Regions | JOYLAND

Fabric

Elise Burke -

I was finishing some designs for a stockbroker’s boathouse when my friend Nancy called to tell me my ex-husband had had a heart attack....

Palm

Natali Petricic -

There is a knock at the door. I leave the comfort of warm sheets, place feet into thin-soled slippers. When I open the door, a steaming...

Jeannie’s Ghost

Hanna Halperin Goldstein -

When Roger and Ellen Ramsey found their six-month old baby facedown, lifeless in his crib one December morning—his arms and legs splayed like a starfish, his...

I Thought I Saw a Beautiful Boy

Mariah Stovall -

I. I thought I saw a beautiful boy. Today, this afternoon. Before I could be sure, I compared myself to the girl he was with. We...

Coyote in the Blood

Seth Fischer -

When we pulled into Grandma’s driveway in our rental Kia, she was sunbathing in a black bikini, stock-still in one of those sticky white slatted plastic...

Complex 2675: Issue One

Francine Cunningham -

Mary dreamed she died. She woke drenched in sweat. Her breath slipping in and out. And she knew something was different. She swung her feet over...

Catherine Graham's debut novel Quarry (Two Wolves Press) launches June 1, 2017. This excerpt from Quarry was published in Joyland in 2014. Set in southern Ontario during the 1980’s, acclaimed poet Catherine...

The Dog Sitter

Kirsten Kearse -

The truth is not the story she will tell him, she realizes as she stands in the street, her right arm stretched out behind her...

MEANWHILE

Sasha Fletcher -

Catherine comes home to her parents asking ‘How was school today?’ and Catherine she says ‘Today we discussed bears.’ ‘Bears?’ says her parents. ‘Bears’ says Catherine. ‘Why in...

If You, Too, Know the Words to “Super Bass”

Shannon McLeod -

The journalist, Rikesh, sat me beside my living room window. He said the lighting was perfect. I imagined the sunlight casting shadows along my...