Columbia Journal is delighted to announce the winners and finalists of our 2017 Winter Contest. We received an overwhelming number of submissions, and were blown...
The Blind Cartoon
by Joshua James Amberson
A man goes into a gym, thinking it’s a dance school, and waltzes with a punching bag. He enters an airport, thinking it’s a movie...
At the American Chamber of Commerce Dinner in Beijing (1995): Fiction by Darien Gee
We wait for our dinner at white-draped tables. Side by side, we smile at one another. The woman could be from Texas or Colorado or...
All Points East: An Essay by Alexandra Talty
Driving down a Hamptons country lane, past acres of potatoes and wheat, I turned right at the grey barn. Pete Ludlow gave me directions and...
Women Who Write: Zoe Marquedant, Interviewed by Paulina Pinsky
I am sitting in front of a half-eaten burrito bowl in a booth at 1020. I text Zoe, “quick— what do you want to drink”...
Peak Inside: “Give It Up”, by Emily Jack
When I was diagnosed with cancer my entire life changed. My life was threatened and then put on hold, I lost all of the structure...
Nonfiction: Highway Rest, by Aaron Gilbreath
The rest area on the northbound lane of California’s Highway 99 looked like the edge of a small city park. It had soda machines and...
from Museums of Art by Judith Serin
THE HAGUE Rembrandt’s Night Watch You are ten years old in The Hague in Amsterdam, sitting on a bench and telling your eight-year-old sister stories. She has...
The Quimby Years: An Essay by Amy Shearn
Mourning turns you into a crazy person. Everyone learns this sooner or later, and that fall I got my first real turn to live it....
Veterans Day 2017: Nonfiction by Eric Chandler
The Big Red One I stepped out of the hotel where Georgia O’Keeffe lived in New York City and into the urban canyon. The blue...
Who Am I This Time? An Essay by Jim Ross
I eked out a catch-as-catch-can living by substitute teaching in the D.C. Public Schools. My job was to maintain continuity during occasional absences or while...
Hell of a Town by Catherine Northington: The Man With The Hats
“I think the guy outside is a Giants fan,” I told my boyfriend over the phone late one August morning, peering out my window in...