“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?”. Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green…

A lot changes as you get older, thought Wilkie Saunders. For example, he’d been sure older boys like Tom Dunn—who was either in 10th or 11th grade depending on if you counted the year he was repeating…

They say if you take the old scarecrow out back, jam some old leaves in there to make up for some of the straw that’s fallen out, and put a jack-o-lantern on the shoulders where the head used to be…

When the clerk at the convenience store takes my twenty for the frozen mac and cheese and the cheap wine, I barely notice the fractal pattern of cracks running across his face. They are unique yet…

At age nineteen, Robot Girl had dropped out of the most prestigious university in the country, had no objectives in life, and was now stuck pet sitting for the lovely lesbian couple at her old church.

After the stoplights go to flashing red and the bars make their last calls, Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium lights up, its warm yellow lanterns beckoning customers from the street.

When people stay in hotel rooms, they suddenly turn into toddlers. Weird, creative, screwed-up toddlers. Let’s smear jam on the wall! Let’s leave apple cores in the drawers! Let’s hide used nappies…

A bookshop on a hill. Two front doors, two walkways lined with blank slates and grass, two identical signs welcoming customers to the First and Last Page, and a great blue building in the middle…

Their progress through the woods had slowed to a stagger, but they kept going. They had to. Jane shoved one booted foot through the layers of fallen leaves, then the other. Imagination kept her fear…

While Marya was usually excellent at imagining the worst, opening a portal to another world while crocheting had never really crossed her mind. She’d been determined to learn how to crochet once she…

The Game of Mao has only one rule: don’t explain the rules to the game of Mao. It’s the only rule we may be told — the rest are clouded in secrecy and it is up to us to figure them out through trial…