https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/corey-flintoff-dream-of-the-white-worm Lynette bends to hug Robbie, who sits at the kitchen table with his coffee. She’s just woken up, and her cotton nightie still smells of their bed. “I dreamed I was grabbed by a huge white worm and dragged into a hole,” she says. “It was horrible.” He strokes her shoulders, feeling like he should pull her onto his lap and comfort her, but the space between the wall and the kitchen table is too narrow. “Jeez. … [Read more...] about Dream of the White Worm
Fiction
Knausgaard in Space
https://soundcloud.com/americanshortfiction/tyler-stoddard-smith-knausgaard-in-space I aspire to dread, and so I embraced the opportunity to write about my struggle in outer space. As a boy in Oslo, I experienced the same dream people born in the Space Age had all over the world: the dream of having intercourse with Pat Benatar. I abandoned this dream when MTV stopped playing music videos and I never thought about space again, until my editor called. “I’ll see you in the next life,” I … [Read more...] about Knausgaard in Space
Save-A-Child
When the Boeing 727 takes off from Mitchell Airport, the bolts that hold the landing gear door in place are already unwinding. Eight miles away, Tucker Knoebel is making his way home early to the suburb of Oak Creek to be with his wife, Della. He loves entering the subdivision from the city when the streets turn from straight gray creases to lilting curves meant to mimic the flow of hills and rivers. Tucker sometimes feels like he is in his childhood train set among the metal models of the post … [Read more...] about Save-A-Child
Editorial Outtakes: The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist
Editorial Outtakes is a series in which we publish excerpts from recent books that you won’t find anywhere else because, prior publication, these sections were cut. This installment of Editorial Outtakes features two outtakes from The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, a novel by journalist and fiction writer Michael Downs. An account of the life and times of Hartford's Horace Wells, the dentist who discovered that nitrous oxide had the power to alleviate pain during … [Read more...] about Editorial Outtakes: The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist
The Art of Staring: An Interview with Jamel Brinkley
In his much-anticipated debut collection A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley lays bare the full and complex interiority of black men and boys kicking against all manner of inexorable truths, while living an inch from ruin in Brooklyn and the Bronx. With stunning clarity and generosity of detail, each of the nine stories leaves its own lasting impression, while the book as a whole coalesces into a devastating tapestry of confused masculinity, familial responsibility, and the intractable power of … [Read more...] about The Art of Staring: An Interview with Jamel Brinkley
Blind Oracle of Mactan
He is the blind oracle at Unchained Melody Massage Parlor. He specializes in foot rubs. He can stimulate all kinds of glands with pulls and pricks of the tendon and phalanges. He can, for example, make a person grow taller by pushing on the well of the big toe, which is the pituitary gland reflex point. Everyone knows this. He can also tell people’s fortunes. He made his first prophecy on April 26, 1521. He told Ferdinand Magellan, seated on a cane chair, feet bulbous from … [Read more...] about Blind Oracle of Mactan