Winter 2015

Interview: David Joy

David Joy is only thirty-one, but come March, this North Carolina writer will see his first novel, Where All the Light Tends to Go, published by Putnam. The book, a gritty tale of “a young man seeking redemption,” is highly anticipated and has garnered advance praise from the likes of…

Rural Stigmata

I’ve nurtured the glowing wound: peroxide, salve, bandages. I’ve done right by this one. The rawness eased, was replaced by budding infant cells. Trenches formed in the nickel-sized spot where my fate and life lines intersected the injury, two deep vertical red canals in a waxy purple-pink circle: a burnt…

Still Life in Townsend

1. Stevie Gibson never did like the picture, but she never did take it down. A dead pheasant still fully feathered, a bowl of oranges, a green glass goblet of wine, and an hourglass were arranged upon a pale tablecloth of folds and wrinkles, all against a shadowed background. She…