Ruminate

28/12/2022

Our store is officially closed for business, but you can still read work from Issue 63 (fall 2022) and The Waking online for the next few weeks.

Don't miss the latest fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and flash.

Read Issue 63: https://bit.ly/3C7stNr

Read The Waking: https://bit.ly/3VoU0kd

14/12/2022

Last Chance: Our store is officially closing for business on December 24th!

If you'd like any back issues, art, or merchandise before we liquidate our inventory, please head over to our shop.

Use code CONTRIB50 for 50% off Issues 4-62.

Shop: https://bit.ly/3VUTkEd

21/11/2022

Today, we come to you with bittersweet news.

It is with grateful but heavy hearts that we announce that Issue 63/64: Regeneration, now available through Issuu and mailing out to our print subscribers very soon, will be Ruminate’s last. ❤️

Please see our website for more details: https://bit.ly/3XbatdO

In January 2023, we will host an official farewell event. Keep an eye on this space for more info.

17/11/2022

OUT TODAY—Issue 63/64: Regeneration, featuring work from our general queues and annual fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and flash prose prizes! 🤩

Pick up a digital copy: https://bit.ly/3tE4MHH

Print orders should arrive in the next 2-3 weeks.

07/11/2022

Don't miss "The Naming" by Sarah Damoff, runner-up of The Waking's 2022 Flash Prose. ⁠
⁠
"Did any of the first beasts resist their names? Did Adam grow weary of his endless task?"
⁠
Read more:

04/11/2022

Up today on The Waking: "On the Endangered List" by Bridget Muller-Sampson, winner of our 2022 Flash Prose.

"Still, she remembers cradling that tiger of a beetle in their sunny, grassy backyard as the sounds of her parents arguing drove through the kitchen windows. She never saw such an insect again."

Read more:

On the Endangered List by Bridget Muller-Sampson Rosemary Molloy holds a memory of an American Burying Beetle, a two-inch long black, hard-shelled creature with an orange badge on its pronotum—the scallop–shell shaped area just behind its head. She thinks of the Nicrophorus americanus when she s...

01/11/2022

This afternoon, we're excited to FINALLY announce the results of the 2022 Waking Flash Prose Prize. 🥳

1st Place: "On the Endangered List" by Bridget Muller-Sampson

2nd Place: "The Naming" by Sarah Damoff

Finalists: Ruth Joffre, Emma Bolden, Danielle Joffe, Chelsey Hillyer, Chelsey Hillyer, Fiyola Hoosen-Steele, Sudha Balagopal

Read more: https://bit.ly/3h4Z4eM

07/10/2022

Issue 63 is here!

Our Fall 2022 issue features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our general queue. For the first time ever, you can read the issue both online and in print. 😃

More: https://bit.ly/3Elhe5R

26/09/2022

Our last flash fiction from The Waking's open reading period: "Go" by Andrew Cominelli.

"His idea is for the train to go into the hills and slow in the woods, and for the boy who’s been lost in the woods to see it, board it, and for the train to go full steam ahead back to town to reunite the boy with his lonely and shaken father."

Read more:

Go by Andrew Cominelli If he can get the circuits to work, and the train to run—if he can set the train running and get the boy who is lost in the woods back to the town, back to the father waiting at the station—then, he thinks, something in him will change, or start anew. He sits up each night...

23/09/2022

As you close out your week, be sure to check out "On the River Trail," new flash fiction by Claudia Schatz.

"Cal and I never figured out a system for who would tuck in behind the other as we approached other cyclists, always fumbled at the last minute with our brakes squealing and gears snagging, tires cutting zigzags across one another as we struggled for balance when moving so slowly, indecisively."

Read more:

On the River Trail by Claudia Schatz We are sitting on the wall at the river’s edge, helmets on, our bikes sprawled on the grass behind us and our bodies touching from hip to shoulder through our winter coats. The water’s surface reflects the grey sky, the current steady and flat beneath our dan...

21/09/2022

Need something to help shake off your mid-week funk?

Read "Guts, Mostly," a haunting prose poem by Elizabeth Lerman, up today on The Waking.

"I am thinking about the woman I met, a friend of a friend, who told me how her intestines were removed so her baby could be born."

Read more:

Guts, Mostly by Elizabeth Lerman Lately, it seems that if you speak to me, I will either ignore you or eat you alive and its rarely the latter but sometimes I do swallow people up so quickly they get stuck in my throat and it’s not about eating anymore it’s about owning and bodies aren’t meant...

19/09/2022

New week, new flash!

Read "When She Wears a Mask," new flash fiction by Gabriel Thibodeau. ⁠
⁠
"When she settles into her chair in a hush, the girl’s dress will ripple across the centerpiece like the tendrils of a jellyfish. She will furl the fabric tight around her legs as her cousins watch from above their bow ties."
⁠
Read more:

When She Wears the Mask by Gabriel Thibodeau When the girl wears the mask, she feels more like herself. Not prettier or uglier or more hidden or seen; the mask isn’t about appearances. It doesn’t care what people on the other side of its wood think about its acorn nose or picket-fence teeth. The...

16/09/2022

Rounding out this week: "Salamanders," a new flash essay by Allie Dixon. ⁠
⁠
"They drowned her. That’s what David Attenborough told me in his kind old man, British, storybook way. They drowned her, and that’s just what happens to females sometimes during mating season."⁠
⁠
Read more:

Salamanders by Allie Dixon The strangest things can make me cry. Like this nature show I was watching about salamanders during breeding season, for instance, it made me cry, and when I was crying, I was laughing only for one reason, the reason being I was crying at salamanders breeding on my televis...

14/09/2022

Don't miss "Playlist: Hey Jude," a new flash essay by Carla Riccio. ⁠
"Not only are you not what you thought yourself to be; you are the very opposite of everything you thought you were."

Read more:

Playlist: Hey Jude by Carla Riccio You waited until you were thirty-seven years old, in order to be ready. Emotionally ready, you told your friends, who were happy to watch you go first. By thirty-seven, you thought, you’d done what you needed to prepare: you’d untangled from your family and fle...

12/09/2022

Today on The Waking: "Broken Home," a new flash essay by Alan Schulte. ⁠
⁠
"Ten years after the divorce, my mother had saved enough to put a down payment on the turn-of-the-century farmhouse. It is a work in progress, but it is ours."

Read more:

Broken Home by Alan Schulte My father sprawls at the kitchen table. It’s not really a table, but a repurposed and weather-beaten wooden spool, four feet across, the kind used for wound industrial-gauge wire. My sister makes herself small, cross-legged on the floor as she twists the frayed strands ...

11/09/2022

Now Available for Pre-Order!

Issue 63/64: Regeneration is an extra-long, double issue featuring work from our general queues and annual prize anthology, including the winners of our poetry, fiction, and nonfiction contests along with 20 additional finalists.

Don't miss work by Marianne Jay Erhardt, Jemimah Wei, Elisávet Makridis, and many more!

Shop: https://bit.ly/3TTO4QF

09/09/2022

Up today on The Waking: "To Have and To Hold," new flash fiction by Sacha Bissonnette.

"I lie with Marcia on my side, perfectly still. I want to be with her. I want to be one of her rules."

Read more:

To Have and To Hold by Sacha Bissonnette My Tuesdays are not like my Thursdays. On Tuesdays, Shelly and I drink fast and to the point, aware of the small moments, but we bully right through them. The small moments have never really been our thing. Our thing is to get fu**ed up fast, together, ritual...

08/09/2022

After a summer hiatus, The Waking returns this fall with all new content!

Watch this space over the next few weeks for flash fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Sacha Bissonnette, Alan Schulte, Carla Riccio, Allie Dixon, Gabriel Thibodeau, Elizabeth Lerman, Claudia Schatz, and Andrew Cominelli.

03/09/2022

SUBMISSION OPPORTUNITY!

Notes Editor Josh MacIvor-Andersen is compiling a second tree-themed anthology for OUTPOST19.

Rooted Two: Best New Arboreal Nonfiction is seeking original tree-related nonfiction up to 7000 words.

Read more: https://bit.ly/3RkVla2

02/09/2022

ICYMI: Waking Flash Prose Prize Update!⁠
⁠
Our readers have made their selections and sent nine finalists to our final judge, Cherie Nelson. ⁠
⁠
Look out for an official announcement of the winner, runner-up, and finalists coming later this month!

31/08/2022

Slow down. Read deeply. Live awake.

https://bit.ly/3cki07D

29/08/2022

At Ruminate, we love slowing down and experiencing the small joys. That's why letterpress has always been something we value deeply. If you're interested in limited-edition prints, they're all on sale in our shop: https://bit.ly/3CAYlem

26/08/2022

On this we're thinking of Issue 25: Unraveling the Dark. This issue featured Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize winner 's "Necessary Work."

On sale now for 50% off with code: CONTRIB50

15/08/2022

We're clearing out back issues! Use the code CONTRIB50 to get 50% off issues 1-30.

13/08/2022

MUGS! MUGS! MUGS!
$4! | $4! | $4!

https://bit.ly/3d8REp0

12/08/2022

"Gladiolus" by Michael Dechane (.dechane) won our Broadside Poetry Prize in 2020. This limited edition hand-pressed broadside is the gorgeous result! Now only $10 at our shop: https://bit.ly/3zWHWyZ

10/08/2022

Have you stopped by the Ruminate shop recently? We have some fabulous sales on our prize bundles!

Get more, pay less: https://bit.ly/3abFKti

08/08/2022

Today, we're ecstatic to finally announce the results of the 2022 Poetry Prize, judged by Rajiv Mohabir.

First Place: "Little Alps of Grief" by Elisávet Makridis

Runner-Up: "The Elephant" by Amanda Hawkins

Honorable Mention: "Why Write Another Poem About the Moon" by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

Read more: https://bit.ly/3bFbzLP

06/08/2022

This limited edition print is on sale in our shop for $25 right now! Each print is hand-signed and numbered by the artist (.art) and includes a certificate of authenticity. The materials used are waterproof, archival inks and acid-free archival 100% cotton rag paper. This print measures 11 x 14 inches.

https://bit.ly/3SniIBc

04/08/2022

As we continue the judging for our 2022 Flash Prose Prize, we're looking back at our 2021 winners. Next up, "Sitting Quiet" by Kianna Greene. Judged by JJ Peña (.pena.10485/).

Enjoy the story here: https://bit.ly/3S5ahtY