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The NightWriter Review

The literary journal for writers with day jobs. And that’s all of us.

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If you have any questions or concerns, please contact SLO NightWriters at slonightwriters.org.

Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Poetry From The 805:

2025 Golden Quill Contest Winners!

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Golden Quill Writing Contest! Winners will receive a cash prize and publication in 2025 issue of The NightWriter Review. With the large number of submissions we received and the high quality of the work, our decisions were incredibly difficult to make. We will celebrate the … Read More

“Falling” by Barbara Swihart Miller

I feel like I am falling. Surrounded by the darkest abyss, I am drowning. Weighted limbs are pulling me under, Aided by terrible foes: Worry Anxiety Responsibility Time. The inky blackness is closing in, Choking the life right from me. Above me is a light. Stretching my hands I long to touch the unreachable: Solitude … Read More

“Inventor’s Domain” by C.M. Pickard

An inventor’s paradise—hand built, secluded down the shadowed track where the sun’s final rays caress overgrown foliage and dirt-streaked glass, fixed into the ramshackle shed. gray, plastic cord hung on weathered poles led to a sheltered engine, powered by oil that shook the walls and rattled its windows —embedded hinges above their panes hint at … Read More

“One Last Secret to Tell” by Morgan Chalfant

I had one last secret to tell words I think you knew but now I’m not sure you do with the state you left that molten chain in a summer rain that bound us warmly and never burned us I had one last secret to tell under the eaves, me falling like the leaves for … Read More

“Ethereal Garden” by Cathy Joyce Lee

Walking naked in petaled pastels The veil between sunrise and sunset Envelops my body in brush-stroked colors Wrapping, spinning from dawn to dusk Such a youthful figure in the shadows of noon I feel my skin so soft and supple The breeze spins and eddies And teases my hair with puerile joy But I look … Read More

“Grandmaster” by Jen Schneider

he learned to read before the age of two. he completed his first NY Times Crossword alone on his tenth birthday. he’d celebrate the birthdays of all U.S. presidents with a sixty-second serenade. he learned to ignore DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS signs years after he walked out the door of his childhood home. … Read More

“The Avalanche and the Whale” by Kenneth D. Reimer

Two of my favorite photographs do not exist, and they never have. This is not so much a paradox as it is a statement of philosophy. Occasionally in my travels, there have been moments that have transpired so quickly it was impossible to experience them as a participant and also capture them in a photograph. … Read More

“Scalpels and Sledges” by M.R. Lehman Wiens

Dr. Baird delivers a baby boy on a Thursday in November, his fourteenth baby that month. Baird catches him, gloved hands moving entirely on muscle memory. His thoughts are elsewhere, flitting between the leaking shower head in the guest bathroom and the lingering lisp on his daughter’s tongue that will require speech therapy and the … Read More

“We Were Guests” by Kevin Carver

After the algae bloomed Our local sea lions were slowly driven mad Their minds infected by some unseen toxin. Hands on hips, I stood staring. Just yesterday. Those sea lions stranded on the sand. Nothing you can do really. A polite park ranger told me: Stand back, give them room to die. I didn’t see … Read More

“Liberty Lake” by Sarah Samarbaf

I stare at the moonlight of the river, Even it inflicts the suffering, I shiver. A broken image, devoid of all human desire, As if a vampire drained him and even wants higher. Condemned to be powerless for rest of his life, Every rescue path leads him to rope, gun or even knife. I’m terrified … Read More

“Mastiff” by Blayne Waterloo

Today’s peace is retaliation for Those decades of unease – but At a price. My spirit racks the Chain fence of this physical form, Simple as breathing. Always has been. Having cut my teeth on trespassers and Larcenists makes me cower from a timid Hand, though I crave it and employ my own. On my … Read More

“Stumbling” by Philip Berry

World gaps, liminal spaces Glass cages for the dopamine-low A tree split by lightning, Dare you extend a hand, touch its raw flesh? Puddle-dust, obscuring infinite depth Questions not asked, your grandparents’ secrets, Histories or heroism too terrible to reveal The brick that crumbles when isolated Naked frailty, quickly unseen Behind carved privet The state’s … Read More

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