A New Kind of Literary Pulse

As a child, I remembered the face of my imaginary friend better than that of my own father. Unlike my father, my imaginary friend was a continuous presence. As a child, he seemed, to me, a giant with ...  [+]

My family were the shamans of our community before we moved to Anchorage. We facilitate connection between humans and the spirits. The essences are unaware that most people cannot see them, yet they ...  [+]

My steps into the grimy room felt heavy, every surface covered in dirt and rust. The room was damp like an old sewer pipe full of rats. I was one of those rats, a dirty man. "Sit down here," the man ...  [+]

I remember the exact moment I woke up. The sway of the ship, familiar and calm, rocked my hammock without anything heeding it. Whatever storm we saw in the distance must have blown over without a ...  [+]

I adore pain. It's an addiction that has me salivating at a mere brush with it. Like any addiction, this enslavement, how much does it really cost? To have it poison my veins - I am its most willing ...  [+]

We'd been in line for two hours already. The number of people waiting reminds me of the lines you'd see in SoHo for a newly opened bar, except we are outside a hospital clinic and everyone wears the ...  [+]

It was a long time ago when a young wife and her husband moved into a quiet neighborhood that was on the edge of a small town. Everything was new to her. A fresh smell of new beginnings. Every ...  [+]

I rushed down the street to our apartment, butterflies thrumming in my stomach. Pictures of our new home's skyline would finally hold meaning, her laughter would reverberate off the walls of a quaint ...  [+]

MCE stretches endlessly before me, and somewhere between the rushing traffic and Marina Bay's glittering towers, my kopi-C grows cold.The sun bleeds orange into the water the same colors that seem to ...  [+]

She shows up on his campus exactly one week after he tells her, hushed despite the fact that no one's around and they're on a phone call, that he's been thinking about killing himself. That he doesn't ...  [+]

Recipe for Tamales    Step 1: Gather the following: Ingredients:                   Materials: -masa mix                    -your grandmother's tortillador             -chicken breast            ...  [+]

"The All Inn is the only all-in-one inn for one and all! You can find it all in the all inn! Let's get you checked in!"             Myles waved politely back at the concierge behind the counter. It ...  [+]

Hallow Creek lies before me, my hometown wearing a stranger's weather. Water licks my ankles. A black owl drops onto a lamppost and clicks its beak. "My name is Lancelot. You don't belong here," it ...  [+]

 Let's get one thing straight, okay? I didn't expect working for supervillains to be glamorous. I didn't expect it to be pleasant. Hell, if we're being honest? I expected it to be awful. To be ...  [+]

"How does it feel, fighting for a cause painted in rose and rot?"  Days have passed since my battle with the self-proclaimed God of War in prison, yet his words won't leave me. They tattooed ...  [+]

I've had a dream of moving out for three years. It started as just a wish—I looked at my eyes in the mirror and told the man looking back that I was going to leave this place and never look back ...  [+]

A couple of weeks before her junior year at the Metropolis Institute of Art and Design in New York City, Veronica savors her last days of summer at home in Sonoma, California. The city's verdant ...  [+]

Rhonda pressed her feet into her potato gently, curling them against the warmth. It wasn't just any potato—it was a just-baked daily potato, round and sunny and perfectly plump. Rhonda needed the ...  [+]