Margaret Spilman

Margaret Spilman was born in West Virginia, raised in Kansas, and currently lives in the Bay Area. She has an MFA from San Francisco State University where she was Fiction Editor for Fourteen Hills. She is a former PEN Emerging Voices Fellow and her story “Muscle Memory” won the James Kirkwood Literary Prize. She has been translated into Italian and her stories have appeared in the likes of Indicia, The Rattling Wall, Newtown Literary, and Catapult.

Hedge Apple Wine

I haven’t had breakfast yet. Ramona said I got up too late. I would have settled for lunch, but it is already past lunch too. There is nothing in the fridge but spoiled onions and a Country Crock tub full of aging pineapple. It hasn’t been cut right so I hurt my teeth on the hard parts. Soft teeth, sensitive. That has always been my main problem, so I’m told. Too sensitive.
  • Issue 50, June 2021
  • Short Story
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Weigh Her Down, See How She Moves

Shadrach, Ohio, remembers my family. Remembers me. On the rare occasions when I come back to visit the museum that once was our house, more than one hand has found its way to my shoulder to pat comfort. It’s a rhythm I’ve known since I was five years old. Since the day my little sister Dorothy was born.
She wasn’t the first baby born with Mylar’s Syndrome, not by a long shot.
  • Issue 49, May 2021
  • Long Short Story
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