Laura Van Den Berg

Fiction. The characters in this collection are searching for something more: in the markings on tortoise shells, on other planets, with new lovers and altered identities. These characters know there are whole worlds out there that have never been seen, some as distant as the Amazon rain forest, others as close as a neighbor's house, the curtains left open. Laura van den Berg helps us discover these worlds, blending the mundane and routine with the strange and unexpected. The search won't always end with the stories--these restless narrators will always be left with mysteries unsolved, questions unanswered and hidden aches not quite healed--but what they see along the way will be nothing short of marvelous.

There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights

Das dritte Hotel

Claire Boyle

Fresh off winning the 2019 ASME award for fiction, issue 55 features new fiction from Laura van den Berg, Gordon Lish, T Kira Madden, and Emma Copley Eisenberg, and more; letters about face masks and puttanesca and the rapid disintegration of our natural world by R. O. Kwon, Alexander Chee, and Jack Pendarvis; a searing nonfiction piece by José Orduña that harkens back to shoe-leather journalism, chronicling his experience at immigrant-rights demonstrations across the spectrum of activism; oh, and a 16-page section of mesmerizing photography by Pelle Cass from his series "Crowded Fields." Read and be renewed!

Laura Van Den Berg

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