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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
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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.”
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