From Modern Mythcraft to Magical Surrealism

THECONDUCTORS

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Fiction

Poetry

What My Mother Taught Me

by Lynette Mejía

Herb lore and craft, the art / of speaking to trees. That the best / paths through a garden never run / straight. To cherish the wild places, / and enter them with a bowed head and an open heart.

What My Mother Taught Me

In Feb. 2021 (Issue 64)

Fiction

Kisser

by David James Brock

Author spotlight

Bragg sleeps alone. Thirty-four. This morning, he wakes up with one less tooth in his mouth, a central incisor. What his dentist, later and while looking at a dental chart, calls the patient’s Number Nine. Bragg’s Number Nine, root to crown, a crucial corn-on-the-cob tooth, is not in his mouth. It’s on the pillow beside him. Bragg rubs sleep from his eyes. That first glimpse of the tooth sends his tongue darting to the front of his mouth. An absence. A canyon.

Kisser

In Feb. 2021 (Issue 64)

Flash Fiction

Blackman’s Flight in 4 Parts

by Shingai Njeri Kagunda

Part 1. / Blackman knew lack / Of gravity before gravity / had a name / Black man flew before he was told to / Till the ground / Till the ground / Till the ground / Till he forget to look at the sky / Till Blackman forget he knew how to fly

Blackman's Flight in Four Parts

In Feb. 2021 (Issue 64)

Flash Fiction

The Billionaire Shapeshifters’ Ex-Wives Club

by Marissa Lingen

“You’d have thought it’d be the musk, or the way he could rend me limb from limb at any moment,” said Carla thoughtfully, “but honestly it was the hairballs. You haven’t known gross until you step in a tiger hairball.” They all contemplated that for too long. Steph took a deep drink of her mimosa.

Billionaire Shapeshifters' Ex-Wives Club

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Fiction

10 Steps to a Whole New You

by Tonya Liburd

Author spotlight

(1) Be unaware that the wolf was presenting itself to you in sheep’s clothing. It began, as most things do, simply enough. In a simple neighbourhood, on the edge of a town. Too urban to be rural, too rural to be urban. Women grew old. Some women aged with their children, grandchildren, family around them. Some grew old alone, isolated, bitter. Others might grow old and die sick, in pain. Then there was you.

Ten Steps to a Whole New You

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Poetry

like the gator loves the snake

by Maria Zoccola

sunlight on marshgrass, winter-brown and alive / with flocks of nesting birds, flash of white feathers / when the wind blows. i think of the boy and then

like the gator loves the snake

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Poetry

Butterfly-Hummingbird

by Magaly Garcia

The clock is ticking. Go / look for the black mariposa-colibrí. / Se nos va el tiempo.

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Flash Fiction

Incense

by Megan Chee

The storyteller sits on a plastic stool by the side of the street. Rickshaws trundle past; cars honk their horns. Cart vendors crying their wares (“Beef noodle soup! Dragon’s beard candy! Scallion pancakes!”) swear at him for getting underfoot on the sidewalk. Children, released from school gates in a delirious swarm, run shouting through the streets.

Incense

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Fiction

Things to Bring, Things to Burn, Things Best Left Behind

by C.E. McGill

Author spotlight

Oz is holding a knife to his wrist when they knock on the door. For a moment he hesitates, weighing his options. His eyes dart between the door and the knife—eeny, meeny, meiny, mo—and land on the door. “Might as well,” he mutters, and gets to his feet. The dull sound of the knife as he sets it aside on the kitchen table seems to fill the room. It’s a terrible thing, he muses, how loud a house is when there’s no one else in it.

Things to Bring, Things to Burn, Things Best Left Behind

In Jan. 2021 (Issue 63)

Flash Fiction

Tiny House Living

by Kristiana Willsey

After years of roommates and sublets and shared bathrooms, other people’s beard trimmings in the sink and other people’s leftovers leaking a brown film into the refrigerator, Jude moved into a walnut shell. She went in feet first, arms locked overhead in a butterfly stroke, letting all the air out of her chest in one long exhale like a spelunker. Inside, it was snug. Cozy.

Tiny House Living

In Dec. 2020 (Issue 62)