PRESS II PRESS

WORDS AND ART FOR THE FUTURE

 

no social media. word of mouth only. like fight club? yeah, but for art.

 

The Beautiful Pause Prize 2027 Opens november 15!

fiction manuscripts wanted

Make a beautiful pause. Submit November 15, 2026 - May 1st, 2027.

learn more about the beautiful Pause prize contest
 

order vestige

Winner of the 2025 Beautiful Pause Prize.

Poems by Olivia Pierce Graham.

vestige

From “Elbow Rom”, by Suchitra Sukumar, April 2026, Press Pause V12

browse V12


 

featured from the family room

The Cauldron

Featured
The Other Mermaid
The Other Mermaid

by Sohana Manzoor

In the days after she left, the sea appeared colorless and cold to me. I had little interest in diving the shipwrecks. Mila sulked around, but I was too miserable to notice her.

Read more →
Tantalus of Eden
Tantalus of Eden

by Vincent Santino Smarra

My mouth is around the apple, sickly sweet juice from the already exposed bit mixing with spit that keeps coming. I chew.

Read more →
Daughter of Salt
Daughter of Salt

by Alexandra Lilley

You are made of salt
like the rest of us.

Read more →

the reading corner

Featured
Interview with Jennifer A. Howard, Flash Fiction Extraordinaire
Interview with Jennifer A. Howard, Flash Fiction Extraordinaire
Read more →

Read more book reviews, book recommendations, etc in The Reading Corner of The Family Room

press play

Featured
Today, You’re Vincent Vega From Pulp Fiction in That “Say ‘What’ Again” Scene
Today, You’re Vincent Vega From Pulp Fiction in That “Say ‘What’ Again” Scene

by Travis Flatt

“My, bad,” you say, and lean down to fish out the briefcase. Your actual line is: “We’re happy.”

Read more →
The Stars are Perfect
The Stars are Perfect

by Cooper Green

It felt like we had a map, a route we discussed over and over, a clear view of how to extricate ourselves. And yet, we somehow kept ending up at the same dead end, wrapped around each other and for those brief, sweet moments, so immeasurably happy.

Read more →
Stradivarius
Stradivarius

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Conventional sparks flying but nothing catches fire. Perfunctory, they slap the audience around.

Read more →
Chewing the Scenery
Chewing the Scenery

by Tanya Visceglia

For a conflict-averse society, Taiwan certainly loves to roll around in high drama, both in art and life. Even a restaurant meal with friends is ripe with dramatic potential. We fight for the privilege of treating our companions, during which the bill is yanked back and forth with cries of protest: “No, you paid last time.” “You can pay next time!” The winner of the bill-grab then races to the cash register, slapping money onto the counter. The winner of the bill-grab then races to the cash register, slapping money onto the counter… This is a friendly game everyone understands.

Read more →

Read more from Press Play in The Family Room

the great pause

The Great Pause
once forest creatures
once forest creatures

by david woodward

waiting for the sun
in your shadowy

world where no one
yet knows you

Read more →
Diamonds
Diamonds

by Orly Berkowitz-Henkin

i will pick him up, drive him to his places.
he will not know mine

Read more →
Attachment Disorders
Attachment Disorders

by Alice Hatcher

I woke up refreshed, with a clarity of vision that allowed me to see just how ill-prepared I was to protect my house.

Read more →
Take it, then leave me (An animation)
Take it, then leave me (An animation)

by Nox Nackman

Did my creations make you mad?

Read more →
People in Beverly Hills
People in Beverly Hills

by Francesca Spiegel

That’s all these windows will ever know, flat as a tradwife Instagram account that only knows spatulas, cookie dough and frilly apron; flat as the shoe of a waitress.

Read more →
Cycles
Cycles

by Bonnie Day

If I felt like going at full speed, I would pedal as fast as I could until my breath came in fits and a stitch crackled in my side. Or I could pedal so slowly that a little old lady could pass me by. Or I could stop, once, twice, even three times. Sip water and stare into the field. Alone was good. It was what I wanted. And so, we both biked alone.

Read more →
Merrily
Merrily

by Linda Griffin

I lived with strangers. Some of them were related to me. Some were not. I don’t know if any of them loved me. They never said.

Read more →
Dream Girl
Dream Girl

by Victoria Krammen Butler

She could still sense whispers of the weeks, months and years she’d experienced in stories before, but she never longed for them. That was another rule: she should remain in the present. The fragments were enough to know she existed, and that in itself was all she needed. She liked it that way. Though, again, she wasn’t sure if there even were other ways. 

Read more →
 
 

support press pause in our store

Featured
Press Pause Volume 12
Quick View
Press Pause Volume 12
$14.00

Fiction by…
Ali Pensky
Anne Baldo
Jonathan Berzer
Shane Combs
Zachary Holmes Spence
Zimuzo K. Okeke
Suchitra Sukumar
Kendall Teare
Karen Uhlmann
Sona Verdi

Poetry by…
Lauren Arienzale
Shannon Cates
Christopher Cokinos
Émilie Galindo
Vivian Kao
James King
Kale Hensley
Cassund Olivier
Kate Polak
Sarah Dickenson Snyder
Will Sharp

Nonfiction by…
Ronnie Ashline
Chris Bailey
Violet Piper
Kaylie Saidin

Art by…
Charles deVries
KJ Hannah Greenberg
Lee Johnson
Tim Lane
Nuala McEvoy
Michael Noonan
Paul Rabinowitz

Music by…
Joe Sikelianos & Kat White

Read more →
IMG_5923 2.jpeg
Quick View
Murals
$25.00

A collaboration like no other, from The Hooghly Review in India and a former Press Pause contributor.

In the height of 2025, former contributor Francois Bereaud asked us to help him get this beautiful book into the physical world. And finally, we did.

Already in bookstores in San Diego, Murals is a collection of writing and murals from around the world, curated by Francois and loved by the many contributors in its pages.

<><><>

Do you have a book you want help bringing (lovingly) into the physical world? Reach out to info@presspausepress.org and ask about our Bookshepherding program.

Read more →
2.png
Quick View
Vestige
$16.00

Winner of the 2025 Beautiful Pause Prize (for poetry)

This book reveres the unraveling and regeneration of one poet’s resilience and hard-earned identity through the lens of feminine experience and mental illness.

Each poem endures the same affliction: a speaker whose reality is in a constant cycle of 

becoming 

and 

unbecoming.

Read more →
A Handful of Earth by Jesse Curran - Winner of the 2024 Beautiful Pause Prize
Quick View
A Handful of Earth by Jesse Curran - Winner of the 2024 Beautiful Pause Prize
$17.99

This is Claire’s last summer. Pushing past her regrets and grief, she decides to travel to Italy to paint, to revel in the sun and wine and sea and colors before she ends her own life, on her own terms. A Handful of Earth follows terminally ill Claire as she reunites with a lover, reconnects with an old friend, and falls back in love with Italy, all while coming to terms with the relationship between body and environment and the damage that has been inflicted upon her by the same earth she loves so deeply. A Handful of Earth is a lyrical novel and eco-lament whose bright and rhythmic sweeping prose feels like sand slipping through your fingers, leaving you ready to start all over again.

With an introduction by author Jesse Curran and illustrations by Nina Martinez.

A beauty like no other.

<>

Tomorrow I’ll wake to a new world, to the old world. Tomorrow, if I’m lucky, I’ll wake. But not everyday. Soon I’ll do what I’ve come to do. It’s calling me.

To kill: to deprive of life in any manner, to destroy, to do away with, to extinguish. To overcome completely or with irresistible effect.

Wine, sunlight, song. Irresistible effect.

It’s calling me.

Read more →
 
 

Support Press Pause by Donating

donate TO press pause
 
43092442371_d57b1677fb_o.png
 

Press Pause Press is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization kept alive through public support.