CREATIVE NONFICTION

A TAKEN SEAT AT AN EMPTY TABLE by AMALIA COSTA (United Kingdom)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

I soon realise my mistake. So does everyone else, but no one says anything. England has smoothed our edges, clipped our tongues.

DILIGENCE by KAREN UMEORA (United States)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

My mom got me a goldfish yesterday. I didn’t even want it. She told me it’d teach me diligence, which, I’ll admit, I have been lacking lately.

FIVE TIMES WHEN I CATCH MYSELF ALIVE by MERIT ONYEKWERE

(United States)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

There are five times when who I am coincides with who I want to be, and when I catch myself unapologetically alive.

A CONNECTION THAT SPANS SPACE AND TIME by JONATHAN HUANG (Taiwan)

My teacher Ms. Waterson wore glasses, and I kept an earnest gaze at them as I spoke to inhibit shaking. There was something quite different about her.

Issue 1.3 December 2019

BICYCLES AGO by SAACHI GUPTA (India)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

There’s a moment, on Grandparents’ Day in kindergarten, when I realize that the other grandparents don’t smile. Not as much as my grandparents do.

BLACK PEOPLE DON'T EAT SUSHI by AKILAH NORTHERN (United States)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

“Black people don’t eat sushi.” He said it while I was in the middle of filling a bowl with grits, awaiting their seasoning of butter, salt, and pepper (because that’s the way to best serve grits).

A BRIEF HISTORY VIA EGG by MELISSA XU (United States)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

I grew up eating an excessive amount of eggs. Actually, that’s a little misleading. A more accurate statement would be that I grew up eating an excessive amount of fried rice, and thus in conjunction, ate an excessive amount of eggs.

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THE FOOD THAT BINDS US by ROSALEEN SWEITI (United States)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

There's a sort of spell that falls over the dinner table as we wait for the athan to sound. Hungry souls glancing excitedly at their clocks, watching the minute hand slowly tick on. Sun setting below the vast horizon, every phone in the house goes off . . .

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TRAINS by ANNIE CHENG (United States)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

You always liked to watch the trains as they passed by, one after another, right on schedule. You liked the whooshing sound of the breaks as the train slowed into the station, and the whirring of the engine as it started up again.

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NATURE JOURNAL by ELIZABETH BUNTIN (United States)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

There is a certain inscrutability in the mercurial ebb and flow of life in the woods, an unassuming cadence that settles just beyond my naive circumspection. The dry sweep of the wind’s touch is fond and insidious in turns . . .