Cover Art

Bhasha Chakrabarti, I’m Just a Poor Fool That’s Bluer
than Blue Can Be

Fiction

Natanya Biskar, “Dr. Bloch Takes His Rest”

Taryn Bowe, “Camp Emeline”
–Reprinted in Best American Short Stories 2023!

Desmond Everest Fuller, “Where It Comes From” 

Sharon Hashimoto, “Slippage”

Ra’Niqua Lee, “Your Next Girlfriend Has PCOS”

Kayla Lightner, “Secret Menu Items” 

Nonfiction

Susanna Childress, “Flip of the Switch: A Glossary of Disordered Sleep & Love”

grace (ge) gilbert, “Song of the Apostates” 

Evan J. Massey, “The Grass Crown: A Coronation”

Lucy McBee, “How to Ready Your Bones”

Rose Nguyễn, “To Speak, to Sing,” Winner of the 2021 Creative Nonfiction Prize

Poetry

George Abraham, “PALESTINE IS A FUTURISM: PANDEMONIUM” 

Kay Ulanday Barrett, “The end of the world means trans bois sprout from sequins” 

Ariana Benson, “Aubade After Earth,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist 

Joshua Burton, “The Hearing We Inherit,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist 

Jason B. Crawford, “When I finally leave New York, I am going to burn everything,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist

M.K. Foster, “Thunderbird”

Therese Gleason, “Fashion Statement” 

francine j. harris, “Chicken,” “Mastry (or Frontal Tuberosity)“

Sadia Hassan, “Self Portrait as Ophelia Floating in the River,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist

Ruth Ellen Kocher, “god of worship,” “in regard to beginning,” “our agreeable end” 

Chantel Massey, “i can tell you,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist

Sihle Ntuli, “Thukela”

Karisma Price, “Sempiternal: To the Future of a Crescent City”

Joy Priest, “The Black Outside“

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, “Broken Body Alluvium,” “Sonnet for the Study of Extreme Illusion Machined into the Highest Degree of Sacredness”

Sanam Sheriff, “Not forgetting, but choosing to,” Winner of the 2021 ½ K Prize 

Dāshaun Washington, “when mama wept,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist

Danielle P. Williams, “When people tell me that dancing hula makes you exotic,” 2021 ½ K Prize Finalist

Sandra M. Yee, “after her latest stroke my aunt sounds like Gertrude Stein” 

Folio

Allison Albino, “The In Between of Sleep” 

Elliot Alpern, “Extraordinary Phenomena” 

Celeste Chen, “While Emerging from the Courts of Hell, Dong Xian Thinks about Cut Sleeves”

Devon Halliday, “Any Day Now”

Kira K. Homsher, “Network Support“

Caroline M. Mar, “高 祖 父 : A Correspondence : 太 爺”

Patricia Patterson, “Lucia Left Guadalajara and This Is What Happened After” 

Petra Salazar, “listen”

Cover Art

Corey Pemberton, TT, I’m so done with you

Fiction

Jeannetta Craigwell-Graham, “Sunbathing is Forbidden in the Graveyard”

Ben Francisco, “Two People”
Winner of the 2022 Fiction Prize

Daniel Galef, “ALEA”

R. W. Hartshorn, “Goats”

Alexandria Juarez, “Samples”

Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., “Over the River”

Nonfiction

Siew David Hii, “Kneeling for the Ring”

Tala Khanmalek, “On Language”

Aekta Khubchandani, “More than Trees“

Jabulile Mickle-Molefe, “The Future Is Semantic”

Steffan Triplett, “Disgregate”

Emily Weitzman, “Textual Analysis”

Poetry

Jessica Abughattas, “Beauty”

Nadia Q. Ahmad, “Ghazal: Screw Patience”

Ashna Ali, “A Word of Advice for Bearing Late Capitalism” and “Ode to Bumblebees Defiant in Summer”

Sarah Ghazal Ali, “On Seeing”

Aida Bardissi, “breaking bread” and “aswan ghazal”

Samiya Bashir, “Lethe,” “Phlegethon,” and “Acheron”

Mark Anthony Cayanan, “Dramaticule: Faith Is Relentless Agreement”

Franny Choi, “September, 2001”

Donte Collins, “Abecedarian at the End of the World” and “Still Life with Birth Certificate”
Winner of the 2022 Poetry Prize

Mele Girma, “pollen”

Dabin Jeong, “My Mother’s Sisters – IV”

Molly Johnsen, “After the Grocery Store”

Alexa Luborsky, “Crossword,” “April 24,” and “Excavation Site at Auschwitz”

Joyelle McSweeney, “Death Styles 8.21.20,” “Death Styles 8.13.20,” and “Death Styles 8.11.20 + 8.12.20”

Jasmine Reid, “not a suicide note,” “at 26, hugs are dangerous,” and “she harvests herself”

Monica Rico, “In the presence of the matriarch”

Alafia Nicole Sessions, “Villanelle as Portrait of Upright Melanated Mammal at Mid-Life”

Jess X. Snow, “Gazing at the Grand Canyon from the Moon”

Rosie Stockton, “Deconstitutional Rite”

Jenevieve Ting, “Second Nomenclature” and “Against Extinction”

Translation

Azo Vauguy, excerpts from Zakwato and Loglêdou’s Peril
Translated by Todd Fredson

Cover Art

rachael catharine anderson

Fiction

Ash Kaul, “Telephonic Tidings from Kashmir”

Melissa Llanes Brownlee, “Trophies” and “Cookies”

Julia Moncur, “The Fisherwoman”

Areej Quraishi, “Tawaif”

Debra J. Stone, “Chocolate Annie Oakley”

J.K. Tsosie, “Three MC’s and One DJ”

Evan Williams, “Chest to the Ground and Toes Pointed Downward”

Nonfiction

Fatima Alharthi, “Chickpea”

Benjamin Garcia, “A Personal History of Fuck”

Zach Jacobs, “Detail Work”

Robin Lee Lovelace, “Different Times, Different Degrees, Same Shit”

Michael David Lukas, “Bedtime Story”

Poetry

Geoff Anderson, “Twenty Pounds of Meat”

Hadara Bar-Nadav, “Zoom Funeral” and “The Hand of God”

Aida Bardissi, “aswan ghazal”

Aaron Coleman, “Glitch Miracles Here”

Kwame Dawes, “Three Latter Day Duppies,” “Thief,” and “Orgasm”

Chloe Forsell, “Ode to the Big Chop”

Aerik Francis, “Gigan for Opening the Urn”

Kate Gaskin, “21 Weeks” and “365 Days”

Janice N. Harrington, “Forethoughts” and “On the Kickapoo Trail”

K. Henderson, “The Glacier Speaks”

Sean Hill, “Braided in Denali”

Sophia Holtz, “roe”
Winner of the 2022 1/2K Prize

E. Hughes, “I Call Distraction a Bird” and “I Know Love by the Morning”

Hannah Perrin King, “UNTIL FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH COMES THE STERLING BIT OF MY MOTHER’S GIRLHOOD”

Cate Lycurgus, “Dear I.—”

Elisávet Makridis, “Self-Portrait as Cross Section of Tree Trunk”

Damien McClendon, “A Scratched Record”

andriniki mattis, “batty empire”

m. mick powell, “[there are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you]”

Sandra Simons, “The Serenity Motel,” “My Poem Outgrows Its Impetus,” and “The Container Store and the Cherry Tree”

Clancy Tripp, “Once, I Got Trapped in a Leather Suitcase”

Matthew Zapruder, “Sundays”

Folio: The Possibility Is Here

Ace Boggess, “Did It Still Feel Like You Were in Prison?”

Demetrius A. Buckley & H.R. Webster, “I Can’t NOT Write Poems While the World Is Ending”

Grady DeRosa, “Rice Street,” “Hands,” and “Woven”

Henry Goldkamp, “[I paint landscapes mostly]” and “[dude I do not fear death]”

Brian Lee Kilpatrick & Susan L. Leary’s diary and poetry collaboration

Antonio Sanchez-Day, “fishbowl”

Kashawn Taylor, “Lamentations”

Rahsaan Thomas & Zinaria Williams, “Collaborative Connections”

POETRY WINNER:

“Kings County” by Robert Wood Lynn

Here’s what judge Tommye Blount had to say about Robert’s poem:

This poem’s structure dazzled me. By structure, I mean what information is given and when—the exposition gets deployed so masterfully subtle. Not to mention, sound is not just ornamental, but it too is a part of this poem’s scene-building. I’m thinking of the cacophony of ck’s and the chatter of all those t’s in the lower quarter of the poem; the way that noise is called out, eventually, with the sky “Dampening the sound of everything” toward the heartbreaking ending. The poem is a little pocket of a moment which brims with evocation and so much narrative implication, which is the parlor trick that lyric does so well in the right hands.

FINALISTS:

“auntie moahn” by Ashley Warmer

“mary, mother of God” by Sacha Marvin Hodges

“Cold Snap” by Hannah Nahar

“england” by Anthony Fangary

“bop: the journalist asks James Baldwin what it was like when Martin died” by Daniel Summerhill

“Zaire” by Aimee Seu

“Returning from Provincetown, You Tell Me” by Carling McManus

“Hibernation” by Ash Adams

CREATIVE NONFICTION WINNER:

“The Sound of Burning” by Kristi DiLallo

Here’s what judge Camonghne Felix had to say about Kristi’s essay:

The author crafts a sustained trail of suspense, leaving the reader in wait for an unresolved outcome. Dotted with generous detail, clarity shows up bit by bit as the reader is slowly walked into the world of a crime that is never fully explored, leaving room for the reader to feel the impact of the crime while saving this story from becoming a whodunit. Smart and well paced, I would be excited to read more and witness this plot unfold.

FINALISTS:

“Wolves” by Ariana Kelly

“The Teacher’s Note” by Jennifer Taylor

Both winners will appear in an upcoming issue of Indiana Review. Our thanks to everyone who entered this year!

Aekta Khubchandani is a writer from Bombay. She is the founder of Poetry Plant Project, where she conducts month-long generative workshops. She holds a dual MFA in Poetry & Nonfiction from The New School. Her film, New Normal, whose script she wrote, won the Best Microfilm award at Indie Short Fest by Los Angeles International Film Festival. She has works published in Speculative Nonfiction and Penn Review.

You can purchase this issue here.

Artist: Corey Pemberton