A New Kind of Literary Pulse

Anna knew the bridge was a mistake before she and Henry even got there. Maybe it was because he had said he thought it was strange for full grown adults to interrupt a conversation to swoon over an ... [+]

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who was stolen by a terrible necromancer. He and his rotting, clanking horde abducted her from the palace gardens and carried her away and away until ... [+]

i.
Rob and I were down the pub, drinking Guinness. There was a woman in there with a face like a fox. The whiteness of it, along with the red hair, only strengthened the impression. She shot out ... [+]

I watched one of those old movies the other day—you know, from when nobody wore masks. It was a little disturbing to see all those naked mouths, and sometimes it was tricky to tell what was going ... [+]

I. Sober
Mrs. Anna Shaw dreaded Saturdays, though if you asked her why, she wouldn't have known exactly what to say. "Dinner just doesn't feel right," she might say, tugging thoughtfully at he ... [+]

Across a wood-grain bar in southern Minnesota on the way to Buddy Holly roller coaster in slower Iowa, I lay a few dollars on the bar for the sixpack of Blatz (cheapest they got and straight from ... [+]

This job is a grand. We're supposed to deliver the piano from a suburban chateau into a self-storage facility. Why doesn't matter. Pick-up address, how many floors down; delivery address, how many ... [+]

This story contains adult themes and is not appropriate for young or sensitive readers.
I met Sarkas at a club called Pose. Rolling on molly, eager to swallow the world, dancing with our hips ... [+]

The weather was good today, you answer whenever I ask how are you, how was your day. I don't know when we stopped talking about what mattered the most because you won't tell me. I ask are you ... [+]

It began at a sports bar, the kind of place the realtor would call "happy-go-lucky." In other words, if your barstool wasn't sticky, assume it had just been swabbed clean by CSI. There was graffiti ... [+]

I remember when my world divided into male and female, when the girls screamed "Shaun has cooties!" across the playground and flushed with what I thought was anger. I remember being in a closet ... [+]

On our last day at the beach the sun came out, and the fog, which for that whole week had draped the shore in a veil of cotton, burned away: we discovered there was an ocean here, after all. It ... [+]