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Emails I Can’t Send

Emails I Can’t Send McNeese’s Undergraduate Fiction Workshop, Fall 2024 __________ TO: ███████ FROM: ███████ SUBJECT: Your Ignorance Dear Inadequate Coworker, I hope this email finds you well so that your day can be ruined. I just wanted to make you aware that your recent actions are unnecessary and unprofessional.…

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Imagine: Summer II

Imagine: Summer II Editor: Vallie Lynn Watson Managing Editor: Abbie Skinner Assistant Editors: Karris Rae, Aiman Tariq, Taryn White, Meilyn Woods Editorial Assistants: Mia Bonds, Alexandria Knight Sheila Squillante, Sun Shower, Acrylic ink and pen. __________ Letter from the Editor by Vallie Lynn Watson A Goodbye Letter from the Managing…

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Ma never talks about the day my twin sister died—

Ma never talks about the day my twin sister died— Tara Isabel Zambrano __________       instead she puts on rainbow dresses on me she sewed for her, the quilt that’s embroidered with her name on my torso, instead she never trims my hair and all the boys in the neighborhood…

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Cemetery One Nighter

Cemetery One Nighter Paul Corman-Roberts __________ It isn’t the name she told you, the name that isn’t her real name but the name they told your friend, heartbroken back in the pizza joint you hit up where you first squeezed her thigh under the table out of your friend’s sight, neither of you knowing she was death, happy to clasp your fingers…

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Good Friday and People Are at Their Telescopes

Good Friday Julia Johnson __________ Today even crueler than yesterday, you in your suit, tucked in, great and holy Friday. I keep you in the book I do not hold. The brave clouds roll in. Maybe you were meant to balance a glass on your head in my dream. Maybe…

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From Inside Hollow Walls

From Inside Hollow Walls Melanie Whithaus __________ When we were young, my husband witnessed his friend die. It happened during the summer, right before the midwestern heat got too unbearably hot. I never knew this friend, except for that she loved pink and butterflies, as most seven-year-old girls do. I…

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Machine Gun Secrets

Machine Gun Secrets Meg Tuite __________ Flee the folk who hunt us. It is endurance, hopping over deranged legacies and lack of fantasy to keep hidden within the tall, wet grass of expression. We examine the space before us. Spend more time at this then sleep. Privy to all songbirds,…

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Cycle

Cycle Susan Tepper __________ Meditations on dear Petrov Set in 19th Century Russia during a time of war There is no beginning or end.   Springtime grasses brown quickly only to be buried under snow.  An avalanche.  This cycle, dear Petrov.  Having no one.  How I do dread.  Wishing to…

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The Nightmare House

The Nightmare House Sam Ruddick __________ We live in a haunted house. It is unusual in that it is haunted by the living. Multiple moments occur at the same time in the same place, past iterations of ourselves overlapping. We are making love in the center of the bed, our…

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Midnight in the Valley of Spam

Midnight in the Valley of Spam Steve Almond __________ Dear Sir, my name is  ________ ________. I am the Prince of a faraway land, though I live now in the kingdom of Disgrace. A Great Treasure has been taken from me. Stolen. Looted, sir. For this reason I now request…

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