My Future Depends On It

By Miriam Ben-Yoseph
I was 15 when we left Romania. It was 1965. Ceausescu just came to power. At the airport they searched our luggage and peered into our bodies.

Photo Story: The Other ...

By Melissa Jacob
My daily constitutional treads a familiar story arc. Swerve raccoon-eyed adults being dragged along by relentless toddlers.

Underwater

By Sabrina Hicks
The silence in Sarah’s head had texture—waves licking sand, leaving foamy layers. She blinked in a doctor removing his mask.

Birds in Heat

By John Paul Martinez
There’s a stain on the left wing. She tells me she doesn’t know how it got there, but I know it’s from when she was younger.

Durable Power

By Ann Gelder
I found the form giving me durable power of attorney for my father’s health care. He died eleven and a half years ago.

Row

By Charmaine Wilkerson
When the earth beneath their stone houses started to crumble they said, this, too, will pass. When the foundations cracked and the walls fell into the dust, they moved into wooden houses.

Hydrological

By Todd Mercer
The upstairs shower? Solid pressure ‘til it cuts to drizzle. Incomplete rinse of foam from an eye. That’s life, when the downstairs toilet flushes.

Final Tally

By Cathy Safiran
The letters were crude block capitals, searing ink poked into the skin on her thighs with a sewing needle wielded by her own hand.

First Run

By William O’Sullivan
I was an only child my 15th summer—my brother away acting, one sister abroad, another home but waiting tables, dating, college-bound.

Announcing the 100 Word...

Each 100 word story is its own kind of special. Now you can read 117 of our favorites published over the past 6 years in "Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story."

Review: For Girls Forge...

By Beret Olsen
Molly Fuller's new book, For Girls Forged by Lightning, is as ferocious as it is lyrical. This collection of 51 short pieces of "prose and other poems" is beautiful and brutal. Remember to breathe.

Collecting

By Ariel Berry
We are a family of collectors. We have diverse interests and collect many kinds of things. Rocks, stamps, small pieces of licorice.