Becoming a Man

I nearly killed a boy named Jonathan Pilby when I was fifteen. If that nosy jogger hadn’t found his busted bloody body under the bridge…

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Six Questions with 2014 NANO Prize Judge Kim Chinquee

Sophie Rosenblum: We’re delighted to have you judging our contest this year. What are you reading these days? Is there anyone on your radar our…

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The Kind of People We Are

I couldn’t see over the dashboard when we hit it, but my father described it as a red flash sucked beneath the beam of his…

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Prompt #38 — Write Like Devin Murphy

Murphy’s piece (view here) takes an unexpected event—the death of the fox—and uses it to reveal several different elements of human nature in the story’s…

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Prompt #37 — Write Like Kate Cortese

By starting in media res, this piece (view here) asserts a kind of familiarity with readers. However, it skillfully weaves in elements of backstory, ensuring…

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Swallowed

I didn’t really know the girl, so I’m not as sad as I should be. And anyway, time makes things blurry. There are people who’ll…

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The Ocean Tied

The tide washed in on their legs. It curled and broke over their knees then receded and soaked into the sand. Scott sat with his…

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Prompt #36 — Write Like Bryan Owens

Owens’s piece (view here) explores the sublime, considering the emotional relays between beauty and terror and the contrast between an expansive natural world and a…

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Prompt #35 — Write Like Gene Morgan

The oft-mumbled misanthropic curse, “fucking people” is transformed beautifully in Morgan’s piece (view here). He imagines a world in which sexual intercourse overcomes people in…

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Fucking People

Two people fucking on a table, near a professional building. A person fucking near a bayou. Three really big people in a car, fucking to…

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