Stories by Shannon Sanders, reviewed by Kayla McCall COMPANY (Graywolf Press) My family’s matriarch has a ritual when company comes to visit. She chases carefully-swept corners with lemon-scented cleaners. The vacuum hums over the rug, then the hardwood, then the pink hexagonal tiles in the hall bathroom and the blue ones in the en suite. She dusts the coffee table and the wire shelf, pays special attention to the thick buildup on the ceiling fan blades. She wipes down the counter and the range hood, the kitchen table and the windows. She sweeps the pine needles from the deck, the dirt from th ..read more

ALINA PLESKOVA AND KIMBERLY ANN SOUTHWICK WANT YOU TO DIY IT THIS POETRY MONTH A Conversation with Alina Pleskova and Kimberly Ann SouthwickEdited by Hannah Felt Garner Alina: Kimberly Ann Southwick and I have traveled in the same extended poetry circles for about a decade–she as founder and editor of the long-running journal Gigantic Sequins, me as co-founder/co-editor of bedfellows, which has published a few of her poems! Both of us are Philly-connected (me, a current resident; she, a former one). We’ve done various readings together over the years, too. One, as I recall, was in a dive bar b ..read more

A Conversation with Cleaver Senior Nonfiction Editor Sydney Tammarine DUALITY IN NONFICTION Estimated reading time: 1 minute What does duality in creative nonfiction mean to you? Do you have any favorite essays or memoirs that explore duality? When I think about duality, I think about the tension that is inherent in all life, and therefore, in all good literature. I often tell my students that one definition of essay is a verb that means to try: the essay is an attempt to understand—to reconcile—those parts of life that feel most contradictory.  One of my favorite short essays about ..read more

A Writing Tip by Snowden Wright TRIAL AND ERROR Estimated reading time: 3 minutes At an Oxford, Mississippi, courthouse last summer, I sat in on the trial for the most recent person to try to assassinate my father, a circuit court judge. Things went poorly for the defendant. The prosecutor played the recording of a call he had made to his cousin while he was awaiting trial. During the call, he asked his cousin to Google information about the accusations against him—the guy might as well have asked his cousin to visit some website called I’mGuilty.com. But that’s not what I found most interesti ..read more

Nicole Brogdon THE POD I never felt enough eyes on me, never enough love. Never enough arms, wrapping round my body. Nor hands, chopping vegetables for soup. Not enough healthy backs, moving my furniture. More hands, putting on clean sheets—floral sheets, washed by someone else. Clean hands, bringing me the trash can, when I’m down five days with stomach flu. More hands, bringing me a plate of tea and crackers, whisking the waste-bin away, sliding a clean bin beside the bed. Multiple hands, for multiple orgasms, hands gently plugging all my body’s holes.      A villag ..read more

Kim Magowan THE BACK NINE The email is from Marianne’s boarding school classmate Harrison McBee, then captain of the lacrosse team, now an investment banker living with his husband in Manhattan; the subject heading is “Sad News.” Reluctantly, Marianne opens it. This time, it’s her classmate Chip who died.   What Marianne can visualize most clearly about Chip’s face are the slashes of black greasepaint all the football players wore under their eyes. And she remembers being at a school dance, leaning against the wall, and bracing herself because Chip appeared to be looking at her. But ..read more

T.S. Bender MIGUEL’S SANCHO It was some point early in August, a Thursday or Friday, some point at the end of the week that Miguel didn’t show up to work. And that morning, as the sun streamed into the garage of the grounds shop and mowers rumbled in place, the guys said that Miguel would be in.  “He don’t miss work,” Victor said, and someone else said to check the kitchen, that maybe he was in there with Mary, and Victor smirked and said it was too early for that. But later, long after starting at six, long after finishing the first jobs and then the second ones, Victor came by the gold ..read more

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Katie Tonellato BABY, SWEETHEART, HONEY When I was young, they called me baby, sweetpea, honey, cherry pie, chubs. So often they called me these things, that when they called me my name, my real name, I curdled into myself, unfamiliar, anticipating something unknown the way animals cower in their homes, teeth bared. They called me those things until I grew teeth, grew wings, snarled at them.   My mom used to read the paper on Sunday mornings, curled up in bed, without makeup on her face, reading glasses resting on the rim of her nose. This was when I was small, in the way we were all sma ..read more

Julian Shendelman SUSPENSION POINTS “I suppose you could DM,” Marine said, staring into her clipboard.  “Direct message?”  “Dungeon monitor. You essentially walk around making sure people aren’t openly bleeding on the carpet. It’s a violation of our lease. Here.” She handed me a laminated double-sided list of rules. The first three—no fire, breath play, or unconfined fluids—seemed straightforward enough. But I couldn’t wrap my head around interrupting a scene in progress.  “Are you sure there isn’t, like, a clean-up shift I could take?”   The goth shrugged. “We’re boo ..read more