In which a nonpartisan “Institute for Information Dissemination” is tasked with fact-checking us all.
BOOK EXCERPT: THE INSTITUTE. A POTENTIALLY PRESCIENT POLITICAL THRILLER
Fiction
FICTION EXCERPT: A GALLERY, A HEIST, AND A DISCERNING EYE
The lead headline jumped out: $200M Gardner Museum Art Theft 2 Men Posing as Police Tie Up Night Guards
FICTION EXCERPT: THE ART OF DYING
“You guys saw the lab results. They say I took a bunch of sleeping pills. Now, why would I do that? I was so wasted my buddy Ryan practically had to carry me upstairs. You don’t need sleeping pills when you’re half in the bag.”
SPECIAL READ-ALONG: BOY’S ON THE HOOD
Inspired by those utterly insane events, a few of us here at the Dig hatched the idea to write a two-man play about this greatest recent road rage ruination.
FICTION EXCERPT: ‘THE AUTOGRAPH OF STEVE INDUSTRY’
My grandmother is high, reading science fiction in the kitchen while a choir of drunk relatives do Johnny Most Christmas carols.
PICK YOUR BLEMISHES: AN INTERVIEW WITH OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
In a sea of perplexing novels and short stories that seek to highlight the good in bad characters, Ottessa Moshfegh‘s work rises above it all with murky water dripping from its edges, forgoing the good altogether to ...
MASS FICTION: THE ASTEROID THEORY
In different ways, I lost my two best friends, but I gained something too. On that rainy, fall night, I glimpsed the way life could be, when everything breaks just right.
NEW FICTION: NEXT YEAR’S SHOW
The opening band sounds like Dick Dale on downers. Dual vocalists split the front of the stage. The hipster, stage-left, plays rhythm, mic on distortion.
NEW FICTION: EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN
Her commitment had been total until, during one of four weekly after-class sessions, she lost concentration when her coach’s interest diverted visibly to a younger girl stretching on a nearby mat.
SUMMER FICTION: THERE WILL ALWAYS BE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
That night I decided my hunch had been right all summer that nothing else in my life had ever mattered. I was encapsulated in darkness.
FICTION: MY HEART IS A CHEAP FUCK
He was just getting seriously into weight training and his body was bulging in unexpected places we’d discover together.
NEW LOCAL FICTION: THE WEBSITE
YOUR FIRST MESSAGE is from some kid who only just gained the right to drink in bars this past November, and what he writes to you is I like older women.
DIG + SLUSH PILE FICTION SUBMISSION PORTAL
Submit your fiction to DigBoston + Slush Pile Magazine here.
FICTION: SAINT VALENTINA
YOU WERE BORN the day the IRA kidnapped Shergar. The radio reported it, and the t.v. did, too. The midwife suspected that the Russians had taken him.
FICTION: PINK LIPSTICK WITH GLOSS (FOURTH HEAD FROM THE LEFT)
Her hair was up in a ponytail and I took the opportunity to savor every taut muscle and tendon in her neck. This was next to the last day. I had thought I would use the week to have a few one-night stands and just have a good time.
SPECIAL HOLIDAY FICTION: TWO SMALL DOGS
ONE DECEMBER SUNDAY, just two weeks before Christmas, Rose and Mark came home to discover Gretl alone in the yard, surrounded by trails of sticky black hair and a tangle of grayish, gnawed up bones. Hans’s rat-like skull, the eyes picked clean, poked out from under a deck chair on the far side of ...
REVIEW: HELLBOUND V: END OF COMICS
Hellbound V marks the end of the Hellbound ...
ODD FALL FICTION: THE CAROLINES
“Tough life out here, huh, boy?” She stroked his ears, his thoughts moving up through her hands. He was old, and it hurt to swallow. He had run away from a man who came home drunk some nights and kicked him. It made her throat tighten and her eyes wet. “That’s bad. I’m really sorry.” Some people fed him, but mostly he ate garbage, and he hurt every night when it got cold. He hurt all the time. He wanted peace, and he looked right into her face to say it.
FICTION: HOPE OF REBOOT
BY HAYES MOORE
MY SUPER-HUSBAND just sent me an interesting article. I call Paul my Super-Husband because he is both my supervisor and my husband. And because it is poetic.
The email said:
juliet—article below mentions a kid from your high school class. ...
