On a pink-gray highway outside The Badlands near Wall, South Dakota, a Bronco passes in the slow lane, cigarette smoke pours thru its cracked window. There’s a billboard for a missing girl. Another for a fried chicken sandwich. Roadside attractions, kiosks, & squat-box trailers dot the horizon. https://americanliteraryreview.com/2026/10/06/flash-flood-winner-october-2026-bryce-berkowitz/

Memories plump in red acidic soil. David taught me that. How the past constructs the present through slope and trellis. How histories ripen off the vine. “I’m growing magic grapes,” David said.

There was a deep and narrow gorge in upstate New York where all the millennials came to kill themselves. It started with one man who smashed his car through a wooden safety rail, launching himself into the grinning siltstone gash. Soon there was a twisted line of vehicles eager to do the same.

On the phone she said her hotel might be better. “I can’t do the house,” she said. “It’s too intimate and familiar. I left a key at the front desk.” I am in the elevator thinking of this conversation. I remind myself how familiar I am with intimate details of her.

There was a full-grown woman in my omelette today. I hadn’t been expecting her. Hadn’t wanted any more protein for breakfast than a cooked yolk or two—if I had, I’d have made bacon.

The gauzy wedding mandaps, laden by the sea, shimmered like they would in a glossy magazine. The sunlight bounced off every metallic surface possible—bangles, chair backs even the goddamn cocktail stirrers.

Announcing the winners of the 2026 American Literary Review Awards

Your sister has killed you six times. Before she resorted to unnecessary violence, she handled you gently...

Featuring work by Nancy Huggett, Sophie Klahr, and Catherine Reedy.