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  • Recently Published

    • Robbing the Pillars by Marie Goyette
      Ruth stood on the narrow iron bridge, gripping her father’s obsidian necklace, and wondered how many years it would take before the river wore them both down to nothing.
    • Roll for Love by Cidney Mayes
      She holds the dice up to me. “For good luck?”
    • The Call by Eben E. B. Bein
      I hungered into that quiet until— there—unbelievable!— a wolf spider scuttled onto a leaf.
    • Saturation by Claire Oleson
      I no longer harangue every desk nurse at every hospital for a taxonomic breakdown of her bills. I don’t ask for the numbers of the Benadryl, the water cups, the abdominal touches done with gloved hands. I am the most American I’ve ever been—she costs what she costs and I eat it.

    • Caught by Chris Bullard
      Old lungs puffing like gills, I beg to be thrown back to boyhood’s clear waters.

Non-Fiction


Compassionate Humor: On John Weir’s “Your Nostalgia is Killing Me” by Jessica Willingham
April 14, 2022

John Weir's compassionate humor explores the aftermath of a global crisis and nostalgia for different outcomes in a collection of linked stories that navigate sexuality, separation, and the long aftermath of the AIDS epidemic.

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Editor’s Note – Fall 2021 by Kristen Simental
September 27, 2021

Dear Reader, Every issue of Five South not only represents the mindsets of our writers but the world at large. So, what’s on everyone’s minds? Besides, the obvious (for posterity: lockdowns, pandemics, variants, the U.S. southern border, Afghanistan, and why […]

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Backstory: Cross on the Highway by Andy Smith
September 27, 2021

In August of 2012, a couple of close friends and I embarked on a cross-country tour from Los Angeles to San Antonio. The three of us were in a local Indie band. For once, I had the luxury of taking […]

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Courtside Tickets for the Nightmare by Lauren Christiansen
September 27, 2021

I'm burrowed into the wormwood of my disgusting ennui, and all I'm getting is this stupid tee shirt.

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Backstory: Sanctuary by K.D. Harryman
September 27, 2021

The poem “sanctuary” by German Dario Piedrahita Abdala was one of the first I read from the slush. I remained captivated by it and thought of it often during the entire reading season. In the parlance of our times, it’s […]

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