I am incredibly proud to feature the winner of our 2nd annual Story Foundation Prize, Karl Taro Greenfield, who’s remarkable story “Womanly Words” opens our summer issue. Set in imperial Japan, the young protagonist is the fifth and youngest son, and in a time of growing nationalism, he struggles with issues of masculinity, strength, and …
At the plant where Miles works, there was once a new foreman, ex-military. Presiding over his first crew meeting, he paced the floor with hands folded behind his back and dictated how things would be on his watch: “You will not wear street clothes to clock in and out. You will not exceed the time …
When I spin the globe of my youth, this is where my finger lands, always here, in a snowy desert. I was in Arizona. It was January and I was traveling around with a backpack that I had taken from my brother. I was sure he’d want it back someday, so I felt like a …
The chair is light blue but shades toward gray in the sun. China blue but more somber, more delicate. It’s an Adirondack chair, which are common in New England, but when she first saw it, she found it unique, unusual, a splendid wedding gift. They married right after she graduated. She was twenty-two and Morty …
They’d chosen a hiking trip for their budget-friendly honeymoon, but they were late driving to the bed and breakfast they’d reserved, a converted lighthouse on the shores of Lake Superior. They were traveling due north to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and didn’t realize the time zone changed when they crossed the state line into …
I. Our first summer as princesses, we are ravaged by the heat. Already, even before the perspiration slithers from our glitter-slathered pores, so little of us is us, beneath the tulle and the spandex, the polyester and rayon, the baubles and the brightly colored faux hair, the galaktoboureko layering of unbreathable fabrics. We’re touched up …
My father’s first wife had died giving birth to Utaka, the youngest of my three older brothers. She had done her duty, my father often joked, giving him an abundance of sons. Therefore he could afford to be less stringent when it came to selecting his next wife. He had settled for Hanako, the mother …
Brink stuck his head into the treehouse, just popped his giant head on that scrawny neck in, and Todd and Keith pelted him with pretzels. Absolutely peppered him with those twisted bits because what the fuck Brink? This was the Lost Boys Club. No Non-Lost Boys allowed. No fucked-up weird Brinks. It didn’t say so …
Last month, I heard a story that has stuck with me like a winter cough. It’s about a mother who killed herself for her daughter. I was staying at a hotel in Seoul, a boxy thing of dirty white concrete. When I went down to the bar, I ran into another American. I could tell …
My grandfather’s dying wish was for me to appear on the nationally renowned quiz show, Trivial? For the past couple weeks, they’d been advertising tryouts for the upcoming teen tournament. “Ben,” he said, “I need you to do this for me and your father.” He was lying on what we’d assumed was his deathbed, a …