Hunger 1315 by Claire Loader The storms came in the spring, slipped the waking earth, hushed her back to sleep again. We scraped the bottom of our winter bowls, stagnated hours lingering, listless – lips parched with thinning prayers. I…
BackStory: Five Questions with Robert Barrett
BackStory: Five Questions with Robert Barrett Author of Footprints in Water What inspired you to write ‘Footprints in Water’? I went to a boarding school in the 1980s. It was a sort of Irish Hogwarts where television was non-existent, the internet…
Footprints in Water
Footprints in Water by Robert Barrett On Christmas Eve, she fell; sucked downwards through the angry, screaming wind, head first, through two miles of unencumbered sky, and no thought can take root, only the biting of the seatbelt across her…
BackStory: Five Questions with Morgan Quinn
BackStory: Five Questions with Morgan Quinn Author of I Have Suffered the Atrocity of Sunsets What inspired you to write ‘I Have Suffered the Atrocity of Sunsets’ ? Back in 2018, my husband and I had the opportunity to go…
I Have Suffered the Atrocity of Sunsets
I Have Suffered the Atrocity of Sunsets by Morgan Quinn Today you wake up late, but Mama doesn’t scold. She plaits the inky waterfall of your hair as you eat your breakfast, then presses an onigiri into your hand and…
BackStory: Five Questions with Barbara Diggs
BackStory: Five Questions with Barbara Diggs Author of Granddaddy at War What inspired you to write “Granddaddy at War”? I’ve always found it poignant and confounding that the African-American men who served in World War I were determined to fight…
Granddaddy at War
Granddaddy at War by Barbara Diggs My grandfather stands straight as the rifle he won’t be allowed to touch. Trenches may be choked with corpses across the ocean, but a weapon in the hands of a black man is no…
Timeline: FlashBack’s Eleventh Season
Timeline: FlashBack’s Eleventh Season As we close our eleventh — eleventh! — season, we’re bringing you both some bad news and some good news. First the bad: We’re starting our summer publication break a few weeks early this year, and…
BackStory: Seven Questions with Jack Somers
BackStory: Seven Questions with Jack Somers Author of The Defenestration of Jezebel What inspired you to write ‘The Defenestration of Jezebel’? For years, I had heard the term “Jezebel” used as a derogatory term for a woman, but I didn’t…
The Defenestration of Jezebel
The Defenestration of Jezebel by Jack Somers The queen wore her finest on the morning of her death. The lotus silk gown, pale as the blanched beaches of Sidon. The damask linen stole, soft as moth wings, green as the…