Pingo went first. He always did. The rest of us stood at the top of the slope over the place where the sewer pipes from town spilled into the narrow creek that  disappeared into a deep ravine west

On her bike in the rain, Sally could not shake the bus. The double-decker advanced no more confidently than Sally. She stopped to clear her bangs that conducted a stream down her open mouth.

Lou Reed was at our party last night. I think. Couldn’t ID him clearly—with the dark, smoke, and all that constant shifting. Whoever he was, he had a knack for sinking into sofas and corners where

Things they never tell you when your husband leaves the planet:

It’ll happen faster in real-life than it does on TV. 10, 9, 8… A flash of orange and a shimmer of exhaust, and the shuttle is

In 2010, we published Adam Novy's The Avian Gospels as two volumes, kind of Old and New Testament style. Having sold out of the two-volume edition, the book is now newly available, now been

Dee had pregnant friends back home. She had missed their weddings and now she would miss the births of their children. She felt left out but it comforted her a small amount to think that there were

In 2010, we published Adam Novy's The Avian Gospels as two volumes, kind of Old and New Testament style. Having sold out of the two-volume edition, the book is now newly available, now been

Jerry’s Daddy, looking half dead, sat in the kitchen smoking a Camel and sketching comic faces on a napkin with a stubby pencil. There was quite an odor about him, mostly of sour, poorly washed

Jesse come in from the spot across the way where Daddy had him throw the last of the matchboxes. Daddy let Jesse carry em cause they was light, and Jesse liked helpin. Jesse counted 38 full trash

When we arrived at our new place on Plankton, the first thing I noticed was all the cages in the neighbor’s yard. Rows and rows of wooden crates, stacked on end, lined their yard, the wire netting

Greg had always suspected that had Hitler managed to get into art school, he would have become the Thomas Kinkade of his time. Did it follow then that had Thomas Kinkade not found commercial

“They paved paradise / and put up a parking lot / which was a public
  necessity / that boosted the economy / of the city and surrounding towns.”

- - -

Fact: Jim Bogios used to

This was a burlesque theater, a two-bit operation that could barely pay off the racketeers and the cops  a place to come into out of the dark, although in the end the dark could snag you by the

When the governor’s budget cuts hit Eisenhower Middle School, the library’s one of the first targets because who needs books? The staff is halved. I’m cut; Joan’s kept. She has nineteen years in

The next morning the phone rings early, five-thirty, definitely not later than six. The birds outside don’t scream that loud after six. The voice on the phone is my niece, the fifteen-year-old,

There’s been a lot of talk about Executives in the news lately, a lot of mystery and confusion. For the last year, I’ve had a side-gig proofreading executive resumes. Now I know all about

LAKE ELSINORE WILL HOST THE ONE TRICK PONY

This place was one of those places. Had a minor league baseball team, an Angels affiliate, on some high ground, halfway between Riverside and

As a teenager, I had this superficial interest in handguns—I liked how the metal felt against my skin. I had never learned to shoot one, however, nor did I really intend to know at that young age.

The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is curiosity, so it does not surprise me when you say you are leaving for the rest of the evening to climb Mount Grablehorn or

Everyone watched him walk to the guy. Everyone saw. They were all watching with their big stupid eyes that wouldn't let anyone off the hook. And this guy, he was always on the hook. A guy who was

Jose Canseco was listening to a county music song on his portable cassette player. It was ninety-seven degrees on the public golf course. He took out a cigarette. The country music song inside his

How're you gonna live, she said, if you don't immerse?

Inside, in the unforeseen, where the sounds of dust susurrus, we glimpse rainbowed light above the shadows. Will we ever reach there, we ask?

Wonders I. Wonders we.

You stare down at the departed. The fulgurites of your heart chattering. She was, man, an episode. An emitter of staggering forked words...

My boyfriend hit me in the face with a book. It was an accident, his hitting me. He only meant to hand me the book. He meant to hand the book back to me. But my face was in its path, he said.