University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Angela Townsend If my world shrinks to all that my arms can carry, Monsieur Dupont shall be saved. Along with my mother’s quilts and my hard drive, I will salvage the wiry Gund hedgehog from 1986. He is six inches of plush and polyfill. He is an important Frenchman. He is language and longing… Continue reading Monsieur Dupont
by Carl Boon The pictures prove our parents were young, with neat clothes and unscarred skin. The pictures prove they did things: picnicked at sundown among yellow-studded Pennsylvania hills, stood in line on Friday afternoons at the First National Bank, paychecks in hand, and drove Pontiacs, their destinations sometimes unclear, their Amoco maps folded incorrectly.… Continue reading Notes For Our Parents
by Sura K. Hassan I “Run, run for the Sun.” One of the shortcomings of growing up in the dry, scorching, crumbling desert city that is Karachi was the inability to escape from the ever-present, nauseatingly-bright sun. My poor, dear mother, maternal aunt, and even grandmothers all tried to do something about the permanent tan… Continue reading Seven Things Nana Used to Say
by Elaine Ferrell Gabrielle was sixteen to my thirteen. She openly smoked, drank on the sly, and was often in trouble with her parents. I worshiped her. I admired Gabby’s lanky posture, for I was short and slouchy. I revered her long, straight hair, since my own was curly, tangled, and wild. Lamenting my boring… Continue reading Chasing Gabby
by Christine Roland Every Sunday when I was in grade school, Mom stuffed me into pilled tights and a bib collar dress, pinned my hair in a headache-inducing bun, and brought me with her to the 10 a.m. service. Just me. We hardly saw my older sister, who was aging out of high school, and… Continue reading It Was Not God
by Violet Piper I ache with Love. I have bent over and around myself for months, avoiding the mirror. There I am, though, in the reflection on the subway window, with the tunnel behind me. I look pained and afraid of the pain—like I stubbed my toe on the podium during a public speech. I… Continue reading Throat Awareness and the Unfair Thoughts
by Ashlyn Inman It’s strange being in a place that you spent most of your life in and feeling like everything is familiar except one thing. For as long as I could remember, we had a dog in the house. Even before we lived in this particular house, we had a dog in the family.… Continue reading Dog in a Box
by Beverly Rose Joyce My grandpa drove a truck. George, not Russ. It was just like the one on Sanford and Son. But green. Not emerald or kelly or hunter; more army. He kept in the back the tools of his trade: trowel, spackle knife, levels, floats, mixer, sponges, chalk, thread, hammer, hawk. And, of… Continue reading Her George
by Judith Ford It’s dusk and I’m at the beginning of a four-mile run. I’m half-listening to songs by Enya through my Walkman headphones. I’m running beside a busy road but I barely hear the cars above Enya’s voice. It’s 1987 and I’m thirty-nine years old. Today is Christmas Eve and I’m trying to shed… Continue reading Hands On My Back
by Rosalind Kaplan When I started writing, I listened to the advice of teachers and other writers to write what you know. So I wrote about the world of medicine, being a med student, a doctor, and the things that nobody tells you ’til you’re too far in to turn around. I wrote about mothering,… Continue reading I Won’t Waste Your Time
Ignatian Literary Magazine 