Fiction | JOYLAND PUBLISHING

Polysomnography

Karen Gu -

“Polysomnography” was selected by Alexandra Kleeman as the runner-up of the 2022 Open Border Fiction Prize. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a...

Slow Clap

Amy Zhang -

"Slow Clap" was selected by Alexandra Kleeman as the winner of the 2022 Open Border Fiction Prize. If you went macro, like way macro,...

Reappraisal

Claudia Ross -

There were four tall men sent to complete the reappraisal. One of them, Devin, was the lawyer—we’d met before, five years ago, at the...

Black Ribbons, Black Water, Black Sky

Piper Gourley -

A week after Jack’s decapitation, Peter drove Jack’s old truck through the San Fernando Valley and straight into the Los Angeles River. Jack’s truck...

Summer

Anisha Bhaduri -

The summer I turned nine, I spent with my grandparents. Thin and trusting, nails bitten down to the nub, hair so dry it could...

The Missing Pieces

Stacey Resnikoff -

Elodie The abutter never entered my mind. The house was a good deal. It went on the market on Memorial Day weekend—a motivated seller with...

Eartha Kitt

Alex Higley -

The difference between camp and kitsch is that camp knows death and kitsch doesn’t. Don’t laugh. People can be sorted into these two teams...

Homecoming

Joshua Garcia -

At the age of thirty, you decide to go home because the circumstances of your life allow you to do so, and like everyone...

Sisyphus

Alyssa Northrop -

After graduating from college, Henry found a job in Stuttgart, a city whose industries had been updated, in German fashion, to combat the onset...

心太软: [heart, too tender]

Star Su -

心太软 That day Aba smuggled home the answers to the gaokao, Ama reminded him that he was a nobody at the Department of Education. As...