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Becoming 
Tran Thi Thien  

January 13, 2026
To the best of my knowledge, this story is entirely true. My grandmother stole her name from a dead girl. In 1927, my grandmother escaped the house of the wealthy family that had bought her from her impoverished family with the intention of having her marry their incompetent son. They had raised her from the time she was...

Sister Cycle

January 13, 2026
There are twelve sisters, and their house is falling apart. There have not always been twelve, but now there are twelve. Sometimes there are ten, because one of them is being Mother, and another Father. Sometimes there are only six, because a handful are running away.  Rhododendron is prettiest. Sorrel is hungriest, stomping around the house, parting floorboards and collecting termites, popping them into...

A Family Affair 

January 13, 2026
My father had been in the process of dying for years before he actually went. Cardiomyopathy, a slow disease, and bearing every inconvenience. He was not supposed to chop wood, among a long list of not-alloweds, like consuming anything with sodium or sugar, or walking the dog down the steep path to the woods, or going through airport security without...

Attractions 

October 16, 2025
It took like an hour to get to Coney Island from Rockaway, so Kayla and Heiley never went much before, but that was the summer Heiley wanted to ride rides next to screaming boys she didn’t know who pretended to their friends that they weren’t scared afterwards. They had to take the Q35 across the...

Beasts

October 16, 2025
On our last ordinary night, I aimed the ball at my younger brother’s head. We were on the trampoline in the far corner of our backyard behind the thick pecan, playing penalties and meta tres and world cup off the posts. I wanted, just this once, to beat him. My brother dove, then bounced upright, his teeth inexplicably green in the navy dark. The ball...

The Roommate

October 16, 2025
I don’t know how to tell it, I really don’t, it happened slowly and then all at once and the very next weekend we took a hammer to the cot, repainted the walls of the nursery, and posted a listing online. The new tenant would have to be single, since the apartment wasn’t big enough...

Devi & Mai

October 9, 2025
As soon as she is able, as soon as she moves into a house that is big enough, and there is light, and she is sure that they will not move again anytime soon, Devi buys plants. Big rubber plants and a small leaved ficus and two palms that she repots into ceramic pots that...

A Taxonomy of Pitfall Traps

September 23, 2025
What grows in Louisiana grows with purpose. Eileen thinks of apologizing each time she types the words “nutrient-poor,” each time she calls these hillside bogs highly acidic, saturated. But there it is. One plant’s hostile conditions are another plant’s herbaceous haven, and four marked sites along the hidden slopes of Moss Bluff are heaven to...

Artisanal Soap 

September 18, 2025
If Evelyn could have one wish granted for her 32nd birthday, it would be to turn back time to her 20th. She would do things right, given a second chance. Try different college classes. Study abroad. Go on more runs with Jim. Maybe end up as something other than an accounting clerk, and maybe end...

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GHOST AND GHOST AND GHOST

September 1, 2025
Ghost鬼[1] 人所归     All men return to    ghostliness                     为鬼in death,              to don their macabre masks                                           从人，象鬼头                               and in so                                     unbalances their mortal figure.            鬼阴气贼害    All men in ghostliness     harm the living 从厶     and are helpless    in stopping their harming.                          凡鬼之属        Ghosts hide in plain sight皆从鬼    in all ghostly things. *** I began translating these dictionary entries...

Sorry for Making You Wait

August 26, 2025
From his position on the balcony, Mr. Sinha had a clear view of the woman riding into Nazrul lane on her thundering motorbike which belched gray smoke. The loud vroom-vroom reverberated through the old brick houses that lined the narrow Lane, waking their nosy balconies and drowsy seven-by-nine-feet front gardens. Mr. Sinha saw his neighbors,...

Your One-Year-Old, Your Two-Year-Old

August 26, 2025
They were driving into the setting sun, so when Sarah tapped the window and said, “Oh my God,” Leif saw only glare.   “What?” he asked, his voice low because Lily was asleep in the back of the minivan. Normally they didn’t let her nap this late, but Leif had decided to gamble on a wakeless...