News & Features

Never Learned to Play Guitar

I never learned to play guitar because my dad’s body aches. Most of his life has been spent working in hot warehouses. He worked for…

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Prompt #40 — Write Like Andrea Syzdek

Syzdek’s piece (view here) proceeds from the perspective of a child who offers an explanation for the father’s physical deterioration. The stiff joints, limp, and…

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Prompt #39 — Write Like Christopher Higgs

Higgs crafts a speaker (view here) whose confession is both chilling and engaging, largely due to the fact that he never overtly states the motivation…

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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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