Welcome to issue 116. We begin with Milena Nigam’s Wildfires, where a woman faces a disturbing moment in her marriage as smoke from the Canadian wildfires engulfs the air of her home in Pennsylvania. Beautifully layered. Beautifully told.   

Next up is Alexa, Tell Me Everything You Know About Fire by Elizabeth Rosen, in which a young girl, who has lived all of her life on a spaceship, asks exactly that question. It speaks volumes about the world we live in, and is a perfect companion to Nigam’s story.

And from KB Brookins we have Morning Run which somewhat playfully traces the hardships of a young Black lesbian, having to return home from Austin to live with her parents in a small Texas town, where she’s blindsided by a sudden discovery.

Last up is My Wife’s Second Husband by Danny Lanzetta, narrated by the dead first husband. In a spiel not unlike David Foster Wallace, he lets it all out in one unbroken paragraph that makes clear, as the author says, “our exhausting preoccupation with the legacy we leave on earth.”

In our picks from back issues—From issue 92, we have The Surrogate by Ottessa Moshfegh, and The Ancient Chihuahua by Gwyneth Kelly, two super stories from our archives.

The quiz this issue is on Octopuses in Literature. Answer correctly and you’re in the running to win a 30-euro (or equivalent) gift certificate from Amazon. For answers to last issue’s quiz, Comics and the Graphic Novel, click here. Several correct answers, so we had a draw and Nigel Reed came out the winner.

Three book reviews this issue, all from writers based in Barcelona, two English, one American: Salva Deluxe Barcelona by Ryan Chandler, A Fine Husband by Diggory Dunn, and in non-fiction, Life on the Octopus Farm by Richard Schweid.

Our next issue is due out around the beginning of January. To be notified when new issues are available, just follow one of the social media links in the column to the right or email us to subscribe (gratis, of course).


Jill Adams, editor
Michael Garry Smout, tech and design
assistant editor: Diggory Dunn

Readers: Ron Bevacqua, Diggory Dunn, Elizabeth Dzhiganyan, Jamie Kahn, Melissa Moschitto, Roxanne Rowles, and Elizabeth Wittenberg

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