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To me, the word vertebrae sounds like blades. Each cylinder with its own dorsal shard to piece itself with the next... They would say my spine was sharp enough to cut, almost reptilian in its curve. It reminds me of how I wished that was true when C hugged me for the last time so that his palm would bleed and scar, and I could finally say I hurt him more.

In The Bones is a verse based essay exploring the things that make us stand. It was awarded Best Essay in 2016 by the Columbia Scholastic Association.

Her footsteps across the linoleum are barely perceptible. The grays in her hair match the false inclusions of the tiles. As long as she glues herself to the floor, she’s perfectly camouflaged. As are her claws. She listens, hoping the knuckles will rattle like dice against the cabinets.

Talons is a flash fiction gothic specially crafted to be read in conjunction with Purple Window Gallery’s Spring ‘25 art show, All Houses Are Haunted. The show collects works works from Lauren Iacoponi and Millicent Kennedy, two multidisciplinary artists in Chicago.

The wilds of the mountains were not a kind place, but I tried to become a part of them anyways. Enjoy the way the mist laid like a second skin across my face in the morning. Be grateful when the birds thought me quiet enough to sing overhead. As the years went by I found parts of myself bloom and die back with the seasons, and I welcomed it.

Peeling a Honeygrante is a romantasy short story following Rue and Tal, two friends who traverse the mountains of Elus to maintain various campgrounds. Together they’ve traversed hundreds of miles, but those last steps to take them past friendship? Not quite yet. Yet.

Peeling a Honeygrante is currently on submission. Think you have a home for it? Request the full piece.

There’s plenty of poetic things that one could say about fall giving way to winter. You could talk about the way orange, yellow, and red seems to melt into the soil. Sing a solemn lullaby to the moon as the sun surrenders its hours to longer nights. You could trace the last bear’s foot prints or catch the parting call of a migratory bird. Or, you could be like Maple. Hungry.

Maple was a daily updated “Choose Your Own Adventure” crafted for Game Master Worlds. Readers helped Maple the squirrel take down the Chipmunk Mafia with only a rubber-band and thumbtack. This adventure can be read in full on the GMW exclusive discord!

My fiberglass hips next to his tobacco built ship, with his broken glass hands that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand, and our wounds were so fresh we couldn’t tell them apart.

Love Songs is an experimental essay on the things we do in the dark and what still remains when the night has left.

It was something about the salt. The way it coated your lashes like cavern crystals and cut across your face like razors. Maybe that’s what you really saw, a trick of the light against the granduals. Not a woman in white diving down the bow of the ship at the edge of the harbor.

You didn’t even see it come in. But the ancient and algae stained vessel seemed so much a part of the bay that you could have easily missed it.

You rub your eyes, feeling the dry salt sting your waterline. Squinting, you scan the vessel, trying to will yourself to see through the fog. Waiting for the lighthouse’s beam to break the mist feels like torture. But you needed some sort of confirmation, something to fight the darkness.

Haunted Harbor is an Adventure Game Deck used by the Game Master Worlds team & is currently a Convention Exclusive.