by Helen Ivory | Jan 8, 2024 | Featured, Prose
Into the Hills He found himself in the mountains because he had no intention of being near the beach. It was summer and he was dry. With friends, he had seen the sea, water, the Thames, so many times over the past weeks that he had driven himself...
by Kate Birch | Oct 31, 2023 | Featured, Poetry, Prose
Cellar Stories: Ash & Elder Sunday afternoon there’s always roast dinner. Then mum and dad go to church. The twins stay and wash dishes. Elder-twin picks up a plastic bag with unused Brussels sprouts inside. The cellar door is open. Elder-twin...
by Kate Birch | Oct 23, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Childhood’s Cave The worst times were Thursdays. They were the weekly meetings, when things were assigned, calculated, declared. A reprimand or an insult always brought her father home in the worst of moods. Her mother, on edge, the frozen mask of...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 18, 2023 | Featured, Prose
A Martian Named Smith A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil. -Robert Heinlein The last time we spoke, you were working for an off-brand convenience store on the gulf...
by Helen Ivory | Sep 22, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Two Halves You won’t want to take the locket, but your twin sister Agnes will insist, pressing it into your hand as she stands on the doorstep of your cottage, unwilling to enter. You’re supposed to take turns looking after it, changing each...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 10, 2023 | Featured, Prose
Quince There is a quince tree in the Alice Munro short story The Moons of Jupiter, and also in the poem “Lunch With Pancho Villa” by Paul Muldoon. In the novel The Love of Singular Men, by the Brazilian author Victor Heringer, a mother beats her...
