EXCERPTS

FROM “HUNTER” BY M. BRETT GAFFNEY

After supper she pulls on boots,
prepares her heart.

The girl is small but carries the gun
like she would a baby, twig fingers light
on its tongue of a trigger.

Her father hoists his rifle, heavy with ammo,
the glint of his knife like teeth in the fading light.

They hunt at twilight, when wild things stumble
onto the roads like drowsy children,
thickets busy with thorns.

FROM “HOW TO FOLD A DREAM” BY SARAH ANN WINN

You have to think first of the breakables.
The four mockingbirds growing smaller
on receding fence posts
must be stacked one inside the other
like nesting dolls. Wrap their song in a cyan silk scarf.
Place it in the smallest.
It must be tucked in carefully.

Take down Venus.
Pack it separately – it’s wish laden, fragile.

CONTRIBUTORS

poetry

Suzanna Anderson, "Open"
Andrea Blythe, "Red Riding Hood Remembers"
Laura Bylenok, "Rape of Electra" & "Caiman"
M. Brett Gaffney, "Hunters"
Lisa Megraw, "How to Take the Raven as Your Birth Sign" & "April" 
Monica Rico, "Heartbeat and Humidity"
Sarah Ann Winn, "How to Fold a Dream"

fiction

Leah Browning, "The Lemon Seed"
Lucas Olson, "Hamadryad"
Marlana Patton, "Juliet"

FROM THE EDITORS

Myth+Magic is a special edition outside of the regular submission period & subscription. We asked for updates of classics—new takes on old tales—and original work. Nothing here is quite what it seems to be. There is always more, and we welcome the deepening of the shadows on the path. All the best forests have them.

Included in this edition you’ll find short works inspired folk tale, fable, fairy tale, gods, monsters, myth, magic, tricksters, divination, witchcraft, and herbalism.

Prepare to be enchanted.

ABOUT THE COVER

Our cover features a painting by Kentucky-born painter Angie Reed Garner. Garner is a second-generation narrative painter from Kentucky. The piece is “under water” (oil paint, 28×22 inches).

PRAISE

"Myth+Magic” shows us how beauty and danger can often occupy and captivate within the same space—which makes what comes next all the more unreal. Rejecting the ordinary with every line, the writers in this anthology not only engage their readers with imaginative details, but also use these same concise worlds to introduce the everyday hardships of love, surprise, and sorrow." — Christopher Morgan