Mx. Callan Jaida Jones (they/them) is a queer and disabled multidisciplinary artist based in Mohkinstsis / Calgary, on Treaty 7 Territory. Jones holds a BFA (Honours) in Photography Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University and their photographic work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. They received the Flash Forward Award from the Magenta Foundation for work created during The Peel Project and The Canadian Wilderness Residency, two canoe-based artist residencies in the Arctic.

by John Grey There’s a nest of waspshigh up in the garage.And a brown snake curled upin the long backyard grass.A black widow spider crawls across the ceiling.Everything is dangerous.Everything is close.Meanwhile, my fatheris spraying and swattingand chasing with a hose.My mother watches from the window.We’re just kids.It’s just like an action movie to us.

by Susan Milchman (a golden shovel after Anne Sexton) Death offers me a dream i am small & curled into a damp cave wrapped in moist earth & the smell of softening skin i am here trapped in this bone-bound fate hours away & not yet aware of the weight of losing the sky to this avalanche of stillness my fingers crawl to…

by James Keith Smith When the Detroit zoo lost its funding, the animals disappeared from their enclosures and one by one began to roam the streets of Livonia. Chimpanzees howled like maniacs outside the library. Children on summer break followed a skinny polar bear, who carried a deflated basketball in its mouth, into the forest behind the elementary school. I wanted to call my wife and tell her about the animals—the giraffe who ate the leaves off our pear tree, the peacock on the roof—but when she’d packed up her things for her sister’s, she made it clear she’d call when she was ready.

by Ted Mc Carthy We are coming at lastto the white stones we read about;white coigns on warm wallswhere flowers lean like weeds.The sea has become a memoryand we still on it;further, wave by wave,from those streets,their evening stragglers,the growing common urgeto trade a year of lifefor a generous word.

mosaic wings outstretched it’s here, hidden to all but the gentle ones - the broken end of a branch, hollow,an inch across, filled with small pearly gecko eggs,upon which I place the soft, expired body, lifted from the waves The Stonea stone moved, swam through the lava-bound tide pool, flicking its stone tail like a fishmotionless…

by Arya F. Jenkins Dressed in a two-piece red bathing suit with a frilly bottom at six, I waited for my Dad to come home from work every day so we could surf waves together. For him to sweep me up onto his shoulders as we raced to the beach across the street from where we lived in Talara. Dad’s long, pale legs sprinting over random boards and piles of weeds to the brilliant shoreline of the Pacific.

by Cecil Morris here time comes to unwind seconds kick off their shoes, stretch their long legs out and prop their feet—holey socks and all—on the low tables and the old magazines minutes don’t even cover their mouths when they yawn wide as a donkey braying displaying their awful teeth their horrible wet tongues that no one wants to see…

by Chenyue Wang “举头望明月，低头思故乡。” —李白 《静夜思》I walk barefoot along the lakeof my desires, until the surface blues my toes.Dithering over which language will conjure it, I neverreturn home in my dream. I measure its magnitude on a scale.Asia, China, Beijing, Dongcheng District:my bedroom in a grey Soviet-style apartment. But ifI could, I would transmit an image in the toponyms—

by Cara Wang poetryi’ve distilled tomorrow to poetry / printed out my words on A4 paper / burned / swallowed my cremation / under the afternoon sun / the stomach becomes a charnel house / for this dream / send the text / watch black text spill over white. / will you burn that too? palms i’m peeling the pig-skin off / my fingerbones / because the dermatologist didn’t give me / cream / for my hands / i hate the way / the night is hung / with shattered stars / who were they / yesterday?

by Megan Stillwell I am thinking of a funeral pyre,the ashes and gravelthat a human are worth,the light of our photons exploding —the carbon and phosphateand zinc and iron and char,the particles from the sameproverbial flood, from the sameprovince of being, the same earth,the same city, the same town square:the one where you were born, the one…

by Susan Brink O'Flaherty The PET tech accompanying me to the bathroom is heavily made up, with enormous, pillowy arms she’s somehow squeezed into a long-sleeved t-shirt. I can see all the dimples and undulations of her flesh through the thin light pink lycra under her scrubs. “I’ll be right here, sweetness. Call out when you’re done.” She keeps the door cracked––her blue scrubs and pedestrian pink and white Reeboks are visible from the toilet seat.

by Arielle Arbushites Two men on bikes, chatting,stacking about 160 years between them, wisps of gray hair flying,legs pumping as if in slow motion until One of them pushes ahead, still talking. “What? I can’t hear you!” calls the Otherfrom behind, legs moving faster to catch up,not hesitating for a moment, chasing the attempt to listen more, harder, again.

Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry collection, True Crime, was published in Berlin by Sacred Parasite this year.

by Kate Dobrovolny Silver maples with their rough, peeling strips of gray bark and shimmering silver-bottomed leaves dominated the neighbor’s backyard, shaded the wild ginger and ostrich ferns, and drew shadows across our property lines, until a storm straight out of Kansas seared off the east side of the mother tree, ripping a jagged hole in the canopy, hurtling a giant lance down…

by Michael Daley The light at dawn dragging night away like a child silenced trying to screamHow afraid I was of the pigeons cooing in the eavesIn that big bed a fever glowered on the crumbling city wallsMelted into terrorsA childhood like that without release The complicity of the abusersWere they dreams or shapes older than hallucinations take?

by Kip Knott The five-day games demonstrate China’s rapid progress in advanced robotics… Associated Press When the robot breaks the tape,its stops dead center on the trackand turns slowly in all directionsas if calculating whether the crowd is actuallycheering for its victoryor voicing their terror as they realize that a robot may have just become…

January House Literary Journal is delighted to announce our nominations for the 2027 Best of the Net anthology. The Best of the Net is an awards-based anthology designed to grant a platform to a diverse and growing collection of writers and publishers who are building an online literary landscape that seeks to break free of traditional publishing. Congratulations and best of luck to our nominees!

by Alicia Potee I.Milk, milk, lemonade, round the back is where the fudge is made. Late to everything save life itself since birth, I know the knotted price of early arrival—in my case, meconium aspiration, a fancy term for eating shit. Specifically, breathing it in. At first, four frank-breech pounds, my diapers mirrored the dainty shape and weight of my mother’s soft cigarette packs—

by Louise Robertson Our heart slaps while lillies hold out their arms till they droop,stomata pulling fluid through 
their bodies.We bow to that spongy thing,clapping for itself,the fist in our chests 
that opens like 
the wound that is our mouth.Imagine letting air move internal
liquids instead of that constant flex and 
punch. The body then…

Sweet Tooth Sobriety: Day 7Something they don’t tell youIs how badly you’ll want candy.How your body, flailing blindly,will fall into sticky poolsrimmed with brightly colored plastic.How a room full of addictson a 15 minute break willdescend on a bowl filled with thesweetness they’ve been missinglike the shades to Odysseuscome to drink the blood.

by Jeffrey Heath Our Summer 2026 issue is now live on the site. You can view the free PDF edition here. Print and Kindle editions are also available via Amazon. Jeffrey Heath, Founding Editor, EIC - January House Literary Journal

Our Last Trip to AshlandSouthern Oregon was on firewhen we came for the Shakespeare Festival,the sun a blood-red disc in the sky.The first night an outdoor performanceof Romeo and Juliet was cancelled,the air-quality hazardous to our health.The novelty of seeing crowds waiting in lines, standing on street corners all wearing face masks. Pericles Prince of Tyre risks death…

by David Hanlon We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
—Anaïs NinI am yesterday’s light,
a shard of citrus
caught behind black curtains.Dawn finds me
folded into pleats of shadow—
birdsong blurred
to a distant remembering,
the river forgetting
its silver breath.Then a great spotted woodpecker,
red-crowned, insistent,
strikes the oak
until the tree remembers…

by Rebekah Bowman I must root myself so deeply into this soil that my ownnetwork of light will form and make an ecosystem, a world.If I abandon this shell, it will be plucked from the sand as a token.I need to plant a tree. I need to plant a forest.I need to become organism, entity, the kind that rebirths itself after wild…

Gina Cooke was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. Her passion for art began in high school when she received first place in An Artistic Discovery for a batik depicting palm trees. This early recognition inspired her to pursue her artistic interests, earning an Associate of Arts degree in Art from Pensacola Junior College and later a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design from the University of West Florida. Working primarily in abstraction, Gina explores the interplay of color, shape, and form. Using acrylic paint, she embraces experimentation and intuitive expression.

by Lorrie Ness A bare bulb spraysthe root cellar’s bulging walls,so infernally bright that I squintagainst its glare, then squint againat its dimness. Where does the light go,in the space of eight-foot square?It’s the math mama used to picklesummer into jars. Three monthscondensed to quarts.This is the only placewhere time is measured in volume,

when birds sing I feel it inside and am changed their chirr and twee the manic insistence of my branch! my tree! the lightful song of a pale-blossom wren enters my innermost cavity & my neighbor’s windchimes too a belling song feathered-metal clang that churches inside me touches old hymns and passages I once memorized the sound it wrings from the breeze…

Tony Brinkley's poetry, art and translations have appeared recently in COLLATERAL, TRAFIKA EUROPE, ANA, NASHVILLE REVIEW, EXCHANGES, NEOLOGISM, POEMS IN TRANSLATION, BOMBAY REVIEW, PICTURA JOURNAL, BLUE UNICORN, MERION WEST, REVERIE, VIRIDINE LIBRARY, RUMEN, SOUL, LAST LEAVES REVIEW, LOVER'S EYE PRESS, MISERERE REVIEW, CONSEQUENCE FORUM, JERRY JAZZ MUSICIAN and ANTIFA REVIEW. Before retirement, Brinkley taught literature, Holocaust Studies, and Fascist Studies at the University of Maine. He is the author of STALIN'S EYES; GOMORRAH; AMERICA, AMERICA; and ICONS OF WAR.

by Kevin Snyder A caterpillar fingers its way up my forearm. I’ve shut my eyes so I can only feel the fine hairs and half an inch of tiny stubs. Its head antennas the air. It doesn’t know that the whole world is the rectangle of my arm. Mom plods in. We’re in the Pink Lady tonight. I hide the critter in my fist and my fist beneath the blanket.

by R. A. Allen Today is much hotter than yesterday.And when I slosh in on the sandbankthe sea foam swirling around my anklesreminds me of cappuccino froth.The bay's water molecules are in a riot of thermal expansion, they jostle away from each other like irritable speed freaks,causing a lift in the sea level, causing me to ride microns higher…

by Mervyn Seivwright Sometimes I need a sad song Coltrane serenading the parts of me whored out as each of us have Layers loosened enough in clothes to cut skin from an Uptown Chicago wind whipping corners I hear a hiss my breath these days withers Golden hour morning on Dutch coast coasting waves whistling breeze a gliding seagull sun teasing beyond…

Shama Shams is a writer, storyteller, and memoirist based in Seattle. Her work explores identity, immigration, womanhood, and the quiet resilience shaped by lived experience. She is the author of She Called Me Throwaway, which received the Top Choice award from NBR, and the forthcoming Dreamers, a collection centered on migration and belonging, is scheduled for release in March 2027 by Running Wild Press. When she is not writing, she teaches storytelling and works closely with communities to amplify underrepresented voices.

by David Colodney David Colodney is a poet living in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is the author of Gen X Redux, forthcoming in 2026 from Main Street Rag Publishing, and the chapbook Mimeograph (Finishing Line Press, 2020). A Best of the Net and four-time Pushcart nominee, his work has appeared in multiple journals. David currently serves as an associate editor of South Florida Poetry Journal and is an ardent supporter of Liverpool Football Club. If you are looking for him, he can often be found at the Lion & Eagle Pub watching Liverpool matches.

by M.C. Schmidt She found them on eBay and got them for a steal. Once they arrived, she wrapped them and kept them in her underthings drawer until Russ’s birthday. “What’s this, Norma?” he asked when she presented him with the gift. She raised her eyebrows to say, Open it and see... To her delight, he got it. “Well,” he said, smiling at the stack of postcards.

Willy Conley, an award-winning, published photographer, writer and filmmaker, is the author of Space is deaf like me, Photographic Memories, Plays of Our Own, Visual-Gestural Communication, The World of White Water, Listening Through the Bone, The Deaf Heart, and Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays. Born profoundly deaf, Conley is a professor emeritus and former chair of theatre at Gallaudet University (the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf students) in Washington, D.C. For more info check out his blog & website: www.willyconley.com/blog

by Mark Nuzzi Paul Whittaker had been collecting stamps for forty-seven years, each acquisition a small victory in his methodical pursuit of postal perfection. His Manhattan penthouse reflected a life of disciplined success. Mahogany bookshelves lined with legal texts, framed commendations from three mayors, and walls displaying pristine stamp collections in museum-quality frames. The apartment held peculiar touches that spoke to his obsessive nature.

by Christy Hartman My daughter pushes a salt-crusted curl off her face, crouching to examine the pebbles surrounding the tidepool. Show her where it is, Dad.  Ruthie’s delighted squeal signals a discovery. “Mom, look!” My twelve-year-old expertly hops over the rocky shore, a piece of sea glass in her palm.  “Oh cool, another brown one.” I open my father’s leather-bound notebook and tick a box in the correct column.

by Jeffrey Thompson How can I finish anything when my first instinct is always wrongand my second instinct is to trustmy first instinct? All the wordsstand up straight and blamelesson their shelves but soon I can’t place them anymore.They are the spines of books I don’t remember readingor someone else’s family photos.They are an empty museum wall,

by Terry Barr Was there ever a singer more lonely in this world than Tammy Wynette? Steacy Easton, in Why Tammy Wynette Matters, coined the phrase a “Tammy Wynette kind of pain (59).” It’s the kind of pain I keep thinking about when I hear Tammy’s version of “Lonely Street.”  In the early 1960s Wynette lived in the Elyton section of Birmingham, Alabama, with her two kids, more or less estranged from her husband.

Willy Conley, an award-winning, published photographer, writer and filmmaker, is the author of Space is deaf like me, Photographic Memories, Plays of Our Own, Visual-Gestural Communication, The World of White Water, Listening Through the Bone, The Deaf Heart, and Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays. Born profoundly deaf, Conley is a professor emeritus and former chair of theatre at Gallaudet University (the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf students) in Washington, D.C. For more info check out his blog & website: www.willyconley.com/blog

Willy Conley, an award-winning, published photographer, writer and filmmaker, is the author of Space is deaf like me, Photographic Memories, Plays of Our Own, Visual-Gestural Communication, The World of White Water, Listening Through the Bone, The Deaf Heart, and Vignettes of the Deaf Character and Other Plays. Born profoundly deaf, Conley is a professor emeritus and former chair of theatre at Gallaudet University (the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf students) in Washington, D.C. For more info check out his blog & website: www.willyconley.com/blog

by Elizabeth D. Jennings the sun sags lower in my windshield than it did last week. i can’t blame her; the weight of it all, it makes a girl tired. i think i’ll nap when i get home, curl like a cat on top of the covers, curtains open so the pink-strained evening can get in. i won’t miss the cicada-shrieked heat of summer, …

by Kelly Murashige I find out a boy’s gone missing from a flyer on a corkboard. Had he disappeared a year or two ago, I would have found out from the news. For a while, I immersed myself in the goings-on of the world, afraid if I let a war, a bill, a cultural event pass me by, everyone would brand me ignorant, perhaps even maliciously so, and leave me in the past, where I arguably belonged.

by Barbara Daniels “Leap, and the net will appear.” John BurroughsYou’re in the grill basket. You’re fried.But rumor has it that certain kinds of tinfoil hats can protect you. Sleep is a wall you slip down to join phantasmas and eclipses. But sleep can order your thoughts, teach you to be calm. Arm yourself with a garden hose and a small…

by Marcy Rae Henry we drive softly, before light begins, rain, fog—time everywhere but hard to see. we’re quieter than when you arrived, already redefining our space.after i miss the exit, we make a loopadding ten minutes to the journey.people say i love you for little wisps and twingesbut i don’t tell you about my bowels creaking…

by Phyllis Carol Agins She is on the way to the Sahara. Of ancient rivers and expanding dunes. Of oasis and caravans and myth. In the early mountains she witnesses a water source. Small bubbles force liquid from below the surface to push slowly toward the sheep that need water, the laundry that should be washed, the children who must bathe.

by Katherine Garrison These birds are always raising the stakes.When I go out, I want to see a shrike,but instead, I am surprised by a hawfinchwhich are rare to see here, as in red listed,and I think that’s probably a good reasonto not raze through the forest in front of melike swifts razor through clouds of gnats.

by Reece Jordan And so it repeats itself to him. Early summer: the beginning of July. They are at Julia’s place, sitting on a crescent of stone in the garden. The sun is out and the sky is that blend of blues, both soft and intense. Next to Ezra is a steaming mug of coffee with an illustrated chess board on it.

by Sharalyn Barg Some things I know telescopically: the names of Jupiter’s moons. Your voice in cursive, trust mejust trust me. My tar pit pupils trained on the carpet as if a patch of crumbs could tell me what to do. (When spent we deny deny deny.) I wanted not to overhear my own lungs working nor twist my spine into proof…