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The Great Enclosure

by Usil Cel

As their greatest dreams are about to be realized, three Californians of African descent are visited by angels who inform them that their lives are coming to an end. Gazelle Gweru, thirty-five years old, is a pastry chef who is about to receive the most prestigious award in her profession. Canter Kariba, seventy-three years old, is a recent retiree who is about to speak to her only child for the first time in decades. Sophia Centenary, twenty-six years old, is a full-time reality-TV participa... more

FATHER'S DAY PART II - THE SECRET OF LA SANGRE

by Gary Kyriazi

It's one year later, Father's Day Eve, 1985, and two bodies lie at the bottom of the cliffs of La Sangre, California. What is wrong with that town? A would-be investigative reporter is determined to find out.

Bleed More, Bodymore

by Ian Kirkpatrick

HORROR IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN EVIL OVERTAKES THE HEART.

Joey, a mechanic, receives a phone call late in the night to pick up her friend's car from the infamous Baltimore body dumping grounds, Leakin Park. She arrives to find the car abandoned and her friend missing entirely. When she brings the car back to the body shop, she then finds a body in the trunk. While the Baltimore Police Department tries to find her friend under for suspected murder, Joey races to find him first and discov... more

The Father, the Son & the Slave

by Christopher Grant

You know the Passion narrative. This is the story behind it.

Metlip, Nubian slave to master carpenter Josef of Nazareth, is roused in the night by the carpenter's estranged son, Iesu. Risking arrest and worse by defying his three-year exile, Iesu has returned to ask his father two questions. The first inspires a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The answer to the second will determine whether Iesu implements a daring plan to change the world, a world Josef depends on to hide a secret ... more

The Rain Drinkers

by Gerry Finan

Set on Long Island, NY in the little town of Bay Shore at the beginning of the twentieth century, “The Rain Drinkers” is the story of a young man’s passage to adulthood. Sent to stay with an abusive relative he has never met and the man’s unfortunate young wife, the younger man is forced to learn lessons of life, friendship, love, and loss. The story touches on many different topics such as racism, immigration, and the American experience at the beginning of a new age.

So Pipe the Young

by Jen Watkins

Accessible literary fiction with a dash of domestic suspense. Annabelle Granger has always made good decisions. That’s why she quit oil painting in college to become a robotics engineer. That’s why she married Dr. Paul Granger, management consultant, her supportive modern mate. Together with their five-year-old son, Heath, they are living the suburban dream. But Annabelle fears her sensible life lacks originality. Will she ever make her mark? Following a violent death at Heath’s school, th... more

News of the Day: Adventures of a Wildly Cantankerous Veteran Newsroom Saving Dying Newspapers

by Peter Kelton

The infamous one-eyed editor Big Burt commands a wildly cantankerous gang of oddball veteran reporters in a battle to save daily news from oblivion brought on by collapsing newspapers. He leads from behind a black eye-patch. They expound on local news that has been left behind in the digital age. Their sexual lives interfere, but the comically gathered news ranges from routine obituaries to black bears trapped with doughnuts. All sorts of lives matter as the veterans teach reporting to the next... more

Belief

by Chris Houston

A new anthology from Canada’s renowned Ricepaper Magazine, this third collection in the Ricepaper Magazine series includes a wide range of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction by writers of Asian descent from across the world. The theme which binds each piece is “belief,” a notion personal to each individual sharing a piece of themselves in their works. The honorable Joy Kogawa shares her lifelong lessons scribbled in her diary, Carmen Chan shares the trauma experienced by the women in her f... more

The Jesus Nut

by John Prather

When Dr. Haley Berkshire (a reviled “nullifidian” professor of Religious Studies) uncovers the Gospel According to Trevor, she vows to find the unusual relic it describes. Both Jesse (a homeless man convinced he is the Second Coming) and Father Brian William Callum Robert O’Shea (a priest who loves topless bars) read accounts of her research and begin their own holy pilgrimages. The three characters eventually meet when ejected from an evangelical rally at Temple University ... more

Incomplete

by Joel David Levin

Mild-mannered English teacher Brian Smith has a big secret: he used to be a rock star. Kind of. In the summer of 2000, his one-hit-wonder punk band released a radio-friendly pop song and made it big. Then, just as quickly, it all fell apart. Though he's been living a quiet white-collar life for the last two decades, settled in his static suburban normalcy of treadmills and lesson plans and parenthood, a chance discovery leads to a collision between his old world and his new one. What happens whe... more

The Sphere and other stories

by T. E. Creus

A nice collection of short stories inspired by recent events. Some of the stories are of the science fiction genre, others are just dark or humorous tales with or without relation to the current moment, but most were written under orders of “quarantine” during the unusual “pandemic” period that started on February 2020 and still continues on March 2021. "The Sphere": Is this society an equalitarian utopia, or a dystopia? “You don't know what real loneliness feels like”: A strange Cold War experi... more

The Island of the Righteous

by Stefanos Livos

A dying man's last breaths point toward a tantalizing treasure and the answers to a shattered family's past.

1941, the island of Zante, Greece. Pantelis Kokinis and his family live under the dark cloud of Italian occupation. As the horrors of the war draw nearer, reality for the Kokinis family grows more and more fraught. Long-held secrets, raw emotions, and the fear of what’s coming leave them scrambling to hold their emotions in check and their family together.

Whe... more

The HollowSoul

by Marilyn Wright Dayton

This is a fictional novel about a political game where a man on a mythical search becomes obsessed with his power to save the world, and the woman who represents our government to seek out his hidden validity, but who must look inside her own soul to find that key. They both become engrained in an intriguing game of destructive influences and political greed. We see two different worlds, one a place of peace and the other full of greed and avarice. Which one will they choose?

Dead Men Naked

by Dario Cannizzaro

Would you go on a road trip with Death? Lou's couldn't say no to that question. If you witnessed the inexplicable death of your best friend Neil and were haunted by visions of the Grim Reaper and a giant black crow - your answer would be yes as well. Embark with Lou and the anthropomorphic embodiment of his own Death on a tequila-induced journey and descend from cities to desert to chase Angelene, a charming exotic dancer who holds the secret to save your soul, all the while poetically rum... more

Touch

by Rebecca Miller

What is your purpose?

A story of two teens searching: one for their place in the world, the other for a reason to survive.

After her mother’s sudden death, artistically gifted Megan lost her will to draw as she watched her family crumble. When her father unexpectedly moves what’s left of them halfway across the country to mend, Megan must try, yet again, to rise from the ashes and create a new... more

Miraflores - Memoir of a Young Spy

by Keith Yocum

At the height of the Cold War, young Nick Halliday joins the CIA to distance himself from a family tragedy and to do his part in the patriotic fight against the communist menace. Rushed into his first undercover assignment in Panama in 1958, Nick finds himself mired in the humid, dripping world of deceit and lies. Pretending to be a leftist-leaning visiting professor at the University of Panama, Nick infiltrates an earnest, naïve group of leftist students bent on Panama regaining ownership of th... more

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