Publication: Fractured Lit

  • The Life of the Mother by Susan Perabo

    This story shook me. The steady reveals and rising tension result in a story about a woman’s pregnancy that’s unforgettable. Following the meeting with the doctor, there was no thought of a baby shower. Too much rage. Too much grief. The two were indistinguishable, separate ropes twisted into a single noose. Bullshit about stages of grief,…

  • All and Sundry by Candace Leigh Coulombe

    All and Sundry is told in the second person about losing a child in a huge retail store. Like galactically huge. Then things get interesting. Do not let your children stand in the shopping cart. Do not let them ride in the bottom of the cart, where pigtails or small hands could get trapped in…

  • Lines Left by Katie ten Hagen

    A short ghost story that left me a mess. My dad mowed the lawn every Saturday morning—weather permitting—for seventy-two years. Vacations were scheduled around it, plans turned down, brunches skipped, because that lawn wasn’t gonna mow itself. When his heart started acting up, and I said maybe he could think about getting someone else to…

  • Heartbeat by Jisun Park

    Park writes about the anxiety and fear that comes with being a new parent in a way that brought me right back to those days: It occurs to me that there are an infinite number of ways that my baby could die, and it is up to me, an untrained civilian with no prior experience…

  • White Trash by Emily Hampson

    From the perspective of a housekeeper in a ritzy hotel, Hampson’s story has teeth: Tonight, his hand clasps your elbow, wearing you like a purse. He likes it when you flaunt a skirt, likes to snake a finger up your pale thigh. Nibbling at your earlobe, he cocks an eye toward me. To him, everything…

  • When I Say Grief

    a single paragraph mourning the end of a marriage, brilliantly written: “My husband left me in February. He left with my love in his hands, and I walked to the pharmacy for a carton of eggs.”

  • The Children

     Like Stephen King’s take on The Chrysalids, in ~750 words. It’s short and shocking. Read it now, it’ll only take a couple minutes.

  • Beach Tree