Letter from the Guest Editor Taryn White __________ I’ve loved kaleidoscopes since I was young. They’ve inspired my writing and influenced my preferences in reading. I’ve heard from multiple sources that writing is often like a puzzle, that all of the pieces fall together as the plot is revealed. Don’t…
Read MoreLetter from the Editor Vallie Lynn Watson __________ The first full month of school has been quite the kaleidoscope! It has been a unique blur of challenges. I am fortunate that our new managing editor, Taryn White (one of our third year fiction writers), stepped in and took control of…
Read MoreFour Kaleidoscopes David Sheskin __________ Peaceable Kingdom Kaleidoscope 3a __________ Fish Kaleidoscope 65 __________ Fish Kaleidoscope 63 __________ Fish Kaleidoscope 37 __________ David Sheskin is an artist and writer whose work has appeared in numerous publicationsincluding Shenandoah, The Penn Review, DIAGRAM, Quarterly West, and The Vassar Review. __________ << Back…
Read MoreSeasonal Kaleidoscopes Anne Anthony __________ Autumn Leaving Scope __________ Summer Butterflies Scope __________ Anne Anthony is a writer and digital collage artist living in North Carolina. Her photograph, Lonesome, was nominated for 2025 Best of Net by phoebe lit journal. She’s been the featured artist in Neither Fish Nor Foul…
Read MoreEivind E. Olsen __________ Thin Leaf On a winter day, much like a day in fallexcept the trees are bare, I find a leafblown up from the yard, thin as a thumbprintand slightly larger than my own. Its brown skin is cracked and translucent:a ghost against a stone step;or a…
Read MoreHeard and not heard at my grandmother’s wake Jordan Nishkian __________ We pretend to bury her.“Here, eat something.” In two weeks, we’ll pick up my grandmother’s ashes, her urn will join my grandfather’s in their nightstands, in their bedroom. My aunt“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.” will sleep beside them: both room, tomb.“It’s good…
Read MoreNancy Carol Moody __________ Blue Wheelchair Come, Blue Chair.Come like a dream, a month’s second moon,water-wrapped planet, September’s stone.Cornflowers and summer-time berries and sky the waywe were promised it would always be.Come, Blue Chair.Who cares what you’re made ofor what it is you really are—four rickety wheels or rusty running…
Read MoreDonna J. Gelagotis Lee __________ Redefinition An adopted country lends, and demandsa down payment, which is your initiation. Language rolls on the tongue and slipsinto memory. It carries with it a past new to you.You believe in the future because it has not yet come.All the colors of the country:…
Read MoreBack then, they let us sift through broken glass Jean Janicke __________ and called it arts and crafts. Blue meant midnightgravel crunch under pick-up truck tires. Swirls could bewet sand drizzled on a sandcastle before waves washedthe turrets away. Grey lines like pencil stripes of witch-broombare branches guarding the post…
Read MoreArticle Z: Letter to Dad | a double abecedarian Zebulon Huset __________ Article Z: beware the easy. Chest ≈ thorax. Defend the (breast) plate like Harmon Kilibrew. Eventually Pavlovfinds his own saliva for a tiramisu— ghost flickers each whisper of dessert. Harmon, batting lefty, nervous. I (innocently) disregarded yourjovial spirit kindness (even…
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