The opening of Rabbit Moon, a novel-in-progress by Marian Szczepanski (fiction, ’97), appears in Embark: 

Rabbit Moon

The French door in the den was wide open, the equivalent of a welcome mat for mosquitoes, which were more prolific than ever this spring. Audrey called the housekeeper’s name as she zigzagged between the sectional and baby grand piano. She nearly tripped over Larry’s Suzuki book, spread-eagled on the carpet behind the ottoman. Transferring it to the piano bench, she tried and failed to recall if he’d practiced his recital piece before they left for school. The morning had been a more frantic scramble than usual: Sarah’s math binder gone AWOL, Larry’s PE uniform still damp in the dryer. Just thinking about it made her forehead sweat—or was it the temperature? Despite the humming AC, the room felt nearly as muggy as the outside. How long had the door been left open? Audrey surveyed the backyard—no Carmen—and shut the door firmly. Then she heard an odd sound behind her. A high-pitched whine, like that of a dog wanting to go outside.

They didn’t have a dog.

Turning, she saw them in the kitchen. One tall, the other much shorter. Ski masks revealed only their eyes. The short one wore baggy denim overalls spattered with green paint. The tall one, in jeans and a plain black sweatshirt, aimed a pistol directly at her. [. . . continue reading here.]

A story from Goldie Goldbloom (fiction, ’11) appears in Ploughshares:

Tandem Ride

Gneshel liked Rabbi Spitz right from the start. He reminded her of a frog. Though he was eight inches shorter than her, had a lazy eye and a metastasizing bald patch, she liked him. Experience had taught her that he was unlikely to reciprocate the feeling. Orange juice and autumn leaves should taste the same, valentines and blood. She thought it was probably her frizzy hair or her missing fingers or her obscene posture that had put people off until now, but she was quietly confident that a day would come when she would be loved.

She didn’t bother with mirrors and suspected that they talked to one another, passing along warnings: “Pull yourself together, honey! Old Ugly-guts is on her way.” [. . . continue reading here.]

A sequence of poems by Dilruba Ahmed (poetry, ’09) appear in The American Journal of Poetry:

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Chief Concerns

            Beelzebom.

. . . continue reading here.

A poem from David Prather (poetry, ’99) appears in The American Journal of Poetry:

I Am Not America

I am not the assassination of Harvey Milk or Martin Luther King, Jr. I am not
the battered body of Matthew Shepard or the bloated form of Emmett Till.

I look over my shoulder and you are there, framed by a shattered window
in an abandoned building. Or you are there driving a rusted hunk of junk

over potholes, the starving mouths of the earth beneath our feet. I hate
to admit that I am under the influence and driving home during the witching

. . . continue reading here.

A story by Emilie Beck (Fiction ’17) appears in the Colorado Review.  Here’s an excerpt:

WHAT SHE IS

Long white-blonde hair in front of the white clapboard chapel. Her body almost invisible in the afternoon sun except for tan  legs, bare feet, the straps of sandals held in one hand like an invitation. A small valise at her feet, weathered, blue, hardly big enough for a change of clothing. He noticed her before he saw her thumb, out of place the way she was in front of Phillips Chapel. One thing for a white man who had business there, but a white girl with white hair standing on that corner in front of the church, white in the daylight, he wasn’t wrong to pause, to question, just for a moment, before deciding the answer wasn’t important. Her thumb pointing the opposite direction of the way he was driving. His foot on the brake before his mind made the decision. No harm in it.

He regarded her from across the road. The green patterned fabric of her dress met itself in seams, draping her hips. Her lips were red, but not from lipstick. He’d been on the road for two weeks. It was July already, and he had a few hours’ drive ahead of him. Years later Jim Flessroy would reassure himself that anyone would have stopped for the girl, that she seemed an innocent, that she seemed in need of rescue.

Read the rest of the story at the Colorado Review website:  WHAT SHE IS