Month: February 2011

Justice

by Kim Chinquee

After the owner asked my boyfriend Dave and I if we wanted beer or soda, giving Dave a beer, he showed us piles of explosives, what this one did and that one. Each with a name, and the owner took us out, showing what one called Texas Justice was made of. It was a Boomer. Noise with nothing pretty. I told Dave I hated those. We left there with him two beers in and two hundred dollars lesser, and he told me he was happy with his purchase, that he’d give the children memories. (more…)

The Move

by Ethel Rohan

Her partner wore breadcrumbs in his beard. She gestured and he wiped at his chin, his pink lips.

“Our neighbors seem nice,” he said.

They had moved from a gated community in the suburbs to a two-bedroom detached in the city. She liked change, to start afresh, but he felt a sense of failure about the downsize, the need to watch their money. (more…)

Two Stories

Zest

by Darlin’ Neal

Into tiny pieces, she chops cucumbers, finally doing something, making a salad, since her daughter has passed. She will make the casserole with ham and potatoes, something they all loved, something her daughter loved. The family. She drops grapes over leaves. But when she is making the dressing, grating the lemon zest, her hands stop working, that word sounds so wrong: zest. (more…)

Serpent

by Steve Almond

Pity poor Thomas Hough, who spent his days among the Shipibo Indians in the Amazon basin, teaching them Christ’s ways and fighting yellow illness. The Shipibo lived closer to animals than other men. They were patient with Hough and allowed him to witness the ritual of their shaman, who drank a bitter mixture and took the protection of sacred animals. (more…)

Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.

Upcoming

09/09 • Rae Gourmand
09/16 • Chiwenite Onyekwelu
09/23 • TBD
09/30 • TBD