GRACE Editor's note: This excerpt originally appeared under the name "The Spinning Wheel". The author's novel, now titled "Grace", was published by Counterpoint Press in June 2016.

By Richard JacksonElizabeth Bishop once wrote in a letter that “undoubtedly gender does play an important part in the making of any art, but art is art and to separate writings, paintings, m

Dr. Gaffy and John “Hello, John. Please come in. Do have a seat. Thank you, my friend. May I take your coat. Fine, fine. And can I offer you coffee or tea perhaps.”“Coffee.”

BROOD X “If you had to have sex with one dead president, who would it be?”Claire puts a hand directly on top of her head. “Well, Reagan is most recently dead, so he’d be least

BROOD X “If you had to have sex with one dead president, who would it be?”Claire puts a hand directly on top of her head. “Well, Reagan is most recently dead, so he’d be least

PETTING TANK Perhaps the new problem begins at the manatee exhibit. Again, her uncle and aunt argue about the map. Her aunt has, against her uncle’s advice, directed the entire youth grou

THE BLACK BAG There’s no way I will get a story written during this flight. Why even try? The stewardess will keep interrupting. Turbulence will make my handwriting illegible. Hunger, st

THE LAST SET OF MACHETES Man, I don’t want to do this, Bald Guy says as he kicks at a rock.Black Guy and Bald Guy are picked up outside the commissary in a studio golf cart and whisk

THE WINTER SOLSTICE We called it a phase, no different than his CB Radio, his three seasons’ allegiance to the Buffalo Bills, my gambling, or Mallory’s drinking. Back when Mallory and I

SMALL-TIME THIEF Translated from Czech by Justin QuinnThey’re sawing through the plane trees near Place Sainte-Catherine. 5 a.m., darkness, drizzle and not a soul about (neither on the

STATUS UPDATES I’m a painter, an artist.I mean, I’m studying painting, art, not writing.I only signed up for the class because it was a major requirement, because the department f

THE CANNY CYCLIST York was beautiful in the rain. So was Rose. She was smiling, that way she had. Those long eyelashes. She took Sean’s hand as they walked round the shops. They were at t

AMERICANA OR BLIND GIRL MAKES GOOD Girls don’t aspire to my profession any more than boys dream of being actuaries or Kamikaze pilots. When my high school guidance counselor, Maxine Rosen

NINE MONTHS January♀The day I bit an apple, and it bled, I knew we had died.Downstairs, in the kitchen, you were brewing tea(rs). Love is under fire, in someone else’s home: a kettl