by MB Valente...At recess that first day she told me to punch a boy she pointed out and I did. He hit me back and got in trouble but nobody yelled at me. I just crouched in her shadow and felt its war...

This is our struggle. We scuttle on the sand before the softly breathing salt-burdened sea with the lichen on the rocks a bright poison green and great white butterflies screaming under a red sky whil...

The night after my Mom’s funeral, you showed up dressed as a pot of hot soup on the stove, as all the tumbleweeds of fallen hair mysteriously vacuumed from the floor, as fresh linens smelling of her c...

A post-human civilization of synthetic beings, fixated on the concept of children, grapples with the meaning of life…after all life ceases to exist.

“The Ominous Shaft” by Marlena Williams, recommended by Preety Sidhu for Electric Literature

“Fictions” by Anna Hogeland, recommended by Preety Sidhu for Electric Literature

Ashley Hutson is the author of One's Company (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022). Her short-form work has appeared in several places, including Granta, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, Catapult,…

The Anglerfish Hears Dolly Parton

MB Valente   Her tattoo parlor is the only thing like it still open, at least on this side of the lake. A pink neon sign in the window shares its glow with the sidewalk; a sawed-out square in the d…

PHOTO PROVIDED BY TOM RANKIN THE 2024 LARRY BROWN SHORT STORY AWARD ISSUE AWARD WINNER: UNIDENTIFIABLE CELLS BY REEMA RAO SECOND PRIZE: AND ONLY I REMAIN BY MICHAEL PEARSON THIRD PRIZE: A TIME TO C…

I read the whole Bible after she dumped me: Old and New Testament. Why the Bible? It’s probably not most people’s first choice of break-up read. But she’d been going on a lot about God and angels late...