Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. We’re standing on some corner in downtown Richmond: me, my two friends, a pair of women, and their male friend we had met...
This Valentine's Day, Death Club Radio's Phil Ford considers the doomed romantic tradition of the Lover's Leap, and asks: where did this macabre folk legend come from? I like to think I am a practical, sensible person -- although many have told me otherwise -- but I still can’t fathom why two forlorn fools would jump off a cliff for love. Who the...
In this special Black Friday edition of RVA Reader, Phil Ford tells us all about his long-running obsession with the time so long ago that meat rained down from a clear sky in Kentucky. It is that obsessive moment when you discover something you are compelled to completely explore, no matter how twisted or odd, and perhaps consistently look back...
RVA Reader is an irregular series spotlighting fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction by Virginia authors. If you’re interested in seeing your work appear in future editions, send an email to hello@rvamag.com with the subject line “RVA Reader.” White Elephant I wonder if anybody in here would want to fuck tonight. Well, maybe not tonight, but...
My girl and I talked it over and decided that since I was the one making hay in the sunshine, the registration stickers that came earlier in the week should go on my truck, and we’d use her car more at night. The sun was out, the sky was blue, but those streets out there were no less mean and the only way to get that money was to go out there and...
“Hannibal was the best. No comparison.” Zane shook his head at this. He was the kind of pale that if you looked long enough you might be able to make out the road map of the veins in his face. The dark circles under his eyes made him look as if he was permanently fresh from an altercation. His hair was neat, faded perfectly and slicked back. He...
The slight shock was what hurt the most. He felt just a small one, behind his left ear. If he took enough of the yellow pills, the sting might go away. But when he opened his eyes and looked around, he saw the same thing he'd looked at for the last two years. White steel bars and white walls, with no decoration save the black and white photo...
I remember some years ago, I was waking up on a futon in my grandmother’s house; drool clung to my mouth as allergies had forced my mouth open as I slept in my work clothes. I wasn’t planning on going to work though. I woke up and took a shower. My roommate at the time, who had recently been reunited with his mother and sister, complained that I...
The moment you feel the blow -- the weight of his right shoe arc between your thighs and buttocks and strike your pubic bone -- you are looking at a picture book of San Francisco. It leans against a high shelf in the garage. As you are sent inches above the concrete floor, you are thinking about the city’s hills and streets, as you have since you...
Today’s Sunday Reader comes from writer and musician Ryan Kent and is one of the many poems found in his most recent anthology titled This is Why I am Insane. 98. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD she told people she was v e n u s collected rocks and other silly shit said this one was good fortune this one was for testicular...
