Understanding the Family: A Guide for Clinicians

Lisette and Gabe’s father went missing when they were nine and seven and never came back or called. Lisette remembered him like this: a stocky figure in a white undershirt, exhaling smoke, watching wrestling on TV and winking down at her where she sat on the carpet. Reading the paper with glasses on. Cutting a callus off the ball of his foot. Gradually they and their mother began...

To conclude their experience interning for The Southeast Review, Diana Calderón, Arissa Cushnie, and Grant Wendt searched the archives for covers and writings they thought best represented SER before we changed our name. The following pieces are from our years as SUN DOG.

From SUN DOG, Vol. 5, 1983

"Blowing Up"

by Barbara Hamby

Tonight she was going to blow the whole place, herself included, straight to hell. Dynamite. “I nee...

All Hermits Died on Thursday

The six hermits of the Nantahala region of North Carolina died mysteriously yesterday. On this day, March 20th, 1899, the town elders had planned to gather the hermits together for the first time to beg their collective advice on the planned railroad and various omens of the new century.

Beard of the Ages

March 21.—The hermit of Granite City, Hoyle Thompson, choked to death on his own beard on Thursda...

Resurrection

Perhaps you know this scene. The man in black—others refer to him as the creature or the monster—approaches me in the laboratory, Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Pretorius at my sides. The man in black reaches out his thick arms, puts his strange, shiny hands on me. He pats my hand like he’s trying to guess the contents of a wrapped box. Friend, he calls me. When I pull back from him, he grabs hold of my arm. When I screa...

Field Survey

His name was Michael and he was looking up at something outside of the frame of the picture and his grinning white teeth were visible through the darkness of his beard. She scrolled down.

Body type: Athletic.

Pets: Dog.

Occupation: Field of Education.

Political leanings: I’ll tell you once I know you.

Well, that wasn’t very helpful. She opened the messenger function, clicked on the text box and watched the cursor blink...

Letter to My Sister

I lack some imagination because when I think about where you’ve gone I imagine you are wearing a white robe and sitting cross-legged in a Southern California desert. Your leader is a white man with long brown hair who wears sandals. When he’s not leading prayer circles he’s getting you all pregnant. Everyone has given up their money because who needs money when you’re on your way to Planet Heaven. I know—it’...

Blood Distance

I. Thi

There had been nights when they’d wished themselves twins. Twins, at least, could be expected to share a connection deeper than skin, wrought through some inexorable force of nature. Rural superstition might be willing to accept the peculiarities of twins. But alas they were related only by their parents’ marriage and not by blood, which was what really counted as far as any villager was concerned, and so t...

Alex Brenner was a finalist for our 2017 Short-Short Story Contest. Her piece "Shpykiv" originally appeared in The Southeast Review 36.1.

Shpykiv

            Stefania hated English. The hard R’s hurt her jawbone. The W’s were impossible. She did not want to spend her entire life asking for vater. It was easier to remain mute than to speak and betray her mind, which thought firmly...

The Farmhouse

In the time since Jackie’s death, Laura has learned the truth of existing alone. It isn’t so hard. It means keeping busy. The farmhouse is much too large for one person. Daily, there is water to collect and boil; there are tools to clean, greens to forage, rugs to be hung over the rail and swatted with an old badminton racket. 

But now it’s cold—November in northeastern Canada. Too cold to stray far from the house....

Ernie Wang resides in Las Vegas. He grew up in Japan, and he is ethnically Japanese and Chinese. He holds an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and his fiction and nonfiction appear in McSweeney's Quarterly, The Threepenny Review, PEN America Best Debut Short Stories, and others.

Hiroshi's Light

They finally send for me in early 1945. By then, we had come to believe they chose to overlook us, those of us living insign...