Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Jan/Feb 2020 • Vol. XLII No. 1 • Fiction |

Mercy

Maybe if I were born somewhere nice, I would be nice, too.

You can understand that only if you’re from somewhere no-good. So my girlfriend doesn’t understand, because she’s from one of those Connecticut suburbs with big, green yards and a Blue Ribbon school district. Whatever a Blue Ribbon is.

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For months, I told people Mona Samino would fix my face. I learned her name at a party when a leather-clad woman with perfect bangs pointed at the mole on […]

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