"Get It Back for Me," a short story by Elizabeth Tallent, and two short pieces by Nicole Rollender and Rachel Peters

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The mashed potatoes had dried in peaks, the roast beef was both gray and, depressed with a fork, bleeding.  Shining small peas each contained a glint of unthawed, original cold as brilliant and brief-lived as a snowflakes's.  How she managed this, he said, was beyond him.  Half the food cooked to death, half the food raw.  She knew he was coming home.  All she had to do, all she had to do was have dinner ready.  His answer to her: One night, one night he'd like to come home to some kind of order.  One night, one night of his life he'd like his wife to be happy to see him.  The other guys' wives were happy when they walked in the door.  She said, How did he know anyone else was so happy?  How did he know?  He wasn't walking in their doors, he was walking in this door, and all he could really talk about was this life, and he said they had to be happier than this, had to be.  
--From "Get It Back for Me," a short story by Elizabeth Tallent, first published in Lear's and reprinted in her story collection Honey (Vintage, 1993), pp. 101-117.

You wanted 
to be buried in the green dress

you always wore with pearls.  We'd sit outside your back
door, watching bats swing over the lake.
--From "Scattering," a poem by Nicole Rollender, Linebreak (April 21, 2015).

I hate writing.  Other people go to the gym after work, or see friends on the weekend, and they don't walk around not realizing they have pens in their hair and under their bra straps.  A friend actually told me once that sometimes he has nothing in his head.  Nothing at all.  Radio silence.  I can't imagine how wonderful that must feel.  Other people sleep at night.  Other people read a good book just for the story.  Other people go entire weeks without an e-mail that says you're not a good fit, not quite what they're looking for, the tone just isn't right.  But best of luck elsewhere.  Other people are allowed to keep their own secrets.  
--From "Why I Write: Rachel Peters," an essay by Rachel Peters for the "Why I Write" column, Fiction Southeast (June 26, 2015).

Faith in Love and Quantum Physics and other poems, short stories by John Jodzio and Raymond Carver

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In one, my brother's in the gutter, 

literally, face up almost floating along

second street after a hard rain, the clouds

finally clearing, the clean stars directing

traffic, his indelibly dirty palm planted 

around a forty, which, in this life, 

is all he ever drank.

In another, my brother isn't wrecked. . . .

--From "Faith in Love and Quantum Physics," a poem by Brittney Scott, first published in Linebreak (February 3, 2015).

 

My roommates are gone for the weekend so I snort one of my mom's blood clotting pills and invite Lindsay over.  When she gets there I take a steak knife and slice open my palm and show her how no blood comes out.  It's a good trick, one my dead brother Alex taught me . . . 

--From "How to Get Goth Girls Hot," a short story by John Jodzio, first published in Fiction Southeast (February 2, 2015).  

That summer Wes rented a furnished house north of Eureka from a recovered alcoholic named Chef.  Then he called to ask me to forget what I had going and to move up there and live with him.  He said he was on the wagon.  I knew about that wagon.  But he wouldn't take no for an answer. . . .

--From "Chef's House," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in The New Yorker (November 30, 1981) and reprinted in Cathedral (Knopf, 1983), pp. 27-33.

He tells me she's his wife.  But she won't look at me.  She looks at her nails instead.  She and Holits won't sit down, either.  He says they're interested in one of the furnished units.

"How many of you?"  But I'm just saying what I always say.  I know how many.  I saw the two boys in the back seat.  Two and two is four. . . .

--From "The Bridle," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in The New Yorker (July 19, 1982) and reprinted in Cathedral (Knopf, 1983), pp. 187-208.

When my parents split up, my mom dated so many men

that it now takes two memories to keep them all, mine and

my sister's.  In a recent phone conversation, I said to my sister, 

remember the one who said his tan wasn't his tan but his Cherokee

blood?  Remember how he used to take his place at the dinner table, 

bare-chested?  Why doesn't he wear a shirt, we asked.  And mom said, 

who cares, that's not what matters.  She herself wasn't wearing much, 

a nightgown that might have been lingerie. . . .

--From "Love Stories," a poem by Timothy Schirmer, first published in FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry, Issue 44 (Fall 2014).   

I see a woman that is maybe a man.  Just in case, I practice for poverty.  Just in case, I walk nowhere very slowly.  Once, on a bad day I went for a long walk looking for trouble. . . .  

--From "I see a dog that is maybe a wolf." a poem by Timothy Schirmer, first published in FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry, Issue 44 (Fall 2014).