How many literary journals are there? How many stories in those journals?
Thousands.
If you’ve got time to read them all, we want to know your secret.
For the rest of us, here’s a sneak peek into the world of online literature, where stories — really truly great stories — abound.
Enjoy.
– I had been in that cave. Wrapped my hands around the well-worn rope tied to both sides and followed it through the fifteen foot tunnel to the cavern with head space on the other side. Before I sank in the water I was intimidated as I stared into the moon’s reflection on the otherwise dark water. I took off my shirt with hesitance and touched the water with my feet. My skin tightened and I felt a charge through my body as my veins started to change colors. I had clutched the rope the whole way, vaulted my body through the water all around me. When I emerged in the cavern I was nervous and afraid that I might somehow lose my energy, and I stayed there long enough only to look around, breathe deep, then swim back. I usually felt the fire of fear in my bones and never stayed long in the cavern, relying on that fire to shoot straight back through to the other side. — Michael Palmer in CutBank
– For fun, my wife and I sit around and watch documentaries about the lives of extraordinarily fat people so we can feel better about ourselves because we work hourly jobs and live in a crappy apartment because our GEDs didn’t take us as far as we hoped. We got our GEDs because we wanted to get married. We wanted to get married so we could have sex because back then we believed what our parents told us about going to hell if we fornicated. — Roxanne Gay in Twelve Stories
– I met a flimflam man in March and by May I was took, husbandless. I could be so naïve sometimes. I’d sought only the barebones of conversation. The days of early spring were muted, lonely; my husband off somewhere I could not reach him, herding buffalo or bison, I could never remember which. I’d been hustled similarly in my youth, conned of sixty dollars in the penny arcade where I worked. I’d had to explain the loss to my superior. I was a hard worker, otherwise reliable. I was easily forgiven. Could have happened to anyone, my boss said, his hand transgressing the small of my back. — Elizabeth Ellen in elimae
– It was spit and teeth. It was clumsy tongues and my chapped lips and this was the first time we met face-to-face and the lonely men sitting at the bar stared at us as if we were just another freak show passing through their world, a circus tent that would later be rolled up and hauled away. — David LaBounty in Smokelong Weekly
– Tommy, Janna, I’m going to stop you right there. Now when I say the feelings you’re describing are exceptional, I mean nuke the moon. Your account of the time spent between Tuesday’s kickball game and this evening when I happened upon you in each other—all I can say is wow and God bless and cherish it because for some of us, this has never happened. Have I been in love? I would hesitate and then say yes. But there is love and there is the ineffable mountain you’re scaling. To review: you two share the same favorite show, favorite movie, favorite band, favorite song, you both run track, and you both find camp a little immature. — Gabe Durham in NANO Fiction
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