Salamander 2024 Fiction Contest

SUBMIT: May 1 through June 2, 2024 | READING FEE: $15

SUBMIT ENTRIES NOW

Conditions Good

poetry
  Everyone I know who’s been divorced says on her wedding day, she knew. Which is lucky for me, I’ve always known nothing.   When I ask the Ouija board…

First Marriage

poetry
  when I steam brown rice I remember you in the smell   when I peel purple onions I hold a wooden matchstick between my teeth   you told me…

Let Go Inside Let It Out

poetry
  On the moon at noon the sky is black. You can read through closed eyes but six feet above your head the nothing sits munching little stars, microgreens to…

March Coming In

poetry
  Before, I thought unrest was a house to move through. And tomorrow, and the after-days: a yellow window blinking on and off from the smeared street, a movement in…

That Bird

poetry
  Redwing shouldering home, shouldering far from home, I know not but his red-capped sleeves, his epaulets. I know not but his beak, his black bird tongue, spool of him…

A Brief History of Silk

poetry
  I gave the yellow skirt away and now some other woman wears it. This mild February day my body longs for spring. But I remember the skirt was heavy,…

Inverting the Winter

poetry
  with lines by Louise Bourgeois   For a lifetime I have wanted to say the same thing. Daubing red   paint against the sky, taking it away in a…

Goatman

Fiction
  Prince George’s County, Maryland 1986   Goatman lives in the woods: the woods behind your house, but also in the woods along Osbourne Road, and also in the woods…

Up from Slavery

poetry
  My great-grandfather kept the peace / between the races / a man of two faces qualified, after being born a slave / to rectify and demystify the role of…

Time Work

poetry
  Years passed just as years do, And I took my rescued cat, Unbruised, right to the shade Where we had planted a tree And I said to it, you…

Interstates

poetry
  Tell me how the sunset gets in a bird’s wings, how they carved that road to here. Two gray feathers decorate the walk between design and secrets.   Somehow,…

Teenage You

poetry
  Teenage you wanted to speak English. Teenage you wanted to speak English in dreams. Teenage you wanted to speak English with no accent. Teenage you wanted to speak English…