In It’s Like, Catherine Power Evans seizes the breathless moment when life pivots without warning. One instant, the narrator is lost in the pulsing lights of a night out; the next, she is rooted in the stark corridors of A&E, reeling from news of her father’s brain injury. Evans renders the sensory overload of shock--clattering footsteps, clinical light, the sting of bile--with an unflinching eye. As hours stretch into a vigil, raw fear gives way to a dawning sense of responsibility, marking the narrator's abrupt passage from youth’s illusions into the sobering weight of adulthood.

In Fallout, Katharine Crawford Robey whisks us to the remote Dry Tortugas, where Alicia--reeling from a broken engagement--steps into a world of turquoise seas, salt-warm breezes, and a dazzling “fallout" of jewel-colored migratory birds. Guided by a charismatic Aussie whose easy charm contrasts sharply with her rigid ex-fiancé, Alicia drifts between wonder and indecision. As the island hums with wings and whispered promises, she must choose whether to stay in this rare moment of beauty or flee back to the mainland before the birds--and perhaps her chance--are gone.

ART
Two Boys, Egon Schiele (Classic Work)

In The Nine-Yard Sari, Anna G. Raman folds us into the vivid world of a South Indian wedding, where tradition is woven into every sight, sound, and scent. Thavil drums thunder, nadaswaram notes spiral upward, and the air is rich with turmeric, jasmine, and rose petals. At the heart of it all, the bride’s red nine-yard sari becomes both garment and symbol--wrapping her in auspicious color, ancestral blessings, and the intimate knot that joins two lives. Raman captures not just a ceremony, but the timeless rhythm of heritage in motion.

In Miki Byrne’s How Facebook Helped a Girl To Get What She Wished For, online cruelty turns party photos into a trigger for self-destruction. A stark, empathetic portrait of how social media’s sharp edges can wound, and the dangerous wish to be seen differently.

ART SEGMENT: Woman catching firefly by a stream by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

In The Silver Birch at The Botanics, Maggie Mackay honours her parents through a memorial tree rooted in renewal. Beneath catkins and bluebells, life gathers; bark sheds like tears, and a woodpecker’'s forage turns grief into a quiet celebration of enduring love.

In The Owatonna Library, Ronald E. Shields links prairie and page--a black bear’s ripple in grass, a cold lamp’s echo, and the quiet touch between reader and Lakota woman. Past and present meet where footsteps of generations still move beneath our feet.

After eight years as Post Nasal Drip’s drummer, he’s unceremoniously replaced by a drum machine and a new frontman. Betrayed by bandmates and girlfriend, he embarks on a gritty Chicago odyssey--falafel shops, Wrigley Field’s first night game, and underground bars--to reclaim his rhythm and honor.

He returns to the empty field where her childhood home once stood, drawn by a weathered memorial stone set to be moved. Haunted by
youthful regrets--unspoken love, vanished walls, lost chances--he stands alone before the dawn of war, carrying memories of ambition and what was left unsaid.

On their fifteenth anniversary, Doug and Tracy celebrate with a hot-air balloon ride, but beneath nostalgic memories lies simmering resentment. An exploration of love faded, fantasies of escape, and the quiet desperation hiding within a seemingly ordinary marriage.

Aroha’s turbulent home erupts in violence and despair--until the night sky's cosmic symphony beckons her. Guided by the Pole Star, she witnesses galaxies coalesce, singing pentatonic harmony. Ancient constellations unveil unity and hope, igniting her courage to heal. Their chorus drowns grief guides.

Stephen Zelnick explores the life and legacy of César Vallejo, Peru’s groundbreaking modernist poet. From his haunting work in Trilce to his Paris years, this essay delves into Vallejo’s themes of suffering, identity, and poetic revolution in Latin America.

A meticulous government bookkeeper’s quiet life is upended when two armed convicts storm his usual diner. A darkly poignant tale of routine, bravery, and legacy, Miller's A Well Ordered Life explores the quiet dignity behind one man’s predictable world.

Winifred, a restless young fairy, leaves her woodland home in search of adventure and stumbles into a suburban garden where reality bites back. Joslin's whimsical tale of courage, chaos, and the hard-earned truth that becoming a Story Fairy means living the story first.

A whimsical prelude to the Queen’s croquet party--mischief, mistaken tulip bulbs, painted roses, and royal uproar. In an enchanted glade, garden boys, cooks, and Alice herself become tangled in a riot of colour and confusion. A playful twist on Wonderland tradition by Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick.

In a kingdom of living playing cards, flamingo mallets, and vanishing cats, Alice navigates a surreal croquet match where rules bend, tempers flare, and “Off with her head!" echoes at every turn. A wildly imaginative chapter from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In this evocative poem by Alisa Velaj, sound and solitude meet at sunset. A guitar, fallen leaves, and the echo of longing explore memory, identity, and the illusion of connection across time’s restless shores.

A haunting poetic vision where Mozart returns at dusk, clutching acacia flowers, in a moment suspended between memory and myth. Alisa Velaj’s verse conjures music, grief, and the spectral link between Mozart and Salieri.

ART:
Half Bitten Apple by Cathy Giles
A vivid red apple, its skin gleaming and freshly bitten, hangs suspended among the stark, black and white branches of a tree. The selective use of colour isolates the fruit in a world drained of hue, heightening its symbolic weight, temptation, vitality, and the fleeting nature of perfection. The contrast between the apple’s vitality and the bare, textured limbs gives the image a quiet intensity.

The Album by Nick Bowman is a moving elegy in verse, unfolding the quiet mystery of a woman's past through keepsakes and photographs. As memories resurface from a bottom drawer, a haunting revelation at Belsen deepens the grief--and wonder--of those she left behind.

A heartfelt poem honoring a mother's touch in the kitchen, Ammas’ Rotis captures the warmth of memory, tradition, and childhood joy. Through flour, spice, and love, the poet weaves a sensory ode to maternal care and the quiet artistry behind each perfect roti.

ART:
Arthur Rackham, The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot, 1907
In this scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Rackham’s pen-and-ink precision and muted watercolours capture Carroll’s absurdity with sly elegance. The Knave, paintbrush in hand, tiptoes among toppled playing cards and crimson-smeared roses under the watchful eyes of the Queen’s court — a moment of quiet, comical tension suspended in the dreamlike strangeness that Rackham made uniquely his own.

In Dull Day at the Beach, Julie Hogg drifts between Jerez and Cadiz, where dragonflies dance, sparrows sip the Atlantic, and a single wave arches like an eyebrow. A languid, sensual meditation on nuance, stillness, and the quiet poetry of the Costa de la Luz.


ART:
Louis Wain's whimsical scene turns Shakespeare's words into a rooftop feline romance. Under a haze of chimney smoke, a chorus of cats lounges, tussles, and courts across the tiled skyline. At the centre, a debonair black cat balances on a chimney pot, letter in paw, poised to serenade. His snowy-white rival sits smugly nearby, while pairs of cats embrace in the background. Wain's playful composition brims with character, each cat an actor in this moonless, smoky stage of love and rivalry.

PS
"And then, the lover, sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistressF eye-brow," is straight from Shakespeare’s "All the world’s a stage" speech in As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII).

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In False Detective, Patricia Walsh captures a life under constant watch--letters censored, calls screened, movements monitored. Through sharp, restless lines, the poem explores paranoia, control, and the uneasy dance between suspicion and self-preservation.

Art:
The Rose (2015) by Cathy Giles -- Painted for our Fall Issue, this luminous study pairs a pale yellow rose with a richly brushed cobalt-blue ground. Poised between stillness and bloom, it speaks of quiet resilience, beauty in simplicity, and the vivid grace of a single moment.

In Listening to Maria Callas, James Graham contrasts the harsh noise of daily life with the transcendent beauty of Casta Diva. Her voice silences the world’s clamor, sowing peace in a moment where music eclipses war, machines, and time itself.

ART
The Boat (2015)
This vibrant painting by Cathy Giles captures a lone red boat resting on a sunlit, textured shore. Bold strokes of yellow, green, and blue suggest wild grasses, sand, and distant sea, while the sky above shimmers in layered blues. The scene hums with energy, yet the beached boat feels quietly at rest.

In Breaking Branches, Ronald E. Shields captures the fragile boundary between life and death. A nephew returns to guide Aunt Vicki toward her final rest, where sunlight, shadow, and memory intertwine under a shattered sky of breaking branches

ART:
In this enchanting woodland scene, Arthur Rackham reveals a world split between human and fairy realms. Above ground, children stroll among tall trees in the soft daylight; below, beneath the gnarled roots of an ancient tree, fairies lie in wait, resting, working, and preparing for their twilight emergence. Rackham's delicate ink lines and earthy watercolours give the underground world a hidden vibrancy, reminding viewers that magic often lives just out of sight.

In Surface Tension, Colin Will dives from bellyflops to molecular bonds, exploring how water's skin holds midges aloft yet breaks beneath a diver's fall. A lyrical blend of physics and sensation, where impact, scale, and the dance of molecules meet.


ART
"They All Crowded Round It Panting and Asking, But Who Has Won?" by Arthur Rackham:

In this lively Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland scene, Arthur Rackham captures the post Caucus Race chaos. A cluster of breathless creatures, birds, a mouse, and other fantastical companions, gather around Alice, each craning to ask the same question: Who has won? Rackham's intricate linework and muted watercolours give the moment both humour and a slightly absurd dignity, perfectly evoking Carroll's whimsical nonsense.

In People in Rooms, Gemma Meek captures a moment of quiet survival--tempting fate, watching the bridge at days end, and finding small refuge in Bukowski. A raw, unvarnished glimpse into solitude, longing, and the fragile act of getting through another day.

ART

The Pool of Tears
Alice drifts among a swirling congregation of creatures, a mouse, a dodo, a pelican, a crab, and more, all caught in the strange buoyancy of the Pool of Tears. Rackham renders this surreal moment with both dreamlike grace and a faint sense of unease, his fine ink lines capturing the flutter of feathers and the slick sheen of wet fur. Alice's hair streams out behind her as if suspended in another world entirely, the mingling of species and expressions a perfect reflection of Carroll#s playful yet uncanny vision.