Fiction

The Rut by Cody Bowie
Cody Bowie is a graduate of the MFA program at Oregon State University. She currently lives in Texas with her boyfriend and their ficus. This is her first publication.

A Guy Walks into a Bar by Kristen Arnett
Kristen Arnett is a fiction and essay writer who has held fellowships at Tin House, Kenyon Review, and Lambda Literary Foundation. She was awarded Ninth Letter’s 2015 Literary Award in Fiction and was named an honorable mention for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. Her work has either appeared or is upcoming at North American Review, The Normal School, The Greensboro Review, Tin House Flash Fridays/The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @Kristen_Arnett

Breakfast
Jennifer Savran Kelly works as managing editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and binds books in Ithaca, New York. Her fiction recently appeared in Stone Canoe, and her film Invisible Ink, co-written with Christopher Julian, was released by Vanguard Cinema in 2012. She is currently working on her first novel with generous support from the Writer to Writer Mentorship Program hosted by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

Fusion
Laura Wang is a writer and educator in New York City public schools, where she teaches human beings about molecules.

Fishing for Mermaids
Kate Tighe-Pigott earned her MFA at the University of Kentucky. Her short fiction is recently published (or forthcoming) from Blackbird, Passages North, River River, and Willow Springs. Earlier work has appeared in Literary Mama and Apocrypha and Abstractions. She lives in Brooklyn.

I Haven’t Always Been the Walt Whitman Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike
Rob Roensch’s collection of stories, The Wildflowers of Baltimore, won the 2012 International Scott Prize for Short Stories from Salt Publishing. He lives in Oklahoma City and teaches at Oklahoma City University. His website is sites.google.com/site/robroensch.

Nuthatch
Olivia Postelli is a writer from Chicago. She is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at Oregon State University, and her work has been featured in Kenyon Review Online.

Cinderella
Sarah Harshbarger is an MFA candidate at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She is originally from Woodbine, Maryland. Her fiction has also appeared in So to Speak.

The Preserved Wreckage of the World
Abigail Greenbaum has an MFA from the University of Mississippi. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Louisville Review, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Orion, and other places.
Subscribe to Grist.
Grist is publishes a print publication annually featuring work of high literary quality from both emerging and established writers. Welcoming all styles and aesthetic approaches, Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals who are part of the literary community.