Shoshauna Shy | What My Father was Doing when He Learned that I Exist

whaT my FaTher was doinG when he learned ThaT i exisTed Shoshauna Shy

Hopping onto the Dakota B bus as he read a text after a chemistry exam, and the woman he considered a one-nightstand was asking him to meet her at Planned Parenthood

Packing for a fishing trip with his buddies when his girlfriend showed up with a three-page letter she received in the mail from his ex-fiancée

Drinking a toast to his bride in a reception hall when my mother appeared in the doorway, stomach round as a beach ball

Decorating a Christmas tree when the TV cut to a breaking story on the local news about a baby left in a bicycle basket outside the fire station, which reminded him of an ultimatum he got last spring, and so he does the math

Pushing his six-year-old twins on swings while scrolling through an email from a cousin asking didn’t he date a Sarah-What’s-Her-Name at Cane Ridge High? Well, the reason she left for Iowa early senior year…

Arguing with his eldest sister in a law office over their parents’ estate which included a bequest to some grandchild he’d never heard of

Fanning himself with a program while seated in midday heat at his grandson’s college commencement when a semi-familiar woman sidles up and introduces herself, points me out across the lawn

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Molly Andrea-Ryan is a poet and prose writer living in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Blue River Review, Pithead Chapel, Barren Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter: @mollyandrearyan

Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The MacGuffin, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She is the winner of La Piccioletta Barca’s inaugural competition and the Chapman Magazine Flash Fiction winner, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia.

Becky Jeeves was born and raised in England and now resides in Massachusetts. Her writing has appeared in HerStry, The Write Launch, Months to Years, and Happiful Magazine. When she is not writing she is busy curating artwork, vintage collectables and Asian porcelain for her antiques booth. Find her on Instagram: @becky_jeeves

Andrea Lynn Koohi is a writer and editor from Toronto, Canada. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Maine Review, Pithead Chapel, Idle Ink, Streetlight Magazine, Emerge Literary Journal and others.

Hannah Marshall lives in south-central Illinois, where she works as the advising editor for Greenville University’s literary journal, The Scriblerus, and as the poetry editor for Converse College’s literary journal, South 85. Marshall’s poem “This Is a Love Poem to Trees” appears in The Best American Poetry 2021. Her poems have also been published in Poetry Daily, New Ohio Review, The South Carolina Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and elsewhere. She received her MFA in creative writing from Converse College.

Kathleen McGookey has published four books of prose poems and three chapbooks, most recently Instructions for My Imposter (Press 53) and Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press). She has also published We’ll See, a book of translations of French poet Georges Godeau’s prose poems. Her work has appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, December, Field, Glassworks, Miramar, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Quiddity, and The Southern Review. She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.

Katrina Papouskaya is a Russian-American writer currently residing in New Jersey. She is working on her MFA in poetry at The New School in New York City. You can find her online at: www.katrinapapouskaya.com

Andrea Rinard is a native Floridian who wears shoes against her will and has mastered the art of hurricane preparation. She has work in Cease, Cows; The Jellyfish Review; Lost Balloon, and Spelk among others and has been

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nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. Her first novel, a YA manuscript that won the Key West Literary Society’s 2020 Marianne Russo Award for a novel-in-progress, is currently on submission. Andrea lives in Tampa with her three adult kids and her 1988 Prom date. You can find her online at: www.writerinard.com

Shoshauna Shy resides in Madison, Wisconsin, a freelance copy editor and flash fiction author and poet whose stories have recently appeared in the public arena courtesy of Five on the Fifth, BigCityLit, 50 Give or Take, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and Ariel Chart. One of her flash was included in the Best Microfiction 2021 series by Pelekinesis Press, and she was also one of the seven finalists for the 2021 Fish Flash Fiction Prize out of County Cork, Ireland. Learn more at: https://PoetryJumpsOfftheShelf.com

Meredith Sullivan is an actress and writer from Baltimore, currently living in Philadelphia. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.A in fiction writing in 2017, and is still trying to put that to use somehow. Recently, she has been published in fresh.ink and Prometheus Dreaming.

Saramanda Swigart is thrilled to be writing fiction exclusively after years of writing advertising copy and corporate literature. She completed an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University and a supplementary degree in literary translation. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Reed, The Alembic, Border Crossing, The Broken Plate, Caveat Lector, Clarion, Diverse Arts Project, East Jasmine Review, Euphony, Fogged Clarity, Glint Literary Journal, Green Hills Literary Lantern, The Grief Diaries, Levee Magazine, The Literati Quarterly, OxMag, The Penmen Review, The MacGuffin, Ragazine, Superstition Review, and Thin Air; her work has received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train and a 2017 Pushcart Prize nomination. Saramanda is working on translating some of the more salacious stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Saramanda teaches at City College of San Francisco.

Karen Toralba is an American living in Bangkok, Thailand. She has worked in English education for 20 years, most of which have been overseas. This almost exotic lifestyle opens many doors to unique experiences which can transform into stories. She is embarking on her publishing journey with accepted pieces in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Fiction on the Web, The Fictional Café, and Buddy lit zine.

Jer Xiong is a Hmong American writer. She received her MFA from California State University, Fresno in Creative Nonfiction. Her works have appeared or is forthcoming in maivmai, Celebrate Hmong, Pos Moua’s Karst Mountains Will Bloom, Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, and elsewhere. She’s a member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC). You can find her on Twitter: @itsjerxiong

Thelma Zirkelbach has published micro essays, prose poetry, personal essays, memoir and romantic suspense. She enjoys writing short pieces that reflect her life. A native Texan, she lives in Houston.

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