It’s the school’s loss, not Emma’s
Stephen King’s 20 rules for writers
The best of Writer Beware: 2022 in review
2023 entries into the public domain
Would you use these words?
The making of a six-figure author


Toward the End of March
by Justin Hunt
Pollen dusts our yard. The oaks, heavy / with seed, rake the past from wind, / and an old friend’s voice comes to me

Two-Man Saw
by B. Fulton Jennes
Dutch elm disease took its toll / on the once-lush sentinel by our pond— / a titan I often climbed to the very top

Items on the Nebraska Homestead, 1889
by Pam Vap
a white lily / with sails of petals / above the pink blush on the weak stem

Night Flight
by Judy Kaber
It’s been a long two weeks and I’m ready to leave. / I ask myself: / Are you really the man I once married?

Sleep While the Baby Sleeps
by Jackleen Holton
Sleep while the baby sleeps, / they tell you, and so you begin, like one having to learn / everything all over again, to take sleep in small sips

Send It, Send It
by Karen Paul Holmes
Send it out, send it / to your mother spinning in another universe / your father too

The Likes of Us
by Ken Holland
Another ancient folk singer has died / and of course out come your stories

How Time Works on the Southern Plains
by Justin Hunt
I think of what it means to leave a childhood, / the death I’ll die when I shutter our house / and drive Mom away

Ars Poetica with Clickbait
by Rebecca Foust
I’m sure it’s clickbait, a girl pulling and pulling / a line from a hole in the ice for what seems / like an hour

Blood and Ink
by Chris Atkin
I decided a long time ago I wanted one tattoo. / A single image that screams of self, / meant to say all the things I cannot find the words for.