Recommended Reading From Online Magazines

“I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.”  — Leslie Marmon Silko

– At the beach, Rosa looks out as far as she can. The world, she thinks. Her father brings the pail and shovel from the car. They sit scooping sand into the pail, filling it. Rosa’s hands are small, have so much to hold. – Eric Beeny in elimae

– Mrs Blythe believed in ‘deep down’. For example she knew ‘deep down’ that cats do not suffocate babies in the night while the house sleeps but she still got rid of Mable when her first child was born. She also knew ‘deep down’ that her children were not going to save themselves until their wedding nights but this did not mean boyfriends or girlfriends were permitted to spend the night. — Mira Mattar in The Literateur

– I hate that my name is not Darryl. I hate sleeping in the same bed with another person. I hate that I can’t keep a straight face or a hard pecker during the Cop ‘N Whore role-playing game my wife likes to play. I hate that I go two weeks without drinking anything but Coke. — Chris Okum in Fictionaut

– Even if you were able to put together in your mind, out of whatever images and ideals constitute your lifetime’s experience, a picture of several of the most beautiful people in the world—no, the most beautiful people, male and female, who’ve ever existed, or not even existed yet because they were so improbably, impossibly beautiful—they wouldn’t match up to these three. — Alvin Greenberg in Wag’s Revue

– Stacie was in her late 20’s, had kids, meth mouth, a thick braid of poorly dyed red hair, and God only knew what else. She was a half-way house person too, but had moved up to Fairfield after she got released. — Sara Gerot in A Bad Penny Review