BANG! (A Genre Mélange) by Zoë Blaylock By the close of New Year’s Day 2030, every human inhabitant of the planet Earth had been fingered. It was no longer a big deal for anyone to cock thumb and extend index finger as if they comprised a real pistol and, with a simple BANG, shoot someone dead...

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Retribution by Andrea Fry I would venture nearly everyone harbors some affront. An indignity that sides us instantly with the beleaguered— with the downtrodden, horses old and gaunt, lone woman on the board...

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Subway by Maya Connor In this standoff there is cold, hard cash  on the plaster stove &  I look him in the eye. A magazine falls somewhere and he’s screaming louder now, his back to me, don’t take it don’t take it so I tak...

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Maya Connor is a young poet from Texas who plans to further pursue creative writing in her college years. She adores enjambment and Adrienne Rich. Her first publication is thanks to J Journal.

The Park by the River by Domenick Acocella Richard is standing at the trail’s edge, one he would often run when he’d lived in the Bronx, before moving to lower Manhattan. The turns are unfamiliar, winding in directions he doesn’t recall...

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Brothers by Kathy Raffetto Lewie hunches over his boxy camera in one of the photo booths that have been gouged into the courtroom walls at Nuremberg. Peering through the rear screen of his Speed Graphic, he focuses on the Ameri...

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I Tried to Post by Paula Yup a picture on Facebook of the pumpkin latte I bought with money Juliet sent me but now it’s my profile picture Then I tried to write a post...

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Colette Parris is a Caribbean-American attorney who returned to her literary roots during the pandemic. Her work can be found in Michigan Quarterly Review, Scoundrel Time, Gordon Square Review, The Healing Muse, LEON Literary Review ... Read more at coletteparris.com.

The Boatman by J.W. Seabrooke It would be nice to talk to him again. A nice, normal drink with an old friend. There weren’t many people I felt like seeing these days, and even fewer places I felt like going...

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A native New Yorker, J.W. Seabrooke studied writing at Columbia University and is currently living and writing in Switzerland.

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Anna Josephson is based in Washington, DC and teaching at the University of Maryland. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Does It Have Pockets, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel about a furloughed intern during a government shutdown.

www.jjournal.org/current-issue JJournal's latest is up!

The Man Who Shot the Moon by Christopher Flakus The inside of the car is dark. Aspen trees with their white bodies flash by the passenger window. They frighten you, but you don’t tell your father whose smells of sweat, cigarettes, and whiskey you’v...

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A writer and poet from Mexico, US, MFA in fiction from the University of Houston, and currently a PhD Student at LSU's Comparative Literature program. He writes in English and Spanish. His first novel, Flight of the Chicxulub to be published by Pegasus Press.

Toxic Accomplice by Kevin Langson Beyond the headline-grabbing accomplishments in grotesquerie, he is most vividly known for his habit of so fondly fondling his shotgun while his femme du jour gave him head, finally squeezing the trig...

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A queer social worker focused on forced migration, he left Chicago to begin working at a refugee resettlement agency in New Haven, where he continues as a grant writer. He has been published in TAYO Literary Magazine and the Best Gay Romance 2014 anthology.

Post by Aaron Rabinowitz After Grandma died my sister said, We need to send Uncle Larry cards, keep him happy, and I said, I don’t think that he was ever happy and she said, We should all send him cards even just postcards an...

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Meridian’s Short Prose Prize, PRISM Creative Nonfiction, CANSCAIP’s Writing for Children Competition; residencies - British Columbia, CA, OR. Currently writer-in-residence, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Publishing: Grain, Malahat Review, The Masters Review

Decision Tree by Michael Jones Which pickle to pick is not fit for childish deliberations, especially when pecks of pickles have picked this child and that and their mamas and daddies and their whole generations. Of the pickles you...

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Michael Jones poetry appears in journals such as Salamander, J Journal, Sugar House, and Beloit Poetry Journal. He has taught since 1990 in Oakland (CA) public schools.

Maybe by Wolfgang Wright I was at my girlfriend’s when she got a call from a friend whose car had run out of gas, and this friend wanted Katie—that’s my girlfriend—to—and because her friend was pretty much shouting through th...

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Wolfgang Wright is the author of the comic novel Me and Gepe and the forthcoming science fiction novel Being. His short work has appeared in over forty literary magazines, including Dark Yonder, Oyster River Pages, and Paris Lit Up. He lives in North Dakota.

My Deal by Ellen Davis Sullivan “You’re not breathing,” my mother said. A voice coach who teaches Suits and Baby MBAs how to speak in public, she’s an expert on the way nerves shut down air intake. I couldn’t tell her that at that m...

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Sullivan’s stories have appeared in journals including Big Muddy, Moment Magazine and Cherry Tree. Her essay “The Perfect Height for Kissing” won Columbia University’s Non-Fiction Prize and was published in Issue 53 of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art.

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A 30-year cooking career led to moderate renown. Today, after fallout from destructive choices, Jim is in prison preparing meals for fellow incarcerees, writing with wry humor about the care and feeding of those behind bars.

Untitled Xerox Cut-Out (Squeaky Fromme/Gerald Ford) 1993-94 by Stephen Gibson Printed paper with paper clips and Pencil on paper in artist’s frame Cady Noland American, born 1956 The Museum of Modern Art, New York City Squeaky said she was serious but also having fun...

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things you should know by Kathleen Hellen I should throw it away. Nubbed and frayed from all the cycles. The thrashing and the tumbling.  This shabby robe that robs the dignity of my undressing. This effigy that hangs on tatty sleeves. These ...

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Author of 3 poetry collections: Meet Me at the Bottom, The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, Umberto’s Night, which won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. James Still Award, Thomas Merton prize, H.O.W. Journal, Washington Square Review.

Past Life by Billie Pritchett Before my mother, there had been another woman, Britannia, whom my father loved and married when they were both in their twenties. After a brief courthouse ceremony with three friends as witnesses, th...

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Billie Pritchett is an English professor in the Department of Creative Convergence at Kyungnam University in Changwon, Korea. His work has appeared in Delmarva Review, Washington Square Review, and most recently in Arkana.

Smoke Break by Jennifer Maritza McCauley So I left Lady for good then got off the bus. It felt right, leaving Lady Prananda. Plus I thought no way sadness is not not not going to happen to this girl right here so I dropped her for good, my s...

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Books: SCAR ON/SCAR OFF, When Trying to Return Home and Kinds of Grace. Fellowships from NEA, Kimbilio, CantoMundo. Heralded by NYT, Kirkus Reviews, Elle, Latinx in Publishing, Ms. Magazine. Fiction editor, Pleiades. Assistant professor U Missouri - Kansas City.

Wilding by J.E. Robinson wine why my tastes tonight run more for rye or whisky my throat demands that burn fire water which helps me forget my world wines for therapy not for forgetting a night from wine put this mark upon me...

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J. E. Robinson's poem “Panaetius” appeared in J Journal in Spring 2024 and received a “Best of the Net” nomination. Currently, he enjoys retirement.

Customer Review of Half-Day Lajes Air Base Historic Sightseeing Tour by Ryan Clark Five Stars—Excellent Tour and driver/guide The road took us into the island where we came across Victory. He held a pointed staff and left footprints long and vehicular. Victory spoke very good Englis...

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A documentary poet who writes using a unique method of homophonic translation. Authored Arizona SB 1070: An Act (Downstate Legacies) and How I Pitched the First Curve (Lit Fest Press), + forthcoming chapbook Suppose / a Presence (Action, Spectacle).

The Barber Shop by Amrita De Every day, at nine in the morning, Mr. Ghosh got his mustache trimmed while waiting for things to happen. Betel juice dripped from one side of his paan-stained lips, his backside comfortably lodged on...

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Amrita De is a Visiting Research Fellow at Penn State. She specializes in masculinity studies and global south literatures. Creative works have appeared in Café Dissensus, Aaduna, Muse India, Cerebrations, Snarl, Barricade, Hong Kong Review.

New Territories by Nina Ellis Callie landed just after eleven o’clock in the morning. Immigration was easy—the guy glanced at her picture and grinned. Her bag came out third. She had nothing to declare...

www.jjournal.org/post/new-ter... Nina Ellis’s short stories have appeared in Granta, American Chordata, Carve Magazine, The London Magazine, Ambit, 3:AM, the Mays anthology and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Oxford Review of Books and elsewhere.

Current Issue | J Journal J Journal is a literary magazine featuring fiction, poetry and personal narrative, all quietly justice-themed. Support the literary arts and purchase the latest issue.

www.jjournal.org/current-issue The cartoon voice saying, "I am what I am," sounds simplistic. But we are what we are and like. We like low-to-the ground, less-is-more, tangential routes to justice. Still, in new issue #35, more than real seems possible; possible enough to move toward the fantastic.

Murmuration of Mind and Tongue by Laurie Lamon how can it be as the mind moves the tongue moves somewhere near the flock a falcon is (the flock loses no information) How can it be...

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Poems published in The Atlantic, The New Republic, Plume, Ploughshares, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Literary Review, and others. Two poetry collections published at CavanKerry Press: The Fork Without Hunger; Without Wings. Professor emeritus, Whitworth University.

I, Labor by Irene Cooper “Death Sentence: Poetry Consolation II” is a poem constructed by artificial intelligence algorithms based on the prison writings...

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Wrote feminist noir novel Found, Committal, poet-friendly spy-fy, & spare change, finalist Stafford/Hall Award, poetry. Published in Denver Quarterly, The Feminist Wire, The Rumpus + more. Supports creative writing at regional prison, teaches, editor at Airlie Press.