NONFICTION: ISSUE FIVE

Brandel France de Bravo

BRANDEL F. DE BRAVO

The Trouble with Looking

I’m the only one in the advanced lung disease and transplant center who is not barrel-chested, wearing a mask over my nose and mouth, or carrying an oxygen tank. Many of the patients have emphysema, which gets worse over time and can’t be cured.   
[keep reading...]

Line Kallmayer

LINE KALLMAYER

Ten Days with an Exorcist

An exorcism works on the body, unlike a confession, which works on the soul and fills it with light. The demon, while it possesses the body, feels whatever the body senses in a given moment. Many spirits leave the body through expiration via the mouth or the nose.   [keep reading...]

Ben Merriman

BEN MERRIMAN

BRCA1

BRCA1GATCCGCTCAISCCTTGACCTCCCAAAGTGCTGGGATT
AAAGGCATGAGCCACTGTGCCCCGCCAGGAAATTCAGGTTCT
GAAAATACACCTGTGGATCTCGAGCCTTGAACATCCTTGTAT
GCTGCTTTAAATGGGENECTGATCCTCAATGCCTCCCTTCCAA
[keep reading...]

Nicole Walker

NICOLE WALKER

Pipeline

Philip Seymour Hoffman died with a needle in his arm. Five empty bags of heroin surrounded him. If this were a movie, he would have been the man who had seen too much. In the movie, his mother couldn’t afford a wheelchair so her neighbor carried her around on his back, in exchange for sex.   [keep reading...]

NONFICTION ARCHIVES

Emily Carr

EMILY CARR

Membership (as the commercial says) Has Its Privileges

Already the person I most wanted to be—the person who in effect would allow me to stop thinking about it—changes shape, changes direction. She is like Achilles: running as fast as he can, going nowhere.    [keep reading...]

Laura E. Davis

LAURA E. DAVIS

Submission Bombing (interview)

Here at Better, we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how culture, and especially literature, will change as a result of social networking and other online technologies. So when we heard about a group of writers calling themselves “Submission Bombers,”     [keep reading...]

Aaron Gilbreath

AARON GILBREATH

“Just Move Around” (Eddie)

TRANSCRIPT FROM THE AUDIO ESSAY:  The city of Portland, where I live, is the urban center of a county with more than fifteen thousand homeless people. That figure includes not only people who sleep on the streets and in shelters, but also people who sleep on friends' couches,     [listen to the essay...]

Anna Journey

ANNA JOURNEY

Widowmaker: How to Get
Struck by Lightning

When I admit my secret wish is to get struck by lightning, I’m not speaking figuratively. I don’t mean struck by a blinding desire or love at first sight. I’m talking about a bolt five times as hot as the surface of the sun.    [keep reading...]

Joy Katz

JOY KATZ

Guardian

Guy—tall, blond, friendly—knocks on our front door. He carries a clipboard and a glossy brochure. The kids, he says, are getting around phone-line-based security systems like yours. Guy waves his ballpoint in the general direction of a sign, “Protected by Guardian,” half-buried in ivy.    [keep reading...]

Alexandra Kimball

ALEXANDRA KIMBALL

Here: On Twitter,
Writing, & Buzz

Back in 2010, I had a tedious but pleasant at-home gig as a creator of corporate blog copy. Let’s say it was for a company that sold chocolate syrup. For this purpose, I had an account on Twitter, in whose placid screen I spent several hours     [keep reading...]

David Stuart MacLean

DAVID S. MACLEAN

That You Ever Saw

On the morning of my mother’s fortieth birthday, my sisters and I all sat on her bed as she opened our presents. I was ten and still devoted to pajamas, while my oldest sister Katie had taken to sleeping in one of my dad’s enormous shirts, and my other sister Betsy had done the same to emulate Katie.    [keep reading...]

Shena McAuliffe

SHENA MCAULIFFE

This Human Skin

In 1864, Robert McGee, a child, was scalped by Chief Little Turtle. McGee lived, and grew up with his head scarred like a baseball. Little Turtle left enough hair at the front of his head that a hat would have covered the bald spot and scars.    [keep reading...]

Kate Partridge

KATE PARTRIDGE

Bell

The length of a human baby’s vocal cords is 2–3 millimeters. Babies vibrate them very hard—harder than an adult could without injuring herself—to produce a grating sound, designed like the roar of a lion to generate response.    [keep reading...]

Elena Passarello

ELENA PASSARELLO

Teach Me Tonight

In 1941, the Embassy Music Corporation printed “Tips on Popular Singing by Frank Sinatra,” a short text—little more than a pamphlet, really—by the singer and his coach, John Quinlan. “Everyone can sing a little,” the manual insists,    [keep reading...]

Rob Schlegel

ROB SCHLEGEL

Popular Doughnuts

Among friends and family I am famous for avoiding conflict. Once, when I was pitching in a college baseball game, my catcher signaled that I try to hit the batter as payback for his high-cleat slide that nearly injured our shortstop an inning earlier. I shook off the call.    [keep reading...]

Nancy Singleton Hachisu

NANCY SINGLETON HACHISU

An Interview with Nancy Singleton Hachisu

Lesley Wolff: Japanese Farm Food has become a sensation among food-conscious Americans and proponents of the Slow Food Movement. How does Slow Food differ between Japan and the US?  Nancy Singleton Hachisu: When asked what Slow Food means to me, my knee-jerk response is: It’s a group in Italy.    [keep reading...]

Alison Stine

ALISON STINE

West Coast Loneliness

Snowfall, this is my goodbye to you. Already there is a chip on one of the black-striped bowls I bought at the discount store in the Mission on Friday. I find it comforting. Already it’s worn, already familiar. Already, I broke it. The hallway of my new apartment smells of England.   [keep reading...]

Johanna Stoberock

JOHANNA STOBEROCK

Will Help Be Given?

[from the audio essay transcript]: Every year they grow a corn maze six miles outside Walla Walla, in eastern Washington, where I live. The signs for the maze begin appearing in mid September, printed in red ink on white boards stuck in the corners of fields like some strange crop that bleeds words.    [keep reading...]

Steve Wasserman

STEVE WASSERMAN

Show Me the Meaning
of Being Lonely

I am sitting here on Valentine’s Day watching a YouTube video of Frédéric Bourdin in the study of his small Le Mans flat, lip-synching the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long As You Love Me.”    [keep reading...]

ISSUE FIVE:

ART: Teri Frame, Line Kallmayer

FICTION: Matt Dojny, Jessica Halliday, Corey Zeller

NONFICTION: Brandel France de Bravo, Line Kallmayer, Ben Merriman, Nicole Walker

POETRY: Mary Jo Bang, Sam Cha, Ching-In Chen, Natalie Eilbert, John Estes, Jessica Fjeld, Margaret LeMay, Nina Puro, Lauren Russell, Dara-Lyn Shrager, Donna Stonecipher, Henry Walters, Kerri Webster, Betsy Wheeler

NONFICTION ARCHIVES:

Emily Carr, Laura E. Davis, Aaron Gilbreath, Nancy Singleton Hachisu, Anna Journey, Joy Katz, Alexandra Kimball, David S. MacLean, Shena McAuliffe, Kate Partridge, Elena Passarello, Rob Schlegel, Alison Stine, Johanna Stoberock, Steve Wasserman