DIGITAL DOWNLOADS
Read the print edition from any device

New in September

New writing published online every week.

BROOD

“‘We’re here to find a suitable mirror,’ we say to the salesman (Kensington fils from his nametag).”

by Charles Israel Jr.

A GOD SPEAKS ON THE BORDER

"When he sat on a steel chair in a room with no mirrors but two people—an officer and translator—he listed truth and fiction. As the words mixed together, no one could tell where the shadows began."

by Evan Burkin

THE WISEWOMAN TELLS A STORY ABOUT COMMERCE BEFORE RENOUNCING WORLDLY POSSESSIONS:

“A rich man wanted to be richer, so he sold stars.”

by Brad Aaron Modlin

ESCUDEROS

“'Silencio, everyone, listen,' Señor Mejias said, looking across his living room filled with young men and women holding the materials to make shields, masks, and banners."

by L. Vocem

Paywalls keep writers and readers apart. That’s why we don’t have one.

River Styx believes that online literature should be free to read. That’s why we never charge for access to our online content. If you share that principle, please consider making a tax-deductible donation. River Styx is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Poetry

Poetry by established and emerging voices from around the world.

BECOMING STILL-LIFE IN ST. LOUIS

"April’s final Saturday spent circling / museum halls. Photograph of rotting / peaches, shutter-captured intimations..."

by Elise Thi Tran

BURIAL PRACTICE II

"Then I showed you my ugly hands. / Then I burned myself to blue. / Then the ink could smudge in / As you eat each other’s lungs out."

by Zach Isom

NOTES FROM THE UNDERSTORY

"It had been fifteen years in which she wouldn’t brush her hair. / Now it has been decades that I’ve held the memory knotted."

by Rusty Morrison

SANGUINELLO

"Good evening to you / who would have me murdered"

by Molly Boyle

Fiction

Short stories by established and emerging voices from around the world.

RIVER AS INTERMEZZO

“Leekin ends at the river. The first people, the Catawba Nation, harnessed it with granite weirs.”

by Charles Israel Jr.

CHARACTERS

“From the bedroom window across the pond, in words that skip across the water, my wife says they smell like children.”

by Charles Israel Jr.

THE WISEWOMAN TELLS A STORY ABOUT COMMERCE BEFORE RENOUNCING WORLDLY POSSESSIONS

“A rich man wanted to be richer, so he sold stars.”

by Brad Aaron Modlin

THE GRAIN ELEVATOR

“In the elder night when wheat hide their spotty heads below their wings, we climb the grain elevator..."

by R.M. Fradkin

Essays by established and emerging voices from around the world.

THE CHICKEN, THE GOOSE, AND THE GANDER

“The canine lunged and clamped down, suffocating the goose’s cries.”

by S.N. Rodriguez

MINOANS

“The Greek cabdriver affirms what Marie is saying about vampires, legends of vampires on this island, centuries older than Stoker and Nosferatu and Vlad..."

by Dan Howell

LANDSCAPE ANXIETY

“–he has driven down into the wheat and thought of himself as a mouse–"

by Maya Jewell Zeller

COMMON SENSE

“I did not know that this place would become a place I could not leave…”

by Lise Balk King

River Styx editors interview nonfiction writers.

RS/NF: Rajiv Mohabir

On writing a hybrid text, the power of looking into the eye of a whale, and more

RS/NF: Jane Wong

On the inspiration and construction of her essay "A Slow Process."

RS/NF: Darien Gee

On compression, meandering as process, and family trees in her flash essay “Kin.”

Our support comes from these generous organizations.