A New Kind of Literary Pulse

I don’t like to think of myself as a bad person; just someone who has made awful decisions. Someone who has had rotten luck for a long time. For years, I’ve been confined in a room with no people ... [+]

Jannya remembers before the Growing.
Of course she does. It was only a year ago, and she’s been traveling ever since. She remembers traveling before, too, but always staying in Chicago, traveling ... [+]

Sent: May 13th
Lovely Kokóly,
It’s hard to imagine that I just saw you ten days ago; it already feels like it’s been a month to me. Not much has happened since I saw you last. Gomena is in ... [+]

She had spent a particularly long morning in the forest. Too long. She knew the risks, but they were hard to remember on that idyllic morning, the rays of sunlight stroking her into submission to the ... [+]

The exam coming up was very important. Monica sat at her desk, surrounded by open books, colored highlighters and pens, numerous empty cans of seltzer water and a mug with the dried remnants of he ... [+]

Have you ever been in a confined space with three to five small children? I have. I spend three hours each summer morning teaching kids how to sail. It’s fun, and I love it. But it’s also a ... [+]

In the shade of a blooming magnolia tree, bows bowing under the weight of the fat pink blossoms, stood a pale god. He looked on as a woman with curly brown hair danced in the petals that fell with the ... [+]

Fred tiptoed into his room and slid into his desk chair, casting a worried glance over his shoulder as he opened his laptop. Typing as quietly as he could, he logged onto Artium Obscurorum and ... [+]

“Go kill somebody,” said one of the boys.
“Go kill yourself!” A burst of laughter.
“That’s stupid!” said Dimitur.
“Disappear then, ah!” another one said.
“We’re ... [+]

He just wished it would all end. The unbearable pain. The countless sleepless nights. The tears. The heartache.
There seemed to be no light at the end of this tunnel. Elizabeth had meant the world ... [+]

I never saw the star my great-aunt gave me, but I could feel it. It was like a warm heartbeat pulsing between my hands. It didn’t burn me— “Stars don’t burn,” Aunt Naomi said, “they just ... [+]

“We are all just walking each other home.” - Ram Dass
“In all that I am, I am art first.” This was my opening line as I shamelessly flirted with you over drinks that night. You had ... [+]

He sat behind the desk in his office with his eyes closed, leaning slightly back into the chair. He held something in his left hand, resting it lightly against his temple. With his right hand he ... [+]

In early October, in the forests of West Virginia, where the light of dusk fall is suffused with the red and green landscape of evergreen and oak, he carved a path along the mountain side too narrow ... [+]

Mr. Stesso was annoyed.
The 7:30 bus was late and an unshaven man with a large bag took the seat across from him two stops in. The bag cramped Mr. Stesso’s legs, and he could smell onions ... [+]

There were two kinds of creatures. Those of darkness, and those of light.
They lived in their separate worlds––those of darkness stepping from shadow to shadow, and those of light from sunbeam ... [+]

Your eyes are green like freshly sprouted leaves, Noah wrote as John Denver's “Annie’s song” played tenderly in the background. No, that’s wrong. Her eyes aren’t the pale green of summe ... [+]

Her blossoms open as the dawn warms her branches. “The purpose of this tree,” I sigh to myself, “is simply for the nourishment of animals’ bodies, and nourishment of my soul” A home to a ... [+]