Poetry

Asha Futterman — halloween in college

“halloween in college and a few things you should know about the universe without swings use alternate realities to reimagine the past”

Casandra Lopez — House of Bullet

“Live this city as a question. A mark of tomorrow never guaranteed.”

Nkosi Nkululeko — The Making of a Sculpture of a Black Greek God

“I walk to the shore, the shadow of my body
 — 
flung into the eyes of a lake, Dying making gods of us”

Olatunde Osinaike — Due Diligence

“say the floor isn’t clean yet
say i paid for this
say i paid for this”

Jason Phoebe Rusch — Do you feel like you were born in the wrong body?

“The truth of it is I don’t feel like a man or a woman
so much as a Janus-faced alien”

Vincent Toro & Urayóan Noel — Promesa (HR 4900)

“el agua privatizada demasiado cara
para nuestros bolsillos, pero le hemos puesto tarifas
a esta euforia bronceada
para que ningún fondo
buitre nos ataque y nos arranque”

Fiction

Hani Omar Khalil — An Edifice of the Imagination

“Each of them, no doubt, will be shown to be conflicted, imperfect, and easily undone in their own very ordinary ways, just like you or I.”

Jae Kim — The Sloping Lawn

“Probably someone who isn’t always there, isn’t always on time. Someone who isn’t interested in learning to speak his or her mind in a new language.”

Creative Nonfiction

Celina Nader — Little Things

“I came up with ten feisty fish, admired them for a while, then pulled them out with my hands to feed to the new kittens of a friendly alley cat.”

Pamela Johnson Parker — Elemental

“Elements are mercurial — so is glass, which is liquid, not solid. It’s deceptive, like my breasts. It looks solid, but it’s not. They look real, but they’re really not.”

Announcing Anomaly’s 2018 Best of the Net Nominations! was originally published in Anomaly on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.