In 2011, poet and author Ariana D. Den Bleyker saw a need for publications catering to people without numerous bylines and launched Emerge Literary Journal to showcase their work. Over the past year, staff at the magazine expanded her vision to include established writers who want to attempt a new genre or form.  “So, let’s say you’re…

Antioch LitCit #31 Podcast Interview with Janet Rodriguez

I was 44 when I bought a tombstone. It was a double, to stand guard over two side-by-side burial plots. This was not advanced planning or an attempt to lock in the space and price of prime cemetery real estate. I wasn’t following Midrashic advice that suggests buying plots when you’re alive and well. Neither…

I started praying recently. Wake up each morning and say, Modeh ani lefanecha. Stretch the long “o” in modeh, linger on the “e” in ah-nee. I pray in Hebrew. A language I don’t understand. Ru’ach chai v’kayam   Friday evenings at sleep-away camp. The cafeteria, alive with kids. Loads of us: hormones, pimples, sweat. Some wore baby fat,…

REVIEW: Promenade of Desire: A Barcelona Memoir by Isidra Mencos Reviewed by Diane Gottlieb Desire. The word itself evokes our wants. Longings. But while our wants live in the brain and longings in the heart, desire is of the whole body. It moves us. Compels us to act. Action, guided by desire, can be dangerous.…

The way the deer gathered at dusk. The way the kids lay still on the trampoline, counting stars. The way the tall, thin pines stood so close their roots touched. The crisp night snows of November. The Have-A-Hart traps for field mice seeking shelter in our home.  Read More (SELECTED FOR THE 2023 BEST MICROFICTION…

The repetitive use of “the way” is very effective. Did you consciously craft that or did it end up organically evolving as you wrote? Thank you! I usually like to do two things in a piece—build tension as I go and come full circle. I started “21 Allen Drive” with the repetition of “the way”…

“I have ALS.” These are the words Deirdre Fagan’s forty-three year-old husband spoke just days after Christmas 2011. Bob, the father of their children (who were then just three and eight years old), was going to die—soon. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, known by many as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurological disorder that affects voluntary muscle…

Anxiety. Depression. Who hasn’t felt either or both at one point in their lives? But when we toss those words around carelessly, identities form. We become the words instead of feeling them, and the difference between the emotions we call depression or anxiety and the disorders themselves all but disappears. “Pathologizing normal distress” is just…

Anxiety. Depression. Who hasn’t felt either or both at one point in their lives? But when we toss those words around carelessly, identities form. We become the words instead of feeling them, and the difference between the emotions we call depression or anxiety and the disorders themselves all but disappears. Read More