THE TRANSFIGURATION BY ELLEN MCGRATH SMITH 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 88

The television was the only light in the room, screening an infomercial about the longevity of people in Okinawa and a doctor’s willingness to share their secret for just $30 a month in six-month installments.

HEART ON ICE BY UTE CARSON  34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 87

“How many more deaths can we bear?” my grandmother sighed. I thought so too and asked if life was like this, “Always sadness and tears?” My grandmother had no immediate answer but held me tight. After a long pause she said, “No child, what we have between us is not only sadness but love and joy.”

HALF-FOOT HEROES BY BEN UMAYAM  34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 87

At the age of 13, a typical pubescent Filipino boy, I was obsessed with my inadequacy in the penis department. I was taught the Asian Myth. Asians have minuscule members. The other guys and all the girls knew your Asian putz was smaller.

The glimpses that we have of the intensely private Samuel Beckett from his friends reveal a man, a writer, driven by his commitment to words, not just any words, but words stripped bare, edited, and reduced, as if by doing this he could remove every inconsequential modifier and reveal meaning in its simplest form, the most direct form, without embellishment, without fluff. 

SERVICE CALL BY GABRIELLE ESPOSITO 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 85

Mr Christopher DiLeo, horror author and teacher extraordinaire, who taught my creative writing class,  required students to read a chapter from Stephen King’s On Writing. It was late, maybe 10 o’clock at night, but I wanted to finish the reading before class the next day. I was sitting up in bed, holding the photocopied paper to the bedside lamp. I read something fantastic. King wrote, “You must not come lightly to the blank page.” 

LOVE AND PHILODENDRON BY PATRICK SEAMAN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 83

Do you remember when we would go fishing together? It was a quick walk down to the little creek that ran through your father’s backyard. We would kick off our shoes and ball our socks into our pockets and feel which rocks were the slimiest and search for crayfish with our toes. I remember you wore my hat and laughed as we walked home hand in hand and I told you to keep it and you did.