Karen Rosenbaum

Letter to the Editor: Another Perspective on Levi Peterson

Dear Editor, After reading Melissa Leilani Larson’s review of Levi Peterson’s short story collection, Losing a Bit of Eden (“The Promise and Limitations of Working-Class Male Protagonists,” Dialogue, Summer 2022), I would like to offer…

Dialogue and the Daring Disciple

One thing a reader learns from Terryl Givens’s new biography is that no one who knew Eugene England could claim to be an objective appraiser of his life. Countless individuals revered him; he had guided…

The River Rerun

Morning 3, Nankoweap Camp  Across the river, she sees a big brown lump shamble over to the water’s edge. She wants it to be graceful, sleek, to glide through the water, not lumber like a…

The Princess of the Pumpkin

The cat was curled against her legs. She didn’t move them, she lay very still, feeling his little warm breathing body through the electric blanket. She stretched her arms out of the sheets and reached…

Hit the Frolicking, Rippling Brooks

Religions is for women. Says Madeleine, Portuguese-Catholic, chunky in her black pleated skirts, cackling always, nudging God. Women believe it. Women practice it. When pews are filled they are filled with women. Men eh they…

Long Divisions

It is alive, the Colorado, its heavy brown waters pulsing through limestone and sandstone layers gouged out before it learned manners from the government and Glen Canyon Dam.  “She don’t give a hot sheep shit,”…

For Meg — With Doubt and Faith

In times of drought, it is hard to remember times of flood. After yet another California winter without sufficient water, we take quick showers, rarely flush the toilet, let our lawn grow long to hide…

One on the Aisle

Paula had the aisle seat. Her younger brother Tony was in the middle, next to Sugar, and the two of them pressed against the window and each other and pointed at cloud formations. Down below…

Wallace Stegner: The Unwritten Letter

Reading Between the Sheets

You know, what constipates her, really, is all those folks peering over her shoulder, not only looking for their names or themselves on her Mac screen or on the pages between the grainy covers of…

Out of the Woods

Here they go, Carma without her cane—she’ll hang onto Dan if her legs give way—through the glass doors into the maze of parents and teenagers and little brothers and sisters, milling, waving, shrieking, whimpering.  “I…

Havesu

Sally Didn’t Sleep Here

“Sally snores,” says Ed, and I sink into my shoulders and smile uncomfortably at Gemma and Frank on the couch.  “I don’t snore,” I say defensively. “I don’t even sleep.”  “Ho,” answers Ed. He leans…

Antidote for Solitude: The Life of Bonnie Bobet

Harrell’s Mettle: Jack Harrell. A Sense of Order and Other Stories

Requiem in L Minor

Today the L’s. In the old address book, the L pages are impossible—phone numbers lined out, zip codes scratched in, whole entries x’d or margined with a question mark. Even the H’s are more decipherable.…

Acute Distress, Intensive Care

Barb’s dying, Carma thinks, and she steadies herself against the chest of drawers as Dan, kneeling beside his sister’s bed, strokes Barb’s face. Barb’s head seems to be rocking slightly on the pillow. Her eyes…