine as I walk through puddlesshimmery with oil … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

This Is Not Nostalgia, by Anne Panning  "Rural America's in Decline" the headlines read.I do the math of corn and beans, subtract Main Street.My parents' general store demolished now and dead. They came for overalls, Havarti, twine, white bread;It's best to buy your bacon off the slab."Rural America's in Decline" the headlines read. Who makes … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

Two Poems by Robert Estes Discretionary Power We took up chewing tobaccofor a couple of weeksMy friends and I didin the ninth gradeJust to push itto the limit of bravadoI put a chaw in my mouthin class one dayI have no memory ofwhat I did about spittingCouldn’t swallow the juiceso I must have spat intoa … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

Two Poems by KateLynn Hibbard Decompensating Little pings of rain on the window, cold, grey sky,autumn coming.  Now the rain gathers speed,momentum, camaraderie,a social movement of rain, we hurryto get out of the rain as thoughwe don’t know what it is to be wet.Morning gets darker and the streetlightscome back on and today has been … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

The Queen of Cabbage, by Shayna Shanes I am Queen of the Wallflowers! I am their champion. We are sanguine sisters in blue stockings, armed to the teeth with quills. We prefer a quarto to a quadrille, a counter argument to a contra dance. This is what I told myself as I passed my ribboned … Continue reading Americana Stories—Fiction

What they should have sent was a poet, by Sally Ashton Frank Borman, Apollo 8, the first mission to orbit the Moon    . . .except Borman later said he hadn’t said that, so maybe it was just what everyone else said he’d said. Or wished he’d said, wished so hard that someone decided he had … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

But the Thing Is, When You Dive Deep, by Grey Held into the past, results can beiffy, conditional, distorted.the way the underwater lensof light plays positional tricks.Take for example the pennythe six-year-old boy’s momplucks from her paisley purseand tosses into the diving boardside of the Cavalier Club’soutdoor pool, for a favoritegame of seek and retrieval. Seehow … Continue reading Americana Stories—Poetry

Daily Routine, by Ruyi Wen Listen to Ruyi read her piece below. image courtesy of getdrawings Wake up, yawn, greet the sun. The first of six tiny meals, each of which fits on a teacup saucer. Accompanied by the teacup, brimming with your favorite form of catechins, jasmine loose leaf. Just enough to dull the … Continue reading Americana Stories—Flash Fiction