Content Warning: Imagined animal death. . Because she was new, she didn’t know that nobody ever sat in that first seat right behind the bus driver. If you did, sooner or later, Mrs. Johnson would catch your eye in that big mirror overhead and start asking you what church you went to. If you didn’t […]

Second Place Winner of 2020 The Voyage YA First Chapters Contest judged by NYT Bestselling Author Dhonielle Clayton . The antique golden rings on Emerald’s middle fingers began to vibrate and glow softly. She twisted the one on her right hand clockwise and waited. A second later, a vision that took the form of her elder cousin, […]

First Place Winner of 2020 The Voyage YA First Chapters Contest judged by NYT Bestselling Author Dhonielle Clayton . I couldn’t stop thinking about praying mantises when it happened. Strange childhood facts running on a loop in my head. Female mantises rip the heads off their male partners during sex. Their jagged green arms folded […]

“The painting.” The words tumble out my father’s mouth in a slur. “I—I don’t understand,” I say, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. Trembles race through his hand then down my spine. He jerks back and pulls me to his face. Cataracts crust along the rims of his rheumy eyes. “Take care […]

Any Day But Sunday Waiting Room . I don’t believe in past lives but I think in a past life something died in my womb. Every month I bleed, but I can’t go to sleep without laying a hand over my core as if cradling some dying growing thing. And sometimes I wake up with […]

The summer air is thick on West 45th street. Sara and I are pressed up against the metal barricade at the stage door outside of the Al Hirschfeld Theater, sweating our asses off. We’re suffering for even a glimpse of the luminous, Tony-award-winning diva, Ella Rose. We’d seen her shine as the tap-dancing chanteuse in […]

“Who put Bella in the Wych-Elm? Who put Bella in the Wych-Elm?” # Hagley Woods is silent, except for the skittering of dried leaves across the path and Maggie’s childish ditty—slightly off-tune and too loud in my ears. The tree she’s singing about glares down at us, its knots a multitude of disapproving eyes. Not […]

After two whole months of careful planning and diligent preparation, the Crimson Heights School annual fair is finally underway. The two-day affair sees the entire high school campus transformed into a grand festival, filled with fun game booths, interesting shops, and all sorts of food stands. As President of the Crimson Heights Junior High School […]

Content Warning: Shooting, Death, and Suicide . Kayt gazed up at the palace that loomed above them. Its spiraling turrets, which appeared to be constructed from coral—or grown, perhaps?—punctured the caramel-colored clouds that hung low over the barren surface of the planet. When they had arrived, all four of them had stood for several minutes […]

Now My sky is the ground, and my ground is the sky. A baseball field coated in settled snow, a set of swings, and a plastic jungle gym form my sky. My ground is gray and clouded with that fog that sometimes follows snow, and a single vulture hovers through the fog, patiently riding the […]

The Scent of Laila Thorinson was first published in Lunch Ticket . “Who did you pick?” my mom calls from the kitchen where she is chopping, knife hitting wood. Something sizzles and smells meaty—spam and rice.  I wiggle my backpack off and it lands with a thud. I try to sneak off to my room but Mom […]

Content Warning: passing, veiled references to physical abuse and sexual assault. How the prom committee thinks they’ve turned this gods-awful gym into a passable Greek temple is beyond me. I stand in the foyer, heels digging into the linoleum floor as if the flimsy material could keep me safe. I’m early and dateless and the […]