Gay Degani’s many nominations include Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Her work has appeared online, in print, and in anthologies. She’s published a chapbook, Pomegranate, a full-length collection, Rattle of Want, (Pure Slush, 2015), and a suspense novel, What Came Before (Truth Serum, 2016). Her story, "Scablands" placed in the top 10 of Saturday Evening Post's 2023 Great American Short Story Contest.
We swim through the living room toward the television while our mother watches reruns of Friends. She yells, “For shit’s sake, stop that, go outside!” But we don’t go outside. It’s the middle of the day, it’s 103 under the pines, and we’ve outgrown—by years—the small plastic pool Mom bought us with her egg money. Egg money buys everything we… Read more →
We were summer’s lost souls at the picnic table, sipping beer, smoking joints while someone fired up the bar-be-que. I was the quiet girl. You were the one who made people laugh. We met over cards, Hearts, Oh Hell, and Crazy-Eights with variations. You taught me One-Hand Solitaire. You taught me other things, too, about hands. Your hands, my hands,… Read more →