Something important had gotten lost along the way:

the notion that cooking at its best is a deeply personal and generous offering.

Read an excerpt from The Art of Gay Cooking: A Culinary Memoir by Daniel Isengart

Where's the baby?

I called out in the dark. Half asleep, I sat up in bed. Where’s the baby? I asked again.

Read an excerpt from I'm Just Getting To The Disturbing Part by Steven Church

What if a hundred words is all you’ve got—to do everything?

To reveal a character’s essence. To deliver telling moments. To take a reader’s breath away.

Read an excerpt from Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story

You sound like an actor playing the role of an aging rock star

which is precisely the appeal of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, not to mention Serge Gainsbourg and Léo Ferré. I also could have mentioned Iggy Pop.

Read an excerpt from Who The Hell Is Imre Lodbrog by Sebastien Regnier and Barbara Browning

I’m little and all alone, and that’s why you can’t beat me.

I am Optimism. I am this country...

Read an excerpt from Boy On A Unicycle: Confessions of A Young Man Trained to Be a Winner by Dan McCall

Imagine a completely different version of one one of jazz’s most revered compositions

sitting on a shelf in a Los Angeles office building for three decades without anyone knowing it...

Read an excerpt from This Is: Essays on Jazz by Aaron Gilbreath

The morning of the shooting

is the last day she’ll go out for a while. Already Lucy had been growing nervous about being out in public.

Read an excerpt from The Disappeared by Adam Braver

You should know, precocious journal,

that I’ve decided to move my life in a more positive direction in general.

Read an excerpt from Wire Mother Monkey Baby by Rob Reynolds

"Princess," the commemorative Princess Diana Beanie Baby bear,

first edition, royal violet with lace around her throat, a white rose over her heart, currently lists on eBay in upwards of three-hundred fifty-thousand dollars.

Read an excerpt from One Million Maniacs by David LeGault

Vee just wants to know where to put the present.

She’s gripping it, two-handedly, thumbs flicking the curled-up corners of tape. She’s holding it at a distance like a bomb, or maybe just something smelly...

Read an excerpt from Family Genus Species by Kevin Allardice

By the time Edgar came to visit us in New Orleans,

I could barely see the house at all, or the magnolia, or the lemon tree, or the toys scattered throughout the house, or the saffron rooms, the baby grand piano René had bought for me in Paris...

Read an excerpt from The Lost Sketchbook of Edgar Degas by Harriet Scott Chessman

His face crowned by a striking blond pompadour,

he commanded attention with playground taunts and classroom disruptions...

Read an excerpt from Forty-four American Boys: Short Histories of Presidential Childhoods by William Walsh

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