by Rafael Frumkin

Nonfiction

Featured
HOW TO DROWN IN AMERICA
Grace Talusan
HOW TO DROWN IN AMERICA
Grace Talusan

“Within our first six months of dating, my boyfriend and I almost died together.”

Grace Talusan
MINOANS
Dan Howell
MINOANS
Dan Howell

“[Photo]  Some light penetrates the empty inner courtyard. Otherwise the neat grass is dark, and the shadowed lower edge of the flats almost disappears where the brick meets the ground.”

Dan Howell
THE CHICKEN, THE GOOSE, AND THE GANDER
S.N. Rodriguez
THE CHICKEN, THE GOOSE, AND THE GANDER
S.N. Rodriguez

“The room was humid and smelled of lavender cleaner and mold. Ma tried to dress it up for me, but the place was still a dump.”

S.N. Rodriguez
FEMININE NIHILISTIC GOSPEL SONG
Kimberly Sheridan
FEMININE NIHILISTIC GOSPEL SONG
Kimberly Sheridan

“For the first six months of the pandemic, I embraced a monastic lifestyle.”

Kimberly Sheridan

Selected collages that evoke mystery and pathos—and a lot of sensuality.

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Riding the Music Wave

Featured
RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE VOL. 7: STAFF EDITION
RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE VOL. 7: STAFF EDITION

River Styx staff members share our Spotify playlists and discuss the music that inspires us.

RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 6: CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 6: CARMEN MARIA MACHADO

“When I think about my relationship with music, I am always struck by the collage-y mishmash quality of it…”

RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 5: ISMET PRCIC
RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 5: ISMET PRCIC

“During COVID, I lost my mind in that tiny flat in Salem, OR, in an apartment complex that used to be a ropy motel.”

RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 4: JOE HOLT
RIDING THE MUSIC WAVE No. 4: JOE HOLT

“A few years back I had a weekly radio show called North Star Nugs, on which I played jam bands, jazz, and improvisational music.”

Fiction

Featured
THE PROFESSORS: A NOVELLA
Rafael Frumkin
THE PROFESSORS: A NOVELLA
Rafael Frumkin

“Ours began, like all great love stories, in a critical theory class.”

Rafael Frumkin
INTO THE VOID
Benjamin Hollo
INTO THE VOID
Benjamin Hollo

“The plane has drifted into space. Overcome by fatigue, she fell asleep.”

Benjamin Hollo
HEATWAVE
Simone Martel
HEATWAVE
Simone Martel

“Vicky Carrillo, Carlos Carrillo, and their two kids had been living in their little rental house for five years when Gloria Donne bought the house next door, along with the field behind it, and started her organic tomato farm.”

Simone Martel
OCTAVIO’S STORY
Nandini Bhattacharya
OCTAVIO’S STORY
Nandini Bhattacharya

“The tour guide Octavio has a half-inch brown rectangle of decay between his two front teeth.”

Nandini Bhattacharya

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Plays

Featured
STAY AWAY FROM THE BOTTOMLESS BUFFET
STAY AWAY FROM THE BOTTOMLESS BUFFET

“Never go back! That was the absolute worst! Never go back!”

FAIRBANKS, AI: A Play in Two Acts
FAIRBANKS, AI: A Play in Two Acts

“SETTING: Interior of FATHER’s dry cabin outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is evening. The temperature is 50 degrees below zero and the sun set hours ago.”

WALTER SKAAKE
WALTER SKAAKE

“A mostly empty greasy-spoon diner in Maspeth, Queens. WALTER SKAAKE, 60, sits in a booth. Bad suit. Bad hair. Big puffy parka he hasn’t taken off. He’s giving his unseen dining partner the hard sell.”

RS/NF with S.N. Rodriguez

In the newest edition of RS/NF, Nonfiction Editor Claire Walla and Assistant Editor Matt Torralba Andrews chat with writer S.N. Rodriguez about fairy tales, shifting perceptions on water, and distilling meaning through images in her flash essay, “The Chicken, the Goose, and the Gander.”

Read “The Chicken, the Goose, and the Gander” in River Styx Online.

Poetry

Featured
“ASYLUM” AND OTHER POEMS
Michael Autrey
“ASYLUM” AND OTHER POEMS
Michael Autrey

“Mother, the shipwrecked / are here and there. But / do you really think they have come”

Michael Autrey
BURIAL PRACTICE II
Zach Isom
BURIAL PRACTICE II
Zach Isom

“Then between us the passage faults underground.
/ Think: rooftop of a classic hotel hearing Marco Polo.”

Zach Isom
NOTES FROM THE UNDERSTORY
Rusty Morrison
NOTES FROM THE UNDERSTORY
Rusty Morrison

Then I close Judith Butler’s SENSES OF THE SUBJECT / after reading words that I remember as / “I feel only because I have been touched, I feel only on the condition / of being touched, I feel as an ‘I’ becomes a self.”

Rusty Morrison
BECOMING STILL-LIFE IN ST. LOUIS
Elise Thi Tran
BECOMING STILL-LIFE IN ST. LOUIS
Elise Thi Tran

April’s final Saturday spent circling / museum halls. Photograph of rotting / peaches, shutter-captured intimations— / open mouths, juice-slicked hands, parted / flesh. A knife.

Elise Thi Tran 
by Diana Oropeza

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