I turn and face Bill Murray. You, I say. You leave in the morning. Bill Murray looks at me as if I’m beyond saving.
Spring 2020 Contest: Winners & Runner Ups Announced
Columbia Journal is excited to announce the winners and finalists of our annual Spring Contest, which was judged by Melissa Febos in nonfiction, Analicia Sotelo in poetry, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine in fiction.
Spring Contest Runner Up in Fiction: Aquanauts of Hudson Canyon
Leo’s whole body is now cold and fractured, a calving iceberg. The old man’s incontinent and incoherent and not long for this world—this seems more like a hospice situation than a long-term housing prospect. Leo feels the old compulsion to…
Spring Contest Runner Up in Fiction: Swallowed Flies
I try to remember that my husband is an angel of a man, a profferer of backrubs, bringer of flowers, an emergency therapist, whose only oafishness I can point to is a tendency to binge-watch prestige cable shows for hours…
Spring Contest Winner in Fiction: We Tell Time in Stories, Not Hours
I don’t always know the difference between remembering and seeing, but Tinkerbell says that’s okay because only a fool believes in time and memory both.
Maximum Compound: Girl World / Lucy
Who gets a life sentence on the dirt planet and who gets life on a pleasure planet? Who knows. The sun goes down and it’s the hour the night shift begins.
Review: The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams
Despite the fact that it takes place in 1871, The Illness Lesson feels eerily contemporary.
Animal Instincts
Everything feels like a death. I climb the tree and my husband hands me the bird.
Delusion: A short story by Ibrahim N. Al-Huraiyes translated from the Arabic
Pointing toward the carousel ride, where the child’s attention was fixed, he asked, “Why don’t you play with the other kids?”
Review: Bird Summons by Leila Aboulela
This novel is at its best in its moments of careful consideration of the anxieties of its main characters.
Womxn’s History Month Special Issue Fiction Runner Up: The Genie Asks For Too Much
The man’s first wish: a job where he could earn promotions without kissing up to his manager or navigating office politics. A job where he needed only hard work, perseverance, and a respectable amount of smarts to achieve society’s definition…
Womxn’s History Month Special Issue: Winners & Honorable Mentions Announced
Columbia Journal is excited to announce the winners and finalists of our inaugural Womxn’s History Month Special Issue, in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art. We want to thank everyone who submitted for creating art and sharing their work with us,…