by C. Luke Heierding I look out the window and I see my mother driving away in her red Sudan. As I am watching her drive away, I suddenly got really Hungary for some Turkey, so I decided to cook some. I ended up burning it on the pan to the point where it wasn’t edible anymore. Still Hungary for some Turkey, Iran down to the store to get some more. I had never Benin this particular store before, so I had a hard time finding what I was looking for. After a few minutes of looking I found the right section. Of course, they were out of Turkey! I…

by Alisson Feijoo When I told my sister Berry I was going to Pieglass, she wrinkled her nose like I’d said I wanted to join a cult. She said, “I’m too old to be playing with destiny.” I didn’t push. She used to believe in magic. Now, she believes in recycling. Since she married Alfredo—bland Alfredo, Alfredo the human form of overcooked spaghetti without salt, Alfredo who probably hums while folding laundry—they have a shared Amazon cart filled with eco-friendly candles and cruelty-free socks. He works for some nonprofit that “does the good.” Yeah, sure. Like that pays the rent. Then he goes around dropping quotes about how money’s an…

by Alisson Feijoo When I was twelve, my dad and I drove into Gathland Forest, the dark, sprawling woodland surrounding Burkittsville. To leave town, you had to pass through it as if the forest itself needed to approve your escape. The trees stood like ancient columns, their branches thick with whispers. The air tasted cool and piney. Dust kicked up behind the wheels of our truck. Inside, tools rattled—a tangled rope, a dented bucket, muddy boots clunking against a sack of nails. The car was chaos, but it was our kind of chaos. We didn’t need words. We spoke in shared glances, quiet nods, and half-smiles, understanding each other without…

By Maria Capezio Crookes Day 1  Mother stopped the car in front of the house, where the fence paused to give space to the pathway to the front door. She turned the car off and put her head on the wheel. The rest of the family looked out the car window and stared at the new house. Built in the 1960’s, the house looked and felt old, but with a strange modern touch; it reminded Mother of the house from I dream of Jeannie. The two trees in the front yard lined the pathway, creating the illusion of a tunnel of leaves and low branches; there were rose bushes under…

By Maria Capezio Crookes I- The Chair  Last Saturday, an ordinary one, I was in the living room, sitting on my favorite chair facing the window, letting the silence of the snow falling accompany me, with a blanket on my lap, my book, and my coffee. Taking a deep breath, I looked around and saw that the stack of Christmas cards we received was still sitting on the shelf where I left them in January. I shrugged, and thought, “I might as well do it, otherwise it’s not getting done.” I grabbed the cards and couldn’t help looking through them. Pictures of babies and dogs, letters of aunties with detailed…

By Rosanne Pagano Because Justin was small for having just turned 8 and because he had gotten good at anticipating most of the bumps on weekend drives up to the Connecticut countryside, he could readily and regularly lift up from the Pontiac’s deep backseat to peer into the front, where Nana Mary sat behind the wheel. The speedometer was green, the color of a dragon’s scales, and the needle now read 70 MPH. Justin’s lifting up worked especially well when the Pontiac had left the city streets and turn on to the Merritt Parkway, a long thoroughfare of few but very enjoyable bumps. Following a ribbon-cutting the previous summer, a…

By Rosanne Pagano In a land far from here but not beyond knowing, the east wind blows so long and so hard that every tree leans left, every bush hugs land, and every bird foolish enough to seek shelter is swept off and away to sea. “It’s peculiar, I’ll give you that,” thought the hairy man Niitis. He swung his hairy legs from under the bedclothes and landed hairy feet on the cold floor. The door of his hut stood wide open, blown open sometime in the night. Niitis sighed, long and loud. “Another day and no company but the wind,” he said. This was so: For the giant was…

By Rosanne Pagano Over the course of four drizzly weeks in March 2022, a time when both interviewer and subject were on the road, making it hard for one to catch up with the other, writer and APU faculty member Rosanne Pagano met for a scattering of conversations about the how and why of teaching her craft. Pagano, dressed in a V-neck black sweater, faded wide-legged jeans and damp Blundstones, was prompt and organized; she asked for interview questions in advance (not all were supplied) and arrived with brief, messily handwritten notes entered in pencil in the pocket-sized Rhodia notebook she carries everywhere. We met four-and-a half times at a…

By Shanice Lawton Part One of the story, Expiration Date. I’m supposed to find out when I die. There’s nothing I can do about it, and honestly, it’s depressing. A few decades ago, humans found out what we now call our expiration date. For years humans have been obsessed with death and the dread of not knowing when their last day on earth would be. Then, one day, a brilliant doctor named Dr. Karla Stein figured out a way to predict the expiration of each human. She predicted that a person’s death could be established on the day they were born. So now, in the first hour of a person’s life, they are not…