The Midwest | JOYLAND

The Farmers Market

David Schuman -

Home The family resides in what was once a famous crack house. Their neighborhood, at the edge of a city park, has been revitalized. The...

Break All the Way Down

Roxane Gay -

The mother of my boyfriend’s youngest child called in the middle of the night. He was asleep, the heat from his body wrapping around...

Many Times Their Raging Hearts

Sarah Dohrmann -

She always threatened to kill herself. They’d get in fights and Patty’d say, “Someday you’ll be real sorry you said that!” or “How can...

The Turnpike

Leia Menlove -

It is summer of 1978, and a woman without a wedding ring drives east on the Will Roger’s Turnpike, the straightest route out of...

Distance

Debbie Urbanski -

I first noticed how the world was retreating from me on a morning in early June after it had rained for nearly eight days....

Welcome to My Harem

Virginia Konchan -

The summer after my nineteenth birthday, Cedar Point paid me excellent money to wear a wig of raven tresses and full-length gown of rich...

Excerpt from “The Lighthouse Road”

Peter Geye -

The Lighthouse Road is available now from Unbridled Books. 1. (November 1896) Some ancient cold had taken root in Thea Eide’s belly, a feeling she’d not...

Great Mind Destoyer

Robert James Russell -

A desperation sits deep in her, something she longs to rid herself of yet whose origin she cannot wholly explain. She lies in bed...

Roots and Soil

Lyndsay Michalik -

Maggie’s grandmother grew turnips. Maggie remembers the dirt under her grandmother’s fingernails and in the creases of her hands after digging them out of...

Pleased to Meet Me

Daniel Mueller -

I. In a world forever re-creating itself in the image of itself seen on screens, the shift from 100% cotton jeans to those made of...