Towards the crumbling edge of a hungering abyss, I saw that which was monstrous; swirling oceans of ink, blood, and phlegm congealed with thick foaming waves of rust and bone. There below, a mouth of mirrors, swallowing dismembered closets and hopeless fags like me into an unholy maelstrom of sequestered norms and white oblivion, where…
Category: Previous Issues
All previous issues of Seize The Press Magazine
“Low Tide Jenny” by Bitter Karella
Low Tide Jenny sat in her folding deck chair on the beach, stationed right where the sand met the ice plants, staring out at the black ocean with her eyeless sockets hidden behind oversized sunglasses. Her red bikini top was faded, slopping off her deflated tits, and the few strands of hair that still clung…
“Archive of the Pure Flesh” by Ben Larned
Delivered to [name redacted] Gallery of Fine Arts on March 5th, 2019. Package was old cardboard, with materials stacked haphazardly inside. No name included, but the sender gave clear instructions. The Archive is to be logged and preserved. Materials are sensitive, some very old. Treat them accordingly – they are sacred. Display each of the…
Book Review: Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My first thought when I finished reading Prime Meridian was that Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes like she actually understands what it’s like to not be economically comfortable. The main character, Amelia, is a young working class woman who struggles to make a living as a ‘friend-for-hire’ in the app-based gig economy of an imminently near future…
More Like a Cowboy Beflop by Karlo Yeager Rodriguez
Much like the jazz music it took as its inspiration, the original Cowboy Bebop wove together several genres – noir, westerns, space opera – into an effortlessly cool whole. There’s a certain looseness to it, with a few tentpole episodes that delve into Spike’s, Jet’s and Faye’s tragic pasts, but the remainder are much more…
The Sterility of Safe Fiction: Who Are We Protecting? by Raquel S. Benedict
Think of your favorite work of fiction. Describe it in one word. What is it? Romantic? Dark? Mysterious? Thrilling? Psychedelic? Sexy? Hilarious? Bittersweet? How about safe? When you think of your favorite work of fiction, a work of fiction that changed you, a work of fiction that will stay with you until you die, the…
Interview with M. Shaw, author of One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve
Hi Sam, thanks so much for joining me, it’s a pleasure to get to chat with you. First off, I read in a previous interview that you work in a haunted museum. Are you a big believer in ghosts and the supernatural? Personally, I make it a rule to only believe in things that aren’t…
“A Love Letter Template for the Little Scholars” by Howard Tseng
Dearest ___, Time is an illusion imposed by the single-minded husk, beyond which you are everyone and everything and everywhere, all at once. You are a Marxist roaming a continent, a rebel breaking out of an island, and a Loyalist trapped on a tiny little rock, iridescent, a pearl’s semblance. Though impoverished as children denied…
“What It’s Like” by Riley Tao
…and my penis is growing out of the back of my throat, and it’s choking me, and Sarah says, “I mean, of course I wouldn’t be comfortable if I had a penis growing out of my mouth, but it’s the body you were born with, you should be used to it,” and Mack nods and…
“Housekeeping” by Sally Parlier
The only thing that kept me from gnawing Ellie’s face off some days was that sharp taste she had. Her blood was like Windex sprayed over rust, and I could only imagine it’d be like barbed wire in her flesh. Sometimes when she picked at her scabs I’d be vacuuming up the smell days later….