Fiction
Kyle and I arrived at his parents’ house in the early evening. He had barely removed the key from the ignition when his mother, Caroline, appeared at my window.
The day had wrapped us up in the blanket of its heat and refused to let us out, so much did it love us. Or maybe it was just lonely.
I got stung. On my ankle, I saw three bees, and could feel them right through my sock.
Me and Janie and Melissa, we want to be other women. Not the women we are expected to be, but the ones we’ve seen on television and read about in novels.
Bennett fought the tears that threatened, felt his body begin to tremble. Nothing had prepared him for such words from the man he most admired.
The five women, all in their thirties and costumed as pigs in pink cotton onesies, faces hidden by Petunia Pig masks, trotted in through the back door of the house on the corner of 16th and Marquette and into its dark kitchen.
This was something Joy Frisk told us one August night around a campfire on a bluff overlooking the boathouse. Joy Frisk was high. Pain meds, most likely.
I.S. Kallick, Hope, from The Remedy of Fortune, after Machaut (detail), 2017. Acrylic on Masonite with digital overlay, 5 x 7 inches.
Will often dreamed of falling, but never flying. Sometimes a cable would slip, or a board would snap, or his foot would step on air to tread on mere surprise.
Between L’Anse and Baraga on Indian Cemetery Road, Joseph Deer-Running operates the orange, Mac snowplow #7 in near whiteout conditions.
Illustration by Maureen Heaster
Wild, wacky, and utterly entertaining, the 2nd place-winning story from our 2016 fiction contest turns the hardboiled detective story on its head.
- ‹ previous
- 3 of 5
- next ›
Wisconsin Academy Offices
1922 University Avenue
Madison, Wisconsin 53726
Phone: 608.733.6633
James Watrous Gallery
3rd Floor, Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street
Madison, WI 53703
Phone: 608.733.6633 x25