Author: Anna Lea Jancewicz

Anna Lea Jancewicz lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where she homeschools her two children, teaches creative writing, and is Best Dungeon Master Ever for a group of heroic middle-graders. She is an editor for Tiny Donkey, a journal of short-form fairy tale nonfiction. Her writing has been chosen for The Best Small Fictions, Literary Hub Daily, and the Wigleaf Top 50 longlist, and has appeared at Hobart, Necessary Fiction, Pithead Chapel, and many other venues. Her short story collection, (m)otherhood, is forthcoming from Widow and Orphan House press, FALL 2017. Say it: Yahnt-SEV-ich.

Cooper Will Be Dead Soon/ Zachary Davis

“You’re saying you’re not available at all on Tuesday, then? You’re certain there’s no wiggle room there?”
“No, I’ll be unavailable that whole day, and every day after that.”

Spoils of War/ Beth Gordon

Graffiti/ on playgrounds, well-fed alpacas in the palace garden,/ mutated children, sleeping in discarded gift/ boxes outside the nightclub./ We begin to seep/ through cracks…

Squeeze/ Joshua Stewart

Grandpa dug the game warden’s false teeth right out of his face/ buried them in his dresser near the painting of Jesus on the wall./ As latchkey kids, the first thing we learned how to do was unlock/ every gun case in our mother’s closet…

Plants/ Chance Dibben

The F U scrawled on my car’s hood/ has gotten deeper/ my teeth can hold anything/ but a smile…

The Workhorse/ Lucy Crowe

Oh, those hands – they sifted fall soybeans and pinched them to gauge the moisture content. They tugged wet cornstalks from the corn head, they wielded hoes, shovels, hammers. They patted the dog and held the child, circled the waist of the woman he loved.

Wardrobe/ Meg Weber

That thread from before snags at me, unravels all the way through my chest as the weight sinks in. I can feel the bottom edge of her words, can sense what she might mean. She’s desperately unhappy and can’t find her way out of it.