Blog
Powerless

Our off-the-grid neighbors say that they know when the power has gone out because a chorus of hums rises from the generators in the valley. Now, our house has joined that choir....
Blamed No More

Heartland, by journalist Sarah Smarsh, already a nonfiction finalist for the 2018 National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, is a multigenerational account of a hardworking family caught in the systemic forces that perpetuate the unknown and disdained Americans who are sometimes called "white trash."
Life Science

You taught me, once, about the Swainson's thrush—its call like an invitation to another world: a swirling up of sound, unseen. Teach me the names of all the birds you know, and how they sing....
Back Aisles (repeat)

The library building was my body like your children are your body, like your spouse is your body. Its wood and glass grew out of my chest. It came with a key and code.Â
Mosque/Musk

I want to tell you that the word 'musk' comes to us from the Sanskrit mushkas, meaning 'testicle,' testimony to source in the aromatic abdominal sacs of musk deer....
Say When, Say It Louder

You pinned me to the basketball court in the middle of gym class while Mrs. Thompson was busy tending to a "situation" in the locker room, or off fetching ice from the cafeteria....
Ghost Sigh

I survey the elegant glass skyline crowded on the tray: the fine-boned Chanel, curvy Burberry, sleek Cabochard. The bottles display various levels of fragrant amber liquid, belying their owner’s favor. Each has its unique cap or stopper, competing like fancy hats at the Derby....
It's Not Marriage. It's the Husbands.

In her debut memoir, For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors, Laura Esther Wolfson, an American essayist and Russian translator for the PEN World Voices Festival, has written a complex book about three interacting subjects: her Jewish heritage, marriages to two Russian men, and her difficulties as a translator of Russian literature....
Forced Quince, as Study

The way, on the fourth day, the sepals' little leaflets, grown twice yesterday's size to a fourth inch, have curled back–like legs spread or backs arched—from the buds, and....
Pooled in Ripples

I wasn't like the other 22-year-olds after you, carelessly wearing bright bikinis. I was too preoccupied with how I looked suddenly: child bearing hips, a soft middle....
Miracle at Delancey Street

My drive to the Delancey Street Christmas Tree lot begins on snowy roads through a canyon hemmed by pinion and sage studded cliffs and the icy Rio Grande....
River Teeth Journal Issue 20.1

Featuring writing from Iver Arnegard, Greg Bottoms, Sydney Lea, Beth Alvarado, Ash Whitman, Ryan Brod, Vivé Griffith, Holly Willis, Jake Maynard, Earl Fendelman, Seth Sawyers, and Richard Hoffman.
Keywords: 20-1
Hair and Nails

Jen was so venomous that I stopped having my students read their journal entries aloud. She said such cutting things unsolicited. She made a student cry just by staring at him....
Standoff at Wolf Creek

I tell Cory "no" again. I can't help him resurrect dinosaurs using chicken eggs, even if I am impressed that an eight-year-old already knows so much about genetics and paleontology....
When and How

1) A tent flap When the zipper teeth cut the air, filling the tent, humid from a night of bodies letting out breath after breath....
Beth Alvarado
November 26, 2018Beth Alvarado is the author of three books, Anxious Attachments (Autumn House Press, 2019), Anthropologies: A Family Memoir (University of Iowa Press), and Not a Matter of Love and other stories.
Keywords: 20-1
Iver Arnegard
November 26, 2018Iver Arnegard's fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in the North American Review, Gulf Coast, the Missouri Review, and elsewhere. In 2014 his first book, Whip & Spur, won the Gold Line Press Fiction Award.
Keywords: 20-1
Greg Bottoms
November 26, 2018Greg Bottoms is a writer of literary nonfiction and fiction. He is the author of a memoir, Angelhead (2000), an Esquire Magazine "Book of the Year," two books about American outsider artists, The Colorful Apocalypse (2007) and Spiritual American Trash (2013), and four prose collections.
Keywords: 20-1
Ryan Brod
November 26, 2018Ryan Brod is a senior contributor for The Drake magazine. His writing has also appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal and Stonefly, among others. A Maine fishing guide and filmmaker, he lives in Portland.
Keywords: 20-1
Earl Fendelman
November 26, 2018Earl Fendelman is pleased to witness the first publication of his writing in over forty years. After a very happy career teaching at Lehman College, CUNY, he lives with his wife in New York City, where, among other things, he continues to write.
Keywords: 20-1
Vivé Griffith
November 26, 2018Vivé Griffith is an Austin-based writer, educator, and student advocate. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The Sun, Oxford American, Hippocampus, and Gettysburg Review, and her op-eds in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Texas Tribune.
Keywords: 20-1
Jake Maynard
November 26, 2018Jake Maynard's writing appears in recent or forthcoming issues of Fugue, Permafrost, Appalachian Heritage, Carolina Quarterly, and others. A former rural social worker, he studied creative writing at West Virginia University and currently teaches composition at Penn State.
Keywords: 20-1
Seth Sawyers
November 26, 2018Seth Sawyer's work has appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Salon, Literary Hub, The Millions, Sports Illustrated, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. He writes essays and is working on a novel. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and is an editor at Baltimore Review.
Keywords: 20-1
Holly Willis
November 26, 2018Holly Willis teaches in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She writes frequently about experimental film, video, and new media, while also exploring experimental nonfiction, creative critical writing, and poetry. She is currently working on a series of text-based videos, and her work has appeared in publications such as Film Comment, Afterimage, ArtWeek, and carte blanche.
Keywords: 20-1
Ash Whitman
November 26, 2018Ash Whitman is a Washington State native who currently resides in Virginia with her husband. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University and is currently working on a collection of essays.
Keywords: 20-1
Editor's Notes 20.1

A few issues ago, this space discussed the dangers of what some have termed "me-moir": nonfictional self-absorption in an era increasingly dominated by noisy narcissism. We suggested that genuine empathy is a ready antidote and and that such other-centeredness might help us not only reach outward for our topics, but even more importantly, help to coax deeply personal stories toward genuine connection. The secret, we suggested, was...
Keywords: 20.1
First Flight

My first memory is a lie: I am a baby, flying around the living room....
Eighteen, Both of Us

And still unkissed. Blame it on our strict Christian homes, the rules at the Bible school we were attending, guilt, or just plain old nerves....
Correction

I am correcting your typos (fallow becoming follow, gooing becoming going), correcting the interesting but incorrect with the boring and banal because what you meant was boring and banal....
Blog Archive
Related Topics
Related Topics
20-1 (13)
20.1 (1)
ann piper (1)
book review (111)
eric farwell (1)
heartland (1)
jo scott-coe (1)
sarah smarsh (1)
thomas larson (2)