The Midwest | JOYLAND

Jac Jemc -

“You tell me,” Buzzard whispers in my ear. Buzzard and I made a baby, but that baby ain’t anything like we’d ever expected....

Mark Piekos -

I hate this place. I come here each morning at nine a.m. I am greeted with the frigidity of the security guard, dour and...

Jeremy Jasper -

The light glistened on the pane of broken glass when I woke up that morning. I hurried out of bed to jerk the...

Roxane Gay -

Whenever my mother explains why she does things she resents having to do she says, noblesse oblige, nobility demands it. She tells me we...

Patrick J. Salem -

Let me say right off that if any of you mooks repeats this story to Eric or Max or the other guys from school,...

Joseph G. Peterson -

A natural bog is the designated water trap of the thirteenth hole at British Hills Country Club in Wheeling. It’s a deep, mysterious body...

Brandon Graham -

Chapter 1: Perhaps a bit of an Overreaction For the hundredth time in ten minutes Flip cinches the terry cloth belt of his forest green...

Shannon Cason -

My father left me his camera. It was in a boxy aluminum case with two latches in the front that locked. It also had...

Alex Coates -

Dear Mom, It’s been a while since I wrote, I know, but there hasn’t been much to tell. We had a late bit of...

David Laskowski -

The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird When asked by the Committee on Acknowledgment for A Purpose to Be Named Later to choose a...