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A New Kind of Literary Pulse

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Logo Long Story Short Award - 2022
Creative Nonfiction
 3 min

Bully

Tobin Eckstein

He doesn't look friendly.

Did he assume I wouldn't respond? Did he think that I would take one look at the narrow bifocals balancing at the tip of his pointed, ruddy nose, or glance down at ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

To say goodbye, we walk

Ruth Jeffers

into the garage, no more Buick or Honda, now driving his oldest grandchild and her babies between Wake Forest suburb and student seminary housing. No more museum of decapitated brooms, empty dusty ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 2 min

The Questions

Kevin Manunure

In the midst of a village, South of Africa
When we all thought we have done our duty as mourners
Digging the grave, because there was no funeral plan
He died a sinner, from spiritual spell ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

A Sort of Shooting

Abby Knudsen

Two minutes before it happened, Maya and I lay in the middle of the hallway while the other six students paced and drank from the water fountain. With our brains jittery after the multiple-choice ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 1 min

Marriage

Allegra KIng

Our messy married life; wabi-sabi beautiful, imperfect,
impermanent, and forever incomplete.

Continually, we mend the chipped and broken pieces into art, our art, our life. Like Japanese ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

Toodles: The Early Years

Rose Rowe

Heart pounding wildly, he cavorted through the house, wreaking botanical havoc. Hearing an anguished cry as his assault on the houseplants was discovered, he tossed his head in spirited defiance ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 4 min

The Stuff of Stars

JessieAnne DAmico

You will meet a man who tells you we are all made of the stuff of stars. That our bodies hold the carbon and nitrogen and helium and oxygen atoms that formed the ancestors of stars we see today. He'll ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

Some Things Never Change

isabella pritchard

You always hear people talking about their mom being their best friend or their mom doing this and that for them and being so excited to see them, but what about when that's not the case? What about ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 2 min

Grief Before Death

Leeza Santiago Millán

Abuelo is dying.
He has been dying for a while, some odd quantity of months.
I have learned that like plants, humans can wither so quickly.
One day, we are so healthy our flowers are fully ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

Intercontinental Breakfast

Adelle Else

Mom came to America, hungry for a slice of the American dream. Her first bite was a man from Texas, a recent divorcée who was sweet, with an aftertaste of debt. Still, America was the "shining City ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

How to kill time with your phone

Queenie Hola

"The fifth wave of Covid is hitting Hong Kong. Over 12,000 confirmed cases awaiting hospitalization. People rushed to public hospitals by different public transports." The news report from my ‘living ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 5 min

A Chinese New Year Banquet

Danni Zhou

The Chinese New Year was approaching. The muffled chimes of the temple bell froze in the air. The eerie orange hue of the sky mingled with the light cyan mist. Few pedestrians ducked their heads like ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
Portrait Reflection  3 min

swim.

Emily Gajda

At 10 A.M., Wells Beach, Maine was too quiet.

I should've been in New York City, working at the publishing house that offered me that internship back in March. I should've been waking up at 7 A.M ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
 3 min

The Shape of an Urchin

Ryan Phillips

The empty street seemed brighter than it had a few hours earlier and my eyes began to adjust. Maybe it seemed that way because I had spent the last two hours watching a movie. Or the sun had just ...  [+]
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction
Society  5 min

Someone You Know

Andrew Hoffman

JANUARY 2020. 7234 miles from Chicago, China reports the first death from a novel coronavirus. There is no evidence it can spread among humans.
I'm commuting to school and two women on the train are ...  [+]