top of page
All My Stories
All Posts
Disenchanted Evening
by T.J. Masluk for Kafka In the wards, sleep Gurdjieff would appreciate. Have I awakened in a dark wood? In streets and narrow alleyways, by light of a ragged moon, noctambulists shuffle about unredeemed, fugue-fingering. In the marketplace, men with flaccid droop and Rx script opt for blue-diamond bliss (“Honey, this should fix our problem”). The world is ablaze! Girls in thick makeup and cheap perfume prattle on, boys tattooed wither in waste, needle in arm. Everywhere you
T.J. Masluk
Sep 17
Street Seer
by Patrick Roland I saw a prophet on the sidewalk. Nineteen degrees. Wind like a whip. Shirtless, rooted, as if nailed to the concrete. Not young enough for dares, not poor enough for pity. A bag of clothes dangled from one hand like armor refused. Head tilted skyward, as if calling on light, or thunder. Lips moving faster than speech. His chest slack with gray, skin red and chapped with cold. The city bent around him, water skirting stone. It did not stop. Neither did he. Wh
Patrick Roland
Sep 2
They Came in Scent
by Steven Visintainer A reflection on the New York City subways - 1990s. And outside, as a child, above the grate, the steam would rise, and my grandmother would say there were devils down there. And years after, they came in scent of electric smoke, from high voltage burn that changed my childhood imaginings of someone in red to the now-dead musk of blue spark and current arcs that traveled from moving train, that swayed with long, thin pricking screaks in tunnels, to the li
Steven Visintainer
Sep 1
Local Pub
by Bruno Talerico Alone, he enters the privileged atmosphere: cigarette haze thick with laughter punctuated by fat silences. Communal intoxication, boisterous banter, in darker corners, hushed intimacies. Clink of cheap glassware, clang of silverware, fragrance of overused frying oil and stale beer. Wood smoldering in the corner hearth provides minimal warmth. Would-be rockstar plucks notes on an untuned instrument, Would-be groupie swoons and giggles, punch-drunk lover. Mino
Bruno Talerico
Aug 23
Egressor
by Frank William Finney The pub, half-full on a Tuesday night. A songster sang acoustic blues, but soon the strings slipped out of tune, and then the mike went on the blink. I lost the mood – left tip and drink and headed for the Bull Dog. No sign of life. The lights were out. Graffiti mocked its rolling gate. Signs that say the place went bust. I wonder where they moved the band? I wonder where I’ll head to now? Better make tracks and head downtown before the taverns close t
Frank William Finney
Aug 11
Two Poems by Kerry Trautman
by Kerry Trautman The Places We Crawl Into As a home inspector, I shimmy under floorboards on dirt that foundations have claimed, and its centipedes and seep. On vacation, I wander Manhattan street grids at the feet of steel-glass towers of stacked lives. Home in Ohio, I test electric outlets, garage doors, faucets, and windows—the stuff of family morning routines and of children learning to name their corner of life. Where do you crawl in Times Square to see what’
Kerry Trautman
Aug 6
Compass Rose
by Josh Tecklin E. S. Shrunken fugue, becoming Called good-looking watchful of the small world, when I'm ulcered and emaciated, clogged-eye with my cheeks pressurized, sunken stasis in the big chamber. and the Big rubble, rise dogs barking back into blocks: everywhere I walk. crowd my roughshod city again. Across balconies Bristle with the discharge on the wires, in ingrown ballistic chic; bum the electric rabble, throu
Josh Tecklin
Aug 5
Inner City Blues
by Kirsty Niven If we leave the windows open at night, we can hear the chaos of the city playing out like the sea captured in a seashell. The wash of the cars on gushing roads, the serenading of un-spayed cats— drunken cackles a jazz style percussion. Saturday’s soundscape skips like vinyl, silence interrupted with each party’s end. Arguments float upwards, helium balloons, until each overinflated ego pops explosively. Gotham grunge trickling down the drains, until shop shutt
Kirsty Niven
Jul 29
Two Poems by Kiki Adams
by Kiki Adams The Flood The sleepy webbing draped on us is Gotham just past some forgotten Golden Age, when sun shone on alleys and dappled warmth on children playing; just past seediness first sprouted from the shade. We wish for a river boiling briny to swell and pour gossamer fish through the streets, startled down alleyways to wash this wasteland into Atlantis—clean and peaceful around the drowned, trapped in an eternity-moment, swimming against the windows. Walk
Kiki Adams
Jul 19
On Missing O'Keefe
by John Repp We thought to train to Brooklyn, where dresses hovered in a cool gallery, where hats & shoes, thick silver bracelets, pantaloons, bone necklaces & gobbets of turquoise rested permanent & stark as basalt, fecund aridity geometric & fundamental as Georgia herself in every photograph, but Union Square waylaid us, thousands of tulips, a bed of tiny purple somethings—no, I don’t want to hear you play “Stormy Weather” or disappea
John Repp
Jul 7
The Red Shoes
by Richard Wells translated by Richard Wells The Women Las Perdidas Las Olvidadas Las Desaparecidas No one is invisible unless we make them so The shoes have been left for the women But the night has passed and no one has returned There is only dust In the city of Guanajuato a man knows where a body lies and in the countryside another man knows where a body lies and in this country men know where bodies lie Thousands are counted in the minds of men who will not spe
Richard Wells
Jul 2
Two Poems by Chris Corlew
by Chris Corlew Grilling in the City After the Kids' Bedtime dear moon smoke is right under your nose do you smell fajitas? can neighborhoods have muscle memory? a stencil on the sidewalk: our neighbor was kidnapped here I don’t leave the house without a whistle I do feel bad that it took the ICE invasion for me to start knowing my neighbors or contribute to the PTA wind tunnel courtyard of apartment porch gardens commuter train whooshing loud cumbia sonidera playin
Chris Corlew
Jun 30
Two Poems by Susan Haifleigh
by Susan Haifleigh The Pianist Walking down cobbled streets daffodils blooming in tight circlets around trees with grated feet cutting knifelike through the city noise, it summoned me façade faces line the boulevard they hear it too, I tilt my head, listening intently the sound building up steam struggling to make sense of the tune, one key pressed closely after another concentration on cadence, a ghostly sheet of music forms in my head deciphering each line transmitting it t
Susan Haifleigh
Jun 28
Gallery
by Philip Davison Twenty-five small children Box up in the giant service elevator of the National Gallery Each with a presentation box of crayons (paper supplied when properly settled) They are here to see people and places in shapes and colours They will listen to, but not boxy the laws of life and art They will see what they see The nothing-ever-taken-backness of it It's a kind of faith they have And faith is shown - it is on the walls, up and down the years and in the pull
Philip Davison
Jun 18
The First New York Adventure
by John Grey We slept where we could, even on the underground. We woke up to diagrams of L trains and the quickest route to the Cloisters. You were crumpled on my shoulder. Can a person be any more tired, That's the beauty of travel. If it's not the mind, it's the body asking questions. We were in New York looking for a place cheap enough to have us. And maybe work. We didn't bum small change or cigarettes. No wish to be the ones that people ran from. Park benches were comfor
John Grey
Jun 11
The Rising of Broken Brick and Twisted Metal
by Jim Daniels of the cacophonic destruction of the old hospital carries all the last breaths of those who died here and all the first breaths of those born here and all the furtive sighs of doctors and nurses and the removed stitches of healing and the removed stitches of keeping it together once released from the somber cave of waiting. My wife was born there in what’s now more ruin than refuge. I unfold her birth certificate, a thin delicate page of an old prayer book. The
Jim Daniels
May 31
Friendship
by Austin Alexis If she had been standing there, in her kitchen, or there or even over there close to the frig, while she prepared dinner, she would have been struck by the bullet or the bullets. But my pal wasn’t stationed in the center or the side of her kitchen because she was gabbing with me on her phone, the blessed landline handset smack-dab in her living room’s alcove. In those days, during summery afternoons guns popped
Austin Alexis
May 28
Two Poems by Sarah Etgen-Baker
by Sarah Etgen-Baker Urban Meditation The subway whirs— a thousand hands press close in warmth, not fear. Streetlights blink like fireflies trapped in chrome. Laughter climbs brick walls, a thousand lives buzz, entwined— The city breathes. We're not alone. Stacked Hexagons The city is a beehive— hexagons stacked, each buzzing with activity morning, noon, and night. Streets: wax-thin, sticky with footsteps. Buildings: golden, leaning into each other, their windows humming with
Sarah Etgen-Baker
May 21
Pressing the Bell Twice
by Syeda Anika Mansur I look at the tinted broken windows of the upper floor of the old shophouse, contemplate what stories take shape inside those moldy walls. The black and white polka dot burkha on the woman standing beside the sidewalk stuns me for a moment and my rickshaw halts in a traffic jam. An earsplitting horn of a local bus turns my attention there, a face with a red bindi sitting by the window lost in thought with dark circled eyes. The beaver moon moved as my ri
Syeda Anika Mansur
May 17
Give Us This Day
by Bryan Franco He was warned the city would eat him alive, chew him up, and spit him out. He savored the city and digested every experience it offered: sweet, bitter, beautiful, ugly. Honking horns and sirens sung him to sleep. The silence outside his childhood bedroom window riddled his visits home with insomnia. He found horizons in the asphalt and shadows that didn’t exist in The Gulf of Mexico. He had become a glutton for all the cul-de-sac had denied him. He delighted i
Bryan Franco
May 5
Articles
The Morning It Started
by Elizabeta Žargi That summer I was travelling through Europe on an Interrail ticket — a month of trains and no fixed schedule beyond a language course waiting in Ljubljana. I had already spent a week in Malmö, made a delayed stop in Hamburg after sleeping through it once, then gone down to Geneva to visit Milena. Eventually I returned to Vienna, where I was staying with Gregor and Sandy. They were also planning to attend the course in Slovenia. I was meant to leave on the 2
Elizabeta Žargi
Apr 5
Dreaming of Kalbarri
by Meredith Stephens “Wake up! If we don’t get going now it will be too hot!” urged my fiance Alex. I couldn’t understand why we had to leave for Kalbarri National Park at 5:30am in darkness. Was it really going to get that hot? We quickly arose and headed to the car for the long drive. By the time we arrived, the day was breaking and we were among the first tourists to arrive at the famed Nature’s Window. We made our way along the trail to the window where international tour
Meredith Stephens
Nov 2, 2025
Between Two Skies: An Egyptian Heart in Albany
by Walid Abdallah When I first arrived in Albany, New York, in the winter of 2014, I felt as if I had stepped into a painting. The air...
Walid Abdallah
Oct 13, 2025
Reviews
Hedgehog Book Review
by Catalina Bonati 2/5 stars ★★☆☆☆ Hedgehog by Maggie Koons (to be published March 2027) is a horror novel that revolves around two young women: Riley Kilkenny and Irina Lebedev. Riley is a well-off writer of daily news briefs for influencers, and who is struggling to come to terms with the breakup of her girlfriend Markie, which happened almost a year ago. She finds a new coping method consisting of the killing and torture of animals, which she begins to upload to the intern
Catalina Bonati
6 days ago
To The East of the East Book Review
by Catalina Bonati 1.75/ 5 stars ★★☆☆☆ To the East of the East by Ping Lu and translated by Jeremy Tiang (to be published October 2026) is a translated literary fiction novel about Min-Hui, a Taiwanese writer who after the disappearance of her husband, Chien-I, a Taiwanese businessman, must stay in Beijing to help authorities figure out his whereabouts. She meets a strange man named Shangjun who begins to accompany her in conversation in her hotel room every day, which makes
Catalina Bonati
Oct 15
Dead Teenagers Review
by Catalina Bonati 3.25/5 stars ★★★☆☆ Dead Teenagers by Jude Ellison S. Doyle and Caitlyn Yarsky (published March 2026) is the first comic in a five-comic installment. It centers on a group of four friends who go to prom in 1997, and are horrifically killed that night. This night resets at its end into a continuous loop of horrors in which the killings change every night and become increasingly gory. The friend group tries to figure out what is keeping them caged in this time
Catalina Bonati
Oct 8
Short Stories
Back in the Day
by Robert Lowinger I was in the seventh grade, in 1969, living in a little town outside of Buffalo, New York when me and Danny Nissen, who was almost 15, threatened to beat the crap out of Larry McKoon for telling Danny that he wasn’t good at basketball, and he should get booted off the team. Well, Danny said, “Jimmy, you got to be a man and not let anyone diss your friends, certainly not a little prick like Larry,” and ever since Danny killed that cat with a knife behind the
Robert Lowinger
Sep 24
Ticket to Ride
by Sara Etgen-Baker "You gotta have a ticket to ride!” snapped the Carney. “Get a ticket or move outta da way, kid. You’re takin’ up space!” I stared motionless as the Ferris wheel cut through the heavy summer clouds. “Here’s her ticket, sir. We three are ridin’ together.” “Not happenin’ lady—only two per chair. One of youz has to ride by yerself.” “No problem! She’s the oldest; she’ll ride by herself.” “Whatever ya say, lady. She seems a bit scared to me though.” “Your broth
Sara Etgen-Baker
Sep 15
Intangible Ingredients
Sara Etgen-Baker After Granny died, Mother requested only one item from her mother’s possessions. “All I really want,” Mother told my uncle, “are her old recipe cards and antique file box.” Mother’s request puzzled me, for I knew Mother didn’t need the recipe cards and file box for any practical reason. She’d known for decades how to make Granny’s pumpernickel bread, sauerkraut, and her breakfast specialty—streusel kuchen. But when the file box arrived a few days later, Mothe
Sara Etgen-Baker
Sep 13
Poetry
Rotary Dial
by Sajidah AlSaihati There's a child on the swing-set. The woman considers strangling it. Like a dastardly thing it fidgets, rocking the swing. Its small hands just barely hold the chains, a grip so frail a tap would cause a fall. Legs dangling off the edge of her seat, the girl's eyes remain glued to the soil. The woman tugs her by the hair and throws her off without a word. The girl only grins, like a star exploding in black radiance. The heavens found her worthy of t
Sajidah AlSaihati
2 days ago
Three Poems by John Grey
by John Grey This Solitary Autumn Temperatures drop. Wind changes direction. Autumn descends like a velvet shroud. From your cabin window, you’re witness to the death in the air. You dread the drop of the unclaimed fruit. Their soft impacts echo like muted knocks upon a crypt door. They don’t just fall. They’re forsaken. You fear the foliage turn, as the air takes up a brush dipped in blood and fading light, paints the dying in red and yellow and gold. But there’s n
John Grey
3 days ago
Hardcore Soup
by Irina Ayrapetova Biting nails and skin on fingers, Almost getting to the bone. Saber-toothed, my tiger lingers - There's anxiety on the throne. Blood is broth. My inner wild beast Devours hangnails - gore beneath. This red soup splash is the brightest Liquid in my knify teeth.
Irina Ayrapetova
4 days ago
Art & Photography
Submission Guidelines
-
We do not publish homophobic, transphobic, racist, or misogynist works of any kind.
-
If the piece you wish to submit has italics or an image attached, please email us your submission at ultramarineliteraryreview@gmail.com rather than using the submission form.
-
Art and photography must be uploaded to an email and must NOT be shared as a Google Drive document.
-
Prose must be less than 3,000 words.
-
Poetry must be less than 3 pages, single-spaced.
-
We respond to submissions within the span of two weeks.
Submissions
Contact
Terms and Agreements
By clicking on the SUBMIT button, you are agreeing to the following terms:
a) The submission is an original work that has not been previously published.
b) You have obtained permissions by the third party involved if the submitted work contains intellectual property not attributed to your authorship.
c) By submitting, you guarantee you hold the rights to the work, and you grant Ultramarine Literary Review the rights to publish the submitted work. After publication, rights revert to the author.
d) Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but the author must let us know if their work has been accepted elsewhere prior to publication.
e) Submitted articles, reviews, and short prose fiction less than 1,000 words will be translated from English-Spanish of Spanish-English by Wix Translation AI along with manual translation by the editor. The author has the right to approve or deny translation.
f) Poems will not be translated unless the author supplies their human-written translation.
bottom of page