The Islands Issue

No. 11, summer 2018

F(r)iction #11 maps out a lush archipelago of new content to explore—tales of refuge, escape, isolation, kinship. To you newcomers: it’s strange. For all you seasoned travelers: it’s even stranger than you remember.

Within these pages, a grieving vampire protects an abandoned penguin egg from the Antarctic winds. A voyeur, investigating her sister’s death on a swampy, doll-infested island, inherits the joyous and terrifying task of living. And a beached seafarer devours herself a new body. When the literary community bottles the wildest and weirdest of island writing and tosses it into the harbor of our inbox, what can we do but crack open that briny glass? Readers will not cross these shores and sail away unchanged.

In our Pioneering Writer Feature, Kwame Dawes talks artistic heritage, faith, and the ways in which social media isolates and enjoins. Our Debut Author, Ling Ma, dives deep into the process of writing Severance, an award-winning office-novel-turned-apocalyptic-satire. With fiction by Lydia Davis, nonfiction by Lee Gutkind, poetry by CAConrad, comics by Arthur Asa, and a Community Feature with Writers Without Margins, The Island Issue is not one to pass by. Whether newly marooned or traveling home, we hope you’ll float a while with us.

Please Note: 

  • We may split large print orders into multiple packages. We are not responsible for any import tax you may be charged to receive your order.
  • All print orders also include access to a digital download of the issue too.
  • Digital Downloads will be made available as a PDF file immediately upon purchase via an email with a downloadable link—so please ensure you enter your email address correctly. You will have 30 days to download the file.

All proceeds support our nonprofit mission to change lives through the power of storytelling! For more information about our parent nonprofit, please visit BrinkLit.org.