Antonia Piedmonte-Lang
April 13, 2026
literature - detroit city
It didn’t quite make sense to me when they said that the nightmare that ruined everything, split time in half, put different pieces of me in different places, was gonna be over. I wasn’t sure what it meant. Where did everyone go?..
Walter Lucken IV
February 10, 2025
literature - detroit city
Lux Laine
November 4, 2024
literature - detroit city
Setting foot into The Barbershop’s larval form on May 24th, I was met with the remnants of what once was, surely, a barbershop. The faded pink walls, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and large basins of granite counter-top which served as pedestals for chemical innovations destined to become groundwater. Despite this tragic beauty, I knew it all had to go, as I was there to meet with founder Jack Jacket to discuss possibilities for the soon-to-be gallery’s first show...
Jackson Gifford
August 19, 2024
literature, culture - detroit city
The play begins with the title track for the show, James Fauntleroy’s "Is it Morning Yet.” The lights come to a slow rise at the end of the song. The commotion of the market begins. QUINTERIUS enters with the first wave of people dressed in his uniform for the day–a lazily put together Santa Clause costume–beard and all...
a play by will street
February 6, 2023
theater, literature - detroit city
Like I was saying this was one of those nights that was so cold all you saw moving was the steam from the sewer. Every other animal besides us knows to get inside and stay there when it’s that cold. I had spent most of my shift in the valet booth reading, punctuated with the occasional trip out back to smoke a cigarette with the cooks from the hotel bar. Wasn’t really making any money but I still had the clock goin. Interestingly enough, slow nights like this was when me and the guys got along best, so we hadn’t got into it or anything that night. I got a cheeseburger from the hotel bar for my “lunch” and about halfway through it one of the guys came in, we’ll call him Mo...
Walter Lucken IV
February 7, 2022
literature - detroit city
Shortly after Samuel Davidson’s absence, five more workers disappeared and fearing it a trend, the boss became concerned about losing the contract. When none of the workers returned his calls and he received angry protests as to why trash had not been picked up in certain locations, he panicked and began the arduous process of covering for the missing workers himself. Unable to manage the workload, the company lost contracts, and soon enough, what remaining workers stayed began to drift away and the company disintegrated...
This short story explores the possibility of upending a system without the need for violence or destruction. What happens when people collectively reject a system built on their own exploitation?..
Rey Hinojosa
October 18, 2021
literature - detroit city
The machines came to gnash their teeth, and bite at me, in the winter of 2017. My sister with light blue blush, and the poison ivy, wound round her face in mourning, was eaten the day before. And our brother, smoke-blackened wedding chapel, dangling snaggle-toothed staircase, collided with ground, hardened mud and frosty dew, just the day before that...
A poem written from the perspective of an old house and an accompanying personal essay...
Christiana Laine
November 23, 2020
literature - detroit city
Reader, don't hesitate on wondering whether or not this narrative is flirting with the existing conditions of Detroit, or for that matter any other city. It is. And on purpose. That's the point. The narrative however, like any science fiction story, is open to interpretation. I'm not necessarily creating a pessimistic nor an optimistic narrative. I'm creating an alternative environment by simply suggesting possibilities based on existing conditions.
José Arturo Joglar-Cadilla
October 26, 2020
architecture, literature - detroit city