Roping Steers with Milton Erickson by Bruce D Snyder Twenty third-graders, six parents, and a teacher all piled into four or five vehicles and headed for Decorah, Iowa. The class camping trip circa 1981. Once there, we got the tents up, the spaghetti cooking, the s'mores at standby alert. The kids…

line and sinker by Heather Emmanuel You slide pescatarian into the conversation like it's your word to claim. “When it counts,” you say, scanning the menu. Across the table, in a crisp button-down and cuffed sleeves, she doesn’t bother pretending to read hers. “And when does it count?” The…

2026 Pushcart Prize Nominees January House Literary Journal is thrilled to announce our nominations for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, published since 1976, has become "the most honored literary project in America". Winners are expected to be announced…

Artwork by Mallory Caloca Mallory Caloca passion is to share the little details, simultaneously bold and delicate, and create an imagined image for others to perceive something beyond conventional understanding. Combined sources that are both organic or natural and geometric shapes and forms…

Dry by Chila Woychik It was the farthest north they had ever been. And time was all Maddie and Saul had left. Hours awash in Maddie’s own thoughts, the strangest memories crept in at even the hint of a connection: an oak tree with a split trunk reminded her of climbing a tree in her back yard…

What they don’t say about recovery by Kathy Pon beyond a bunch of discomfort and the slogtowards some sort of body restoration is the delicious act of napping. For ushigh-strung overachievers better suited as boundless Springer Spaniels that flushfulfillment from fields or boardrooms, the notion…

Artwork by Reena Reena's artworks have been published in several print and online publications, including Magazine-The Perch Magazine (mental health and substance), The Climate Art Collection, Aunt Lute, Judy Magazine, Farm Girl Magazine and Art Axis Project Organizing Committee and won Silver…

The Effects of an Erosion Lesson on a Public Educator and her Students by Ash Maielle T I T L Eis erosion a good thing?I N T R O D U C T I O N & B A C K G R O U N D● she tumbled into the question.● after tiny hands filled with recyclables and hope scurried with severity. ○ how we depend on our…

Seen by Eugene Datta The olive grove next to Hotel Karavostási is full of fruit. I didn’t know how bitter fresh olives taste until I ate one the other day. It took the sharp sourness of a half-ripe mandarin to tame the riot of tannins on my tongue. Two mandarin trees in front of the hotel are also…

Untitled by Sabyasachi Roy Sabyasachi Roy is an Academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. He regularly contributes craft essays to Authors Publish as a guest writer. His poetry has been published in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and other print…

Gursha by JK Miller We played with our fingers over the surface of thespongy, moon-like sourdough, rovers dippinginto the Misir Wot, the Kik Wot, and the Shiro Wot,roaming around the teff mons, and it wasn't longbefore, in Lalibela's on Fairfax, sitting across from each other at the small, square…

Ode to My New Fence by Cecil Morris Seven-foot high redwood, board-on-board, the usual gaps overlapped, every view blocked by new wood gloriously bright in shades of red and blond, the fine fur of splinters waiting on ungloved hands, for skin as bare as the boards and ready, the gentle open arcs…

Notes From the Frontier by Benjamin Patterson The year was coming to a close, but it hadn’t closed, right at that moment when the scales shift and autumn begins to tip into winter (think grayscale images, shavings of frost sticking to spent grasses). Car ignitions sputtered. Every few months, a…

Sunrise, Isle Lake, Burma by Roger Camp Roger Camp is the author of three photography books including the award winning Butterflies in Flight, Thames & Hudson, 2002. His documentary photography has been awarded the prestigious Leica Medal of Excellence and published in The New England Review, New…

Against Overpopulation by Michael Blumenthal I’ve never liked novelswith too many characters in themjust as I’ve never liked partieswith too many guests. What I preferare intimate engagements between me and just one other person: Madame Bovary over War and Peace, The Metamorphosis over One Hundred…

Artwork by S.C. Sharp S.C. Sharp is an artist from Texas.

Two Poems by Sara Eddy MonsterAt the end of the horror movie, when our person has killedthe monster-villain, she–and I’m thinking of heroines here,Sigourney or Jamie Lee–looks to the camera and we feel delight for her, we know she deserves this relief from all the hard work of killing and life.We…

Concession by Robert Schiff The speech is drafted—brief, polite, gracious. Tradition calls for writing two. One for victory. The other for this. Two are not necessary tonight. Twenty five years ago: The last Fall practice wrapped. Jordan packed up gear. That was the freshmen’s job. Coach coming…

Ghost Wedding by Xingyu Zhao After Boey Kim Cheng’s Clear BrightnessApples, persimmons, and orange sponge cakesShining under halogen glare, and mother and IWatch Bai Wuchang toss his divining blocks, Inviting the spirits to enter papier-mâché Dolls dressed in red silk robes. Peachwood Tablets sway…

Directive 23 by Jack Tisdale Belknap House. The Abner L’Argent Psychic College for Pantisocracy, Aspheterism, Benevolence, and Civil Liberty DE DESPERATIONE, FORTITUDO Staff Directive 23, October 5. From: Director Barringwell Re: Certain Items. Certain items have been brought to my attention. I…

The Trophies in the Brother Mausoleum by Emma Lagno wink their gold heads and smooth mouthless faces and flat fingerless hands. On the shelves, softback books on baseball and the wilderness crackle. They say how to be a boy when the plane goes down in the woods. How to hold a hatchet. How to swing…

Two Poems by Charlie Brice Winter Walk in PittsburghBlizzard so bright the sky turned dark.Pleasant-sting of flakes against cold-flushed cheeks. A parka-bundled neighborshovel-scrapes his front walk. We gesture to the snow, palms up, as if in prayer. I love it, I yell. Me too, he says. Cold-mist…

Wish List by David Rodriguez Whether it’s one year or five decadesbefore we board an ark of silica ceramics,of flexible insulation blankets or whateverwe have (oak timber and tallow, like do-it-yourself Vikings), may I be donewith all my pettiness and grief,all my lists of tired resentmentsand…

Contributor Book: M F Drummy Contributor M F Drummy, another of our Best of the Net nominees, has a debut poetry collection coming out in September/October. The book is available for pre-order at a discount through Main Street Rag bookstore: Advance praise for M F Drum's Perdido: Now and then you…

Two Contributor Books: Michael Dwayne Smith & Jeffrey Heath Contributor Michael Dwayne Smith, recently selected as one of our Best of the Net nominees, has a new poetry collection coming out in September from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. The book is available for pre-order now (20% off through 8/15!):…

2026 Best of the Net Nominees January House Literary Journal is excited to announce our nominations for the 2026 Best of the Net anthology. The Best of the Net is an awards-based anthology designed to grant a platform to a diverse and growing collection of writers and publishers who are building…

Conversations With My GP by Letty McHugh Would you describe your experience as dizziness, light-headedness, or vertigo? My brain has broken and now I’m constantly aware I am a stationary body on a spinning planet in a spinning galaxy in a spinning universe. I would describe it as that bit on a…

Concrete Elegy by Sofia Bagdade Yesterday I fell off my bike. The truth is,under lamplight, the bruises rich as berries& blue too from all the pinching, when my knees hit the pavement it was prayeror the white pews peeled with paint and backsweat, our thighs almost touching on velvet seats.…

The Last Umrah by Aaqilah Mangarun The darkness of the night blanketed the sandy terrain outside my bus window. I was already bored beyond my mind with the desert view during daylight, and the night didn’t do it any better. My eyelids threatened to shut close—it was around 8 PM, I think—but I…

Subsidence by Francis Dylan Waguespack Millimeters (Annual Measurement) In Terrebonne Parish, subsidence occurs at a rateof thirty-five millimeters per year, a disappearance actmeasured in a stretching distance between step and ground,in water lines on buildings like faded magic-markercharting…

Dangling Participle by Gail Purdy Gail Purdy is a writer and visual artist living on the west coast of British Columbia. She is the runner up recipient of the 2021 International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir. Her writing has appeared in the 2021 Amy Award Anthology, The Bluebird Word, Last Syllable,…

Mom’s Mom’s Mom’s Music Box by Nora Esme Wagner Mom’s music box is being auctioned off on eBay. Not her exact one—that disappeared with her. Delia and I upended the entire house, opening air vents, the false back board in her closet, the paint cans left in the garage from when she decided to paint…

Your Fictional Life by David Raney I’ll admit it: I’m a word nerd. Books lean from stacks on my floor and bedside table; I read at coffee shops, on elevators, at red lights. Years ago a new neighbor mused, “I’m gonna have to get some books for all these shelves,” articulating a problem I’m not…

The Resolution of A Woman’s War by Kaci MoDavis Kaci MoDavis is a Pennsylvania-born writer and MFA Candidate in The Writer’s Foundry in Brooklyn, NY. She’s the Fiction Editor for Mouthful of Salt and Assistant Managing and Marketing Editor for Tabula Rasa Review.

Two Poems by Elizabeth S. Gunn Invitation I cannot describe my aeipathy for you, so I sift through an orange and stony desert. Its immense worldbeneath each fuzzy, violet Antelope Bitterbrush. Its pouring screeand dry bed rivers and hot antivenom for indifference.Mycologists comb for lichens that…

DIES IRAE by Garrett Speller I think, it would start with the wind, a simple,Summer thing, winding its way over whitecaps and waterboardsSkirting up mountains to mingle with clouds that hangOver mountaintops, then descending into forests and bringingThe first hints of storm, A whisper of rain, a…

Gertrude Stein’s Rose by Janina Aza Karpinska Janina Aza Karpinska is a multidisciplinary Artist-Poet from the south coast of England. Poetry informs her collages with an eye for the 'chime' and rhythm of line and pattern. Her work features on covers of: Heart of Flesh; Drawn to the Light; The…

We, the Spiders by Jaclyn Port The spider appeared late Wednesday night, or before dawn Thursday morning. None of us knew the exact time, as we were all getting our recommended six-to-eight hours of sleep or finishing our homework. We only saw segments of it as we arrived at The School: three legs…

And Again About My Father by Mia Vodanovich In another world I inherit my father’s Mustang - We drive to the beach for my 20th birthdayAnd nothing turns to a pile of crushed metal;In the spring my hair whips around my face and all the falling cherry blossoms. My father sits shotgun, no seatbelt.…

Artwork by Laurie Hollman Laurie Hollman is a psychoanalyst who has published award-winning books, poetry, and short stories, and cover art in publications such as The California Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Beyond Words,Cosmic Daffodil and others.

Bystander by Mary Kate Williams As a novelist, with quite a robust imagination, I never expected the mob to be involved in the success or demise of my literary art piece novel. But here we are. “Thanks again,” I trill, exiting the nail salon feeling truly pampered. Some women do this every week;…

Artwork by Tinamarie Cox Tinamarie Cox lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and rescue felines. Her written and visual work has appeared in a number of publications under various genres. Her artwork has appeared on the covers of Troublemaker Firestarter, Heimat Review, Soft Star…

Two Poems by Haley DiRenzo Betta FishMy senior year of high school, I pulled a betta fish from a bag. Licorice candy scales reflecting through the glass. An exercise in incorporating an object into a speech: just keep swimming. I tried to return the fish to the teacher, but she told me it was…

I’m Tired of Numbers by Chloe Lee I’m tired of numbers.Of waking up to a clockand falling asleep to one.Of calculating how many hours I got, how many I missed,how many I still need.They are everywhere.Calories on a granola bar,digits glowing on a bathroom scale, percentages on tests that don’t ask…

Two Poems by Stacey Lounsberry This is Where We SplitMy head breaks the surface for a drink of air, and I see them:my stepsons coming into my water like divorce-sized bombs.Your voices, air-raid sirens, surround me.Your group of teenage boys swarm the mid-lake boulder:pimpled, hairless chests,…

Two Poems by Rikki Santer No, butwhat’s floating inside these couplets and what you know the cold wantsstart with a sign unknownghost in the machine moving through the long perse of doubt andwhat’s clicking between your earswhat could be the lone one linerand what the dream thinksthe din of…

Issue 1.01 is Live! by Jeffrey Heath Our first issue is now live on the site. You can view the free PDF edition here. Print and Kindle editions are also available via Amazon. Jeffrey Heath, Founding Editor, EIC - January House Literary Journal

Telling the Bees by Grace Massey In Celtic tradition, families tell their bees everything—births, marriages, deaths. Bees are also messengers between worlds.Three weddings this summergoth princesses, groomsmen in kilts, bride swollen out to here.The voles consumed the lily bulbs, tulips were…

Moment in American Nectarine by Michael Dwayne Smith Thus radiant, therefore unlasting, this poemthat is Cactus Wren with its jar-jar-jar, nest hatching messages from a spirit world humanshave long forgotten. Sublimity, as if it were sky. Minimalism, as if it were happiness. Yourtumor, your PTSD,…

A Choice of Living by Christina Fong It’s the kind of spring day that permeates all conversation until it can’t be talked about anymore and must simply be enjoyed. The warm temperatures promise to stay for good this time, and with that promise, all the winter frost sitting heavy on everyone’s…