“Lin”: A Short Story by Triona Tsai

Lin was tired of running.  When her family was ripped from her 15 year old world, Lin ran. She ran to escape the scathing voices in her head. Ran to escape the hunger for a warm embrace. 1 year, 6 months, and 8 days later, Lin ran alone. As the youngest of three, Lin had never expected to be the last one. Her brother, Jin, was crafted from the watery depths, his disposition as unruly and free as the tormented sea. Waterfalls of water twisted and curled like an obedient beast at the flick…

“Kinmen, 1969”: Fiction by Deborah Jang

  2024 Grand Prize Winner, College Category On odd days of the month, the mainland bombards the islands with shells. On even days, we return the favor. The steel capsules come thick and fast, a distinctive whistle in the air. My teacher instructs us to take cover in the concrete-reinforced bomb shelter under the school’s track. I don’t learn very much on those days.  Half a million shells landed on Kinmen in forty days. If Kinmen is 150 square kilometers, calculate the number…

Josephine Cheng: The Best Day

Nothing wakes the woman this morning. Perhaps a dream, but she doesn’t remember. She  opens her eyes, her back spread flat against the bed and her covers stopping right at the nose. Sun  slants in between window shades. From where she lays, the woman sees dust motes twinkling.  For a while, she lays there, her gaze unfocused, her mind blank. Content.   She thinks, Snow. The door to her room eases open, and a cat slips in. It leaps onto the  bed, curling up against the woman. She pulls…

Ian Yu-Hung Tseng: “Deconstructing Daan Forest Park”

From The First Journal of Lost Taiwan’s History, Pub. 2087, Vol. 12, Iss. 8, p. 122-127 Daan Forest Park once sat in the heart of Taipei, at least according to the cardiologists at the National Taiwan University Hospital, though the pulmonologists must have been more popular when they supposedly nicknamed the park, “the lungs of Taipei City.” Surrounded by a metropolis that suffocated in its own humid smog, it is said that Daan Forest Park offered a block of fresh air with its fir trees,…

What I Wish Li Bai Knew (Creative Fiction)

Everything I wrote was tinged with the Li Bai poem, "Quiet Night Thoughts." On a whim, I Googled Li Bai and learned that in 725, he ventured from his Sichuan home at 24 years old to wander and write. I also come from a family that left Sichuan, though we settled in Taiwan. Later in life, Li Bai was exiled from China. This time, he was condemned to roam and his writing faltered. One day, drunk and homesick on his boat, he grasped at the moon’s reflection in the water. He tipped over and drowned.…