Publication: Forge

  • When the Tearing Comes, If It Comes by Abby Manzella

    Manzella writes about being at high risk for a retinal detachment, and the weak reassurances from the medical experts: Another doctor tells me, without looking into my eyes or through them, that such darknesses are common. You’ll get used to them. As she speaks, an amoeba floats from my nose and through the air. When I blink,…

  • October by Kyla Hanington

    This knocked the wind out of me three times. Once when I finished reading it, again when I saw it categorized as ‘nonfiction’, and a third time when I read the author’s bio at the bottom.

  • Ken & Sirina by K. A. Polzin

    A charming, sweet and sentimental story about an aging couple and their shorthand and in-jokes.

  • Cold Weather Protocol by Erin Striff

    The world that Striff builds in this story is vivid and terrifying. Having grown up in a place that gets brutal winters, she nails the atmosphere and feeling of the deep freeze. In this interview she mentions that she’s working on a set of stories linked to this one, which sounds terrific and dreadful.

  • An Open Letter to the Better Robin Becker by Robin Becker

    This is a fun one: a letter from the author to her more famous namesake. You teach at Penn State and I notice you’ve added your middle name to your online university bio. Does that mean you think about me? Want to distinguish yourself from me, the other Robin Becker?

  • The Stranger by Robin Becker

    I was halfway through reading the interview with when I realized that the original story is labelled Nonfiction. It’s a barnburner, and the tension keeps rising with every paragraph.

  • Rat Daddy

    A first date, some science about lab rats, and a bunch of unexpected twists. Read the interview with Plumhoff after the story, it addresses some questions you’re sure to have.

  • History Lessons

    A really jarring piece about how quickly we forget the violence and horrifying things from the past

  • Shame

    <blockquote>I still hide, I suppose. Who wouldn’t? When you learn from an early age, from first schooling, that whatever you have inside you, isn’t quite right. That you’ll never fit in entirely. You’ll never cut straight with scissors or learn to play tether ball with the other kids. Even, years later, when none of this…

  • Hideous Miracles

    It’s about suicide, homicide and divine intervention, for better and for worse. It’s riveting, gutting stuff.