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A New Kind of Literary Pulse

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Logo America: color it in. - Summer 2020
Short Fiction
 5 min

Radiant

MCHayes

It was the kind of crimson-covered sole that coaxed me to go to the Shoeshine Man. Most of my needs were met by black cobblers around the corner from our church on Sixteenth Street but they knew ...  [+]
Short Fiction
 5 min

The Maid's Cadillac

M Wilburn

Emelda Beason had a  lovely lilt to her laughter,  a natural hoarseness. Her words and tone were gracious. Jakesport was a fishing town on Alabama’s  Coosa River before developers  turned it  into a ...  [+]
Short Fiction
Short Fiction
 4 min

The Waiting Room

Grace Freedson

The words in my textbook dance off the page in highlighted neon lines. I hadn’t made the highlights. They came with the book despite Ebay’s reassurance that it was in “good condition; like new.” ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 4 min

One Crisis at a Time

Jordan Leigh

January was just another year.  A year closer to the election.  A year farther from the end of graduation and all the promise that entailed.  A year closer to midlife.

In February I turned ...  [+]
Short Fiction
 3 min

Wildflowers

lovelmo Gordon

It’s a cool Saturday in October and Peter Jenkins, age 11, is bouncing the basketball in the ball court, of Capital Public Houses, where he lives. The chubby, caramel-colored Black boy plays ball ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction
 3 min

Petroleum Smile

Jojo W

Ending my shift in the darkness of the night. Walking to the car quite exhausted. Climbing slowly into the driver's seat. Inhaling a deep breath prior to starting the ignition. I exhale and listen ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 2 min

Sunflower

Gabrielle Jamieson

I wish I could speak to the young mixed girl in rural Delaware when she hated her knotted curls, brown eyes, and skin that was shades darker than her mother’s. She was still growing, expanding unde ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

American Raised

Shar Vegas Moore

My America is so free until its dysfunctional. My family is as functionally, dysfunctional as they come. Because of them, I have loved and can persevere anything. I have never discussed what it has ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 3 min

Respect, Dignity And Love!

TLRJ

My first memory of racism, well, my first realization of racism, happened when I was a young child. My little friend was black, and I had never thought a thing about it either way. Our families were ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

The United States of Trauma

Cassie Premo Steele

The thing about trauma, when it is survived, is that it can prepare people for the future. Sometimes people develop skills to handle a crisis or deescalate violence. Veterans can become police ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

Coloring Outside the Country

Kmarch

America, I can’t color you in. You don’t exist. America is not a country. There are three Americas: North, Central, and South. You can't be drawn on any map. However, I will color you a name ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

Green Springs

Tony Martello

I always wonder if cavemen and women knew what time was? And if so, did it seem to accelerate and decelerate to them, as it appears to us today? The concept of time has only changed recently (a few ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 2 min

Box Voice

Soumy Ana

I lived in America. My family has been featured many times in magazines and newspapers. We are nothing special. Yet, we’ve been photographed because we showed up at the right time, at the right ...  [+]
Short Fiction
 3 min

The Hole In The Wall

H.L. Dowless

Sister Sue lived in the convent. Tim Flowers worked nearby on the land. Sister Sue had lived behind the wall for such a long time. Flowers thought it was all so grand. The convent was ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

A Uniquely American Language

Celeste Bonfanti

America is made up of hundreds of unique minority populations, and one is the Deaf Community. Our country borrows its principal spoken language from our one-time colonial power, England. Howeve ...  [+]