By Aidan Hass   Sure, we all know how awful it is to kill someone. Let’s be real and not lie to ourselves. If you resorted to this...

By Humayun Malik     The almighty Eadhrum is weary of granting the prayers of greedy and cruel beings, corporeal and incorporeal, and...

By Jeff Stone   It was a joke. Business-as-usual side-taking politics, followed by a comically belated “understanding” of the problem and...

By Stacy Alderman   She’s already gone when I wake up too early on a Saturday. I tell myself she’s at the gym or out for a jog – that our...

By Kenneth M. Kapp Tomorrow, Antonio’s head, with its thinning hair, would become red, his skin would dry and flake, and over the next...

By Jordan Stosius All around her, she watched as her friends died.  A crack, a splinter, the deafening crash, a fall. The final gasping...

By  Lina Feuerstein Sometimes, when you wake in the morning, all you see is something gray and shapeless. Sometimes, when you look up and...

by Kate Novak “Can I bum a cigarette off you? I left mine in my other jacket at home.” I offer him my pack. He brushes his hair from his...

by Katie Fleming  At fourteen, she had what most girls wanted: a mouth wide enough to consume treetops, teeth enough to pull meat from...

By Brad Bailey When I pulled up to the house and saw my father come out the front door, my first inclination was to turn and run. My...

by Danielle Schatten When I crawled out of the ocean, my tentacles dripping with seawater and my gelatinous skin reflecting a sun that...

by Jessica Fogal I’m going to vomit.  The telltale signs: the swollen tongue, the difficulty swallowing, the sweat beading above my lip...

By Christopher Lessick Danny’s wife shoved off with his first mate long before dawn on a Sunday morning and left only a rolled-up note...

By Tom Jardine     IF WALLS could talk, Jasmine Wright muttered, these ones would have all the stories .   She was in a sketchy antique...

By R. P. Singletary       The gator submerged back into the muddy banks of the Santee , and I paddled my kayak east of the sand bars,...

By Rutger Middelburg   I have always loved the sea. Loved everything about it; from the peacefully reflective mirror, making the light of...

The Dark Watchers by Nik Xandir Wolf "Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for...

By Thomas Canfield       The shells were fashioned from silver. They were visible to a depth of perhaps twenty meters. Beyond that, it...

By Gary Baney     Sean pounded the three-foot metal stakes into the sand. The triple flute design was meant to stay in place under...

Intro This excerpt is based on my biography of George Freeth which came out with the University of Illinois Press in 2022: Surf and...