Project MUSE®: North Dakota Quarterly - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in North Dakota Quarterly.daily12026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 90 (2023) through current issueLatest Articles: North Dakota QuarterlyTWOProject MUSE®North Dakota Quarterly2836-175X0029-277XLatest articles in North Dakota Quarterly. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Editors' Note
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964068
<p></p>
First, we would like to thank all the incredible talent that submitted to the North Dakota Quarterly. This magazine could not be made without our contributors; we are honored to have been trusted with their work.To honor their work, it is our duty to arrange these pieces in a thoughtful way. As students, we are handed the pieces from NDQ's editors and asked to think about how to sequence them around a theme and tone. We also consider cohesion and how to present works to draw the reader deeper into the issue. We hope that through our efforts, the readers fall into these literary works, and, before they realize it, they have finished the last page.For this spring issue, we ordered pieces around the theme of death and
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallEditors' Note2025-07-03text/htmlen-USEditors' Note2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®35012026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Great Gatsby, North Dakotan
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964070
<p></p>
Jay Gatsby. If West Egg, Long Island, had a king, it would be he: bootlegger, party thrower, romantic. He's got a killer smile and an affected charm; he's rich and as profligate as it gets. Every weekend, he treats his guests from the city to an orchestra and cocktails and champagne, to two dinners, the second after midnight. He throws silk shirts down like angels to show off before Daisy, his now-married first love, moving her to say, with tears of regret, "They're beautiful shirts." He's also a poser and a liar. His real name is James Gatz, a German surname that can mean either "companion" or the dodgier "alleyway." And he's—how could I have forgotten this?—from North Dakota. Fitzgerald chose to give his doomed
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallGreat Gatsby, North Dakotan2025-07-03text/htmlen-USGreat Gatsby, North Dakotan2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®124462026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Two visual poems from Lovers Leap
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964073
<p></p>
These visual poems are excerpted from a work in progress, a metafictional novel called Lovers Leap. They are my attempt to bring together two phenomena that have often seemed different to me but ultimately spring from the same source: a) human creativity using words, images, and games of chance, and b) the nonhuman, infinite creativity of nature itself. These four images show two versions of the poems, one without nontextual visual elements, as if having been prepared for traditional publication by the book's (fictional) editor, and the other including visuals that have been added, intentionally or not, by the book's (fictional) author.The words and phrases come from two earlier works in a planned trilogy, the
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallTwo visual poems from Lovers Leap2025-07-03text/htmlen-USTwo visual poems from Lovers Leap2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®28562026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Cords, and: Cape Forchu, Nova Scotia
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964077
<p></p>
for Larry
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallCords, and: Cape Forchu, Nova Scotia2025-07-03text/htmlen-USCords, and: Cape Forchu, Nova Scotia2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®92002026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Rum Raisin Ice Cream, and: Aren't All Children's Hospitals Basically Haunted Houses, and: Broken Eggs
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964078
<p></p>
He returns from his morning walk, breaks and pulses three with the hand blender, one for each year of her life. He calls for her to come down. He crisps the scramble and paints a bloody smile on. He never guessed that cooking for her in the morning would make him so content. Or that dicing the carrots, steaming the peas, mincing the broccoli with her would be so soothing. He nurtures her miles of eczema even though she hates the ointments and he the smell. She giggles at the ketchup smile and shows off her own broken-window grin. The tooth fairy gives more because of inflation now. No more coins, only bills. She loves to watch the veggie bits rattle into the pot, the broth swoop in and drown them and then they rise
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallRum Raisin Ice Cream, and: Aren't All Children's Hospitals Basically Haunted Houses, and: Broken Eggs2025-07-03text/htmlen-USRum Raisin Ice Cream, and: Aren't All Children's Hospitals Basically Haunted Houses, and: Broken Eggs2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®63962026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03I Remember Charlie
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964079
<p></p>
for Charlie Purcell
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallI Remember Charlie2025-07-03text/htmlen-USI Remember Charlie2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®43502026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03How Many Miles Away is Heaven?, and: The Day the Devil Brought Us to Church, and: Choices, and: It's Elemental
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964080
<p></p>
my five-year-old son asks after I've answered the distance between us & the sun & the moon. We're driving home from preschool, the chocolate pudding residue still clinging to his chin in the rearview mirror. Heaven is a spiritual place, not a physical place, Buddy, I say, as I brake at a stop sign. He tilts his head, thinking. When we get there, will the streets be made of gold? Yes, I say. Will there be food? he asks. Yep, a huge banquet, a never-ending party. His eyes widen. Wow, I can't wait until I go there.death:opening the car doorto a new playgroundTonight, my husband is putting our son to bed. I overhear their conversation from the hallway. Dad, wouldn't it be great if when I turned six, I went to heaven? A
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallHow Many Miles Away is Heaven?, and: The Day the Devil Brought Us to Church, and: Choices, and: It's Elemental2025-07-03text/htmlen-USHow Many Miles Away is Heaven?, and: The Day the Devil Brought Us to Church, and: Choices, and: It's Elemental2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®62292026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Zero-Zero Star
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964084
<p></p>
Her coat. Deceptively heavy. Routinely full of soft grey yarn, pine needles, pebbles, coins, bottle caps—atattered brown leaf torn along one brittle edge of dried-up vein—playground detritus gingerly fished from soggy laundry room pockets. Once I even inadvertently threw away part of a family (What happened to father pinecone and little baby-guy!?). Every now and then I found myself joking (to other nodding parents) that she seemed incapable of it: leaving the ground on the ground.No one wants to E. Bishop their wallet, youth, reputation—but the hips, thighs, that last five or ten pounds before bathing suit season? Everyone's raring to shed. The tough coach telling other hesitant tough guys, hey you got this buddy.
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallZero-Zero Star2025-07-03text/htmlen-USZero-Zero Star2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®389442026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03The Truth Within
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964087
<p></p>
MATchED MAsculiNe alLURES EXTRAmarital DAMsEl. inGENIUoS goodWIFE TRACkED husbAND NOTicED SLipperY falsiFICaTIONS & (ampersAND) deCeptiONS.SHrEwishly CAterWaulS: "FRAUDulent sCoUndRel! suBstAnDard BlAckguarD" & dePARTS MiscARRIAGE. MAsculiNe THEreupoN be-MOANS BEcomING UNMATchED & lONElY (one oversEXed ex).NEWer FEMale & anOTHER NEWer FEM obSErvE LONEly MAscu-LinE HArborS CHARisMa. JOvialitY! EnJOYment! (joy twice). HOW-ever (how?) THEse NEWest FEMaleS NOTicE ClUES REgarding MAscuLinE transgresSIoNS. whereWITH UNexPURGatED IRritablE, THEse NEWest FEMaleS EXit, EXit (two more diSAppointeD & diS- mAyeD exes).ONcE FLIRTatious MAsculiNe fILLS (is ill WITHin) RemorsefUlnESs SHAMEful ACTionS, thereAFTER BEcomING
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallThe Truth Within2025-07-03text/htmlen-USThe Truth Within2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®63192026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03On Wounds and Silence
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964091
<p></p>
Like in the movies, my life flashes before my eyes and all I can do, as I stare at ashed photographs and burnt mugs—like gusts of flame from a burning house—is try to catch them in unspoken words.I think it's time to come out of the room. The kids have been gone for some time and the house is quiet. I don't even know how long I've been in here. My muscles are so tense it takes me a moment to get out of bed. I walk downstairs to the living room and lay on the couch, take a big, slow breath, and sit.In a moment, Em walks through the door. She doesn't have the kids. She must've left them at her mom's to give us a break. I feel bad for leaving her with them but she knows the deal. She knows how tough it is to simply be
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallOn Wounds and Silence2025-07-03text/htmlen-USOn Wounds and Silence2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®290672026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03The Boilermaker's Wife
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964092
<p></p>
He turned into glittery dust the morning he died, or at least that is what she liked to believe. It was easier to picture it that way, to imagine his atoms scattering in the air like tiny, sparkling fragments that would drift away forever. A beautiful image, almost. Certainly better than the reality she was presented with, the one she'd rather forget.The explosion at the coal plant dominated the local news for weeks. The reporters interviewed everyone they could find, asking neighbors if they'd heard, felt, or seen the blast. It was a synthetic gas explosion, they'd say over and over, as if the word "synthetic" somehow made it sound cleaner, more mechanical. But she knew better. The destruction was raw and
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallThe Boilermaker's Wife2025-07-03text/htmlen-USThe Boilermaker's Wife2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®117992026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03What Can Happen in Ohio
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964095
<p></p>
Ruthless serial killings, often in prelude to cannibalism. Attacks by shrieking mythic creatures. Oppression by cloned tyrants. Electrocution followed by resurrection and epiphany. Racist aggressions leading to suicide. Bombing of multiple power plants. Doomed attempts to reconstitute government following civil war. Numerous cases of crippling addiction. And, nothing much for 946 pages capped off by a deranged MAGA-adherent committing home invasion in search of lemon meringue pie.These are salient elements of nine novels, out of roughly four hundred and forty deemed "notable" (or in some cases even "best"), by the New York Times (NYT) book review staff over the past ten years. Only these nine share the feature that
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallWhat Can Happen in Ohio2025-07-03text/htmlen-USWhat Can Happen in Ohio2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®479712026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03I Think They're Shooting at Us
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964096
<p></p>
The night before the invasion, I was set on watch behind a .50 caliber machine gun I had never fired. The weapon system was mounted atop a Humvee within plain view of the border, and I along with it. Without having been asked, I described the obvious downside of this situation as I relieved the departing Marine on watch, embellishing my perspective with a select few curse words thrown in for emphasis, as was our way of speaking. The departing Marine, eager to shut himself away in a sleeping bag with Sleep itself as his only bedfellow, was a lance corporal from the Combined Anti-Armor Team, which implied that his training consisted almost entirely of using this killing apparatus. He shrugged, unconcerned by my
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallI Think They're Shooting at Us2025-07-03text/htmlen-USI Think They're Shooting at Us2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®436292026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Kayembé, and: Lament for the little banana
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964097
<p></p>
Prince of minerals, first of the dead buried in the city of the wind
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallKayembé, and: Lament for the little banana2025-07-03text/htmlen-USKayembé, and: Lament for the little banana2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®33982026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03The Amazons
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964106
<p></p>
I liked warm rooms. I didn't like math homework. I didn't yet know if I liked children. Weather was something to accept. You couldn't think about it so much. Friends were people who were often worse than you—rudderless, or ugly, or mean. Greta and Bobbie were my friends. I didn't like to be near the water, but the snow was all right—huge banks of it. That was all right. I loved the distortions of near-sleep. Near-sleep, and the whistling of your own stuffed nose, which sounded like a distant scream when half-dreaming and bleary. Sleep, and to be courted by it. It was almost midwinter, and it was the last lunch before the holidays. Greta bit into an apple. Bobbie ate some bread and some soup. She pointed to a
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallThe Amazons2025-07-03text/htmlen-USThe Amazons2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®158082026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Resurrection
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964111
<p></p>
I blame any inaccuracies in the following narrative on the downpour in Porto, Portugal, that streaked my glasses and blurred my vision.Large wooden panels with splashy, bright designs featuring the word Trindade surrounded the imposing, soot-stained building, nearly hiding it from view. My wife and I slogged through the rain as it bounced aslant off the wood. We imagined that inside we'd learn all about the Caribbean island of Trinidad that lives with its friend Tobago. But after going through the opening in the plywood fencing, we discovered we were inside yet another famous old church, and that Trindade means Trinity in Portuguese. We'd been wandering around, searching for an out-of-the-way church near the river
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallResurrection2025-07-03text/htmlen-USResurrection2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®256412026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03View from Living Room G320 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964115
<p></p>
From a dark corner she looks straight at you, unblinking, and unable to turn away. After taking in the bright rotating modern art in the Target Wing you stumble here and squint into the Living Rooms for a trip back in time. The art in Living Room G320 stands protected under dimmed light and shadows. The crouching dragon wall sconces emit a dusky glow that conceals the dust gathering over the stately cypress carvings and the mosslike velvet upholstery.Do you see her? That geisha photo on the far wall directly in front of you framed in striking rippled wood. The catalog states, "Picture frame from the Prindle House, 1900–1914. John S. Bradstreet. Sugi wood."1 Bradstreet made the frame, but the geisha makes you look.
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallView from Living Room G320 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art2025-07-03text/htmlen-USView from Living Room G320 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®331552026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03The Day I Ran Faster Than God, and: Driving II
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964116
<p></p>
After Will
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallThe Day I Ran Faster Than God, and: Driving II2025-07-03text/htmlen-USThe Day I Ran Faster Than God, and: Driving II2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®52352026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Whose Story?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964120
<p></p>
My wife reminds me I always wanted to be a writer.Write, she says. Moaning about how much you miss teaching is driving me crazy.I left teaching because a student punched me. I sued. The system bought me off with a severance package. I've got free time now.I take my wife's advice. I write ten stories about teachers and teaching, fictionalized versions of things I've heard about or experienced myself. I join a writer's group and pass them around. People are encouraging. More than one said, I never knew what teachers go through.I pay an editor to edit them. I contact a company that designs books, and I upload it on Amazon. I buy some advertising, so it's out there and I'm happy. It's gotten some good reviews. I
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallWhose Story?2025-07-03text/htmlen-USWhose Story?2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®416742026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03Author Biographies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126
<p></p>
alicia aranyi is an American-Jewish Writer and Artist who is receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan Honors in Psychology and Creative Writing and Literature.stephen barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. He attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, and published in numerous journals, both print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno.jenn blair is the author of Face Cut Out For Locket (Brick Road Poetry Press) and Malcontent (Press Americana). Her poetry has been published in the Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Copper Nickel
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/964126">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-14T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/862/image/coversmallAuthor Biographies2025-07-03text/htmlen-USAuthor Biographies2025-07-032025TWOProject MUSE®256412026-05-14T00:00:00-05:002025-07-03