Mya’s parents are liberal enough to send her paddling across the lake, on errand for their “grassroots pharmaceuticals,” but not liberal enough to let her wear a muumuu while doing it. “That’s my maternity dress, Mya,” her mother groans, scrunching her face in both distaste and reaction to the high sun, distending itself in her …
My sister used to say, “I’m going to have an affair as soon as I get married,” and I wouldn’t understand. I was too young then, too innocent to identify with her desire to ruin things. There was no coming back from it, like what we’d both done to all our Barbies. I’d done the …
Of the three people on the riverbank—Janice, Anton, and Fiona—only two have magical powers. Anton is extraordinarily tall, but excessive height is not in and of itself a magical power. Janice is rather pretty for a woman of her age, but despite her looks, Anton cannot be alone with her. Fiona has a broken arm, …
Blair Hurley received her A.B. from Princeton University and her M.F.A. from NYU. She is the author of The Devoted, published by W.W. Norton, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work is published or forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Ninth Letter, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, …
Yohanca Delgado holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, where she teaches undergraduate writing. She is an assistant fiction editor at Barrelhouse, and has been published in The Paris Review, One Story, and A Public Space, among other places. Her story “The Niece” appears in Story’s Spring 2019 issue. INTERVIEWER How did you …
We’d been to this funeral home twice before—at least, I think we had? I guess it sounds heartless but they blend together, with their signs calligraphed with the family name, the floral arrangements and folded programs, the standard chairs in the standard rows. Even the silence feels uniform in these places. They must all use …
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In 1995 something horrible happened. My favorite band released Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Months before it dropped, Spin and Rolling Stone buzzed with news about Smashing Pumpkins’ next project, a long-awaited two-disc album. My boyfriend Scott could hardly contain himself because he was certain it would be their greatest work yet. Given what …
When the Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2020 World Series last year, I was sitting on the couch with my youngest daughter Rosette, 25, here in Riverside, California, 55 miles from Dodger Stadium in LA, and on the phone with my mother, Gabrielle Gertrude Leu Straight Watson, 85, who was sitting alone in her mauve …
Sometimes Gordon and me hang out in the apartment in our Stormtrooper armor. We play cards or watch TV or drink beer, the same things you’d do in your street clothes, but we do them in full gear. Except for helmets—it’s about 300 degrees inside those things, and we’re not looking to kill ourselves. On …