Volume 69, Number 1 · Fall 2019
About Issues Submit The Peak

Xavier Tavera, from Borderlands

Fiction

Earth, Speak
Morgan Talty

Triptych, With Interruptions
Manini Nayar

Fire, Smoke, Mirrors
Caitlin Hayes

Presencias
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez

Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You
Jason Ockert

In Residence
Catherine Wong

Nonfiction

Carlisle Longings
David Heska Wanbli Weiden

What You Get is What You Give
Bethany Maile

Biopsy Results
Varsha Tiwary

Power Animals
Matthew Vollmer

Translations

The Asian Anglophone Garden
Michelle Har Kim

Las hienas, siempre las hienas
Huelga de hambre
Madrigal andino
Amazónica
American Way of Life / Bolivia
Tiwanaku
Pedro Shimose Kawamura
translated from the Spanish by
Michelle Har Kim

Cañón del Colca
El jardín andino
Ayacucho
Julia Wong Kcomt
translated from the Spanish by
Jennifer Shyue

La cura
El vado
Mate burilado
José Watanabe
translated from the Spanish
by Michelle Har Kim

Comics

Excerpt from The Silk Road
Marguerite Dabaie

Chaos, Quantum, String
Holly Burdorff

From the Garden
Fabio Lastrucci

Poetry

For a Sunflower/Woman
we love george washington
sally & valentina
Robin Gow

Momotaro in the Philippines
Heathen
Forgive Them for They Do Not Know What
Marianne Chan

[Her eyes were a rifle & I was standing]
The Next Life
Mike Soto

Catholic Girlhood
The Night Traveler
At the Witch’s Door
Felicity Sheehy

Almanac for Nonbelievers
Ellen Goldstein

Even the Trees
Fool’s Holy Day [Has Ended]
Jenn Givhan

The Snake
The Daughter
Cynthia Hogue

Tangle
A Boy
Brian Komei Dempster

My Sad Horse
Dromedary
The Castle You Gave Me
Maria Hummel

Mild Disturbance After Reading Kim Addonizio
Florence Weinberger

Short Essay on Property
Rhapsody in Pink
Safia Elhillo

Book of Ruth
For the Man Who Caught My Father
Kyle G. Dargan

Book of Dolls 32
Book of Dolls 35
Bruce Bond

Temptation
Esteban Rodriguez

Something There Is That Doesn’t Love
Passage
Armen Davoudian

Chasing Jim Taylor
David Kirby

 

Novel Excerpt

The Furious Branches
Brenda Peynado

Masthead

Editor’s Note
Beth Staples

List of Contributors

Take care to leave the stick firmly planted
with thanks
at the other shore: here comes someone
 
—José Watanabe, “The Ford”

Emerging fiction writer María Alejandra Barrios Vélez talks to us about her process, her influences, and the intricacies of bilingual writing.

Fiction writer Brenda Peynado untangles the connections between self-discovery, faithfulness, and her novel as it falls into place.

Artist Xavier Tavera, whose photograph appears the on the landing page for Volume 69 Number 1, had a conversation with poet Mike Soto, whose work also appears in the issue. The two shared their work over email and discussed the purpose of art, the nature of time, and memory’s relationship to truth. Here is a transcript of their conversation.