The best of Writer Beware: 2021 in review
We’ve lost Joan Didion
JK just won’t leave it alone
Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice has died
The most important skill is failure
New imprint, Winning Team Publishing, launched by Trump acolytes
White Chrysanthemums
by Lori Nevole
My first girlfriend was Catholic, and thought no one would know she was a lesbian if she kept up a great manicure.
Hollows
by Tommy Dean
We’re lying in the middle of a cracked country road, fireflies blinking a message we’re too human to understand.
A Tragedy, A Process, An Adjustment
by Betsy Porter
She would be devastated if something happened to him—a car accident, for example, it’s entirely possible.
Aim
by Rebecca Foust
If Pastor Dale’s deer-stand was built as a place from which to squeeze a hair trigger, it also ladled up a grand view of the valley below, thick with hickory, sycamore, and elm.
Bystander
by Jen Bergmark
Technically, you needed only one eye to take a photo, but you needed the other to see.
Across the Street
by Lee Martin
Over the next few weeks, a series of strange and unsettling incidents occurred. On more than one night, Glory was jarred from sleep by angry shouts coming from across the street.
Songs We Play When We Pretend We’re Ourselves
by Benjamin Thomas
There’s a piano player in the restaurant on the night Zoe tells you she’s pregnant.
Living With Lies
by Gita M. Smith
Whenever someone asks me, “So, what do you do?” I like to say, “I am a crash test dummy tech for the National Highway Traffic Safety folks.”
Clemency
by Cady Vishniac
A dead ringer for Josey. She sneezes as she walks into the pharmacy, and I look up from the newspaper I’m not supposed to be reading.
Yellow Paper
by Amanda Kabak
Now that Kate was safely out of the way—silenced permanently in a corner plot with a view of the freeway—the pedigreed vultures swooped in.
It all began around a campfire…
Beautiful language
is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.
Contributor Spotlight:
Difficult Joy
by Brian Glaser
Open Contests
Lascaux Vol 8
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review
