Louise Erdrich

‘Seven corporations control the afterlife now, and many people spend their lives amassing the money to upload into the best.’

Alberto Olmos

‘To go is always to go somewhere; returning, you return to nowhere. That’s the way it is.’

Issue 128

Callan Wink

‘He’d come to tell her that he was leaving. It seemed rather impossible now – the telling, not the leaving.’

Tomás González

‘He had just finished unpacking his rucksack, new only ten days ago and now a sodden, salty, decomposing rag, when they called him.’

Yuten Sawanishi

‘The vagina was the first part of her mother’s body that turned to sugar.’

Tao Lin

‘On the F train to Manhattan I emailed a friend in the UK. I said I couldn’t write my essay about Japan.’

Brian Hart

‘The road pleasantly gained and lost elevation, flood gauges in dry washes and scraggy hilltops, corners that begged for two wheels not four.’

Diane Cook

‘Marni on Mack. Mack in Marni. A little Mack and Marni. My head rushes. I want to watch, hear the sounds.’

Thomas McGuane

‘Barring weather or a World Series game, on Sundays I’d pick up a nice little box lunch from Mustang Catering and take Grandma some place that smelled good.’

Issue 129

Sam Coll

A wry, fanciful fable about how love can transform both nature and fate.

Yoko Ogawa

Issue 128

Mona Simpson

‘‘I have a body now,’ I whisper.’

Lauren Holmes

‘Okay don’t sell yourself,’ said my mom, ‘sell the American dream.’

Kazushige Abe

‘The crucial thing was to cool the baby off, bring the fever down.’