Line of Advance

23/09/2025

Timothy O. Davis captures the quiet desperation of poverty, life without opportunity, and little chance of love in The Itch. It reminds me of movies that scared me as a kid because adult life seemed bleak and unforgiving. It’s a sad and beautiful story.

Joe had felt the hands of cousins and uncles on his back; a mountain of father figures all culminating in weekend trips camping on Badin Lake or fishing at Oak Hollow after church. Joe would come home wet and muddy, and his momma would be waiting for him, barefoot on the cement porch. His cousins wo

18/09/2025

J.P. Linstroth's "Sea King" is a great ode to his father and a really cool poem.

It shook under him, a kind of vibrating jostling, shaking to the bones,              he could feel the carriage of the helicopter under him, as if a horse under him             &n

16/09/2025

Richard Stimac’s poem Componere reads like an incantation. Really good work.

The dead we loved do not live within us, as if were abandoned frames with broken panes of glass and splintered clapboard shingles that fluttered in strong winds until they peeled like sunburnt skin. We are not the smoothed granite of mortice and tenon crypt walls, or battlefields wi

11/09/2025

Poet, outdoorsman, and renowned dog-lover. Eric Chandler’s “Shriek.” He’s the man.

I remember the first time  I dropped a live two thousand pounder it made a picture perfect mushroom cloud there in the desert  like a kid draws it was  a dumb bomb on a  training range south of Phoenix Then the bombs got smarter I got better at dropping them I po

11/09/2025

This is awesome. Thanks to Franknews! I’m honored.

"Hindsight makes it easy to memory-hole the endless dumb inspections."

09/09/2025

Happy Tuesday! Pleased to bring you this story by Tyler Ayers. It's a good one!

Janie pulls her day car into the bright lot near the trailhead every morning at 9:30. A security car drives past and the driver nods. She nods her bobbed head and smiles back tightly. She is glad the security people are around. She puts the car in park. Even though the trailhead is a 35-minut

26/08/2025

Our final post for the 2025 Wright Prize is here! The winners for Prose by a Service Member or Veteran are: 1st Place “Synthetic” by Hannah Morehead, 2nd Place “Wore Down” by David Buchanan, and 3rd Place “Receipt at Ogden’s Twist” by Tom Sheehan. This year’s contest has been one of the best so far. The increase in volume and quality has been remarkable. Thanks again to everyone involved!

Literary Journal for America's Military Veterans, their Families, and Active Duty Members. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

19/08/2025

Round three! After reading the finalists for Prose by a Military Family Member Judge Danback-McGhan said, “There is so much psychological depth, rendered in direct prose, offering the reader the right details at the right time.” The winners for this year’s prose by a family member are: 1st Place “Sharing Soap” by Allison Whittenberg, 2nd place “Bad Impact” by Kalvin Madsen, and 3rd place “Boom-Boom Goes to Jail” by Scott Holleran. All great submissions!

Literary Journal for America's Military Veterans, their Families, and Active Duty Members. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

12/08/2025

Round two everyone! Judge Jillian Danback-McGhan said of the winning poem, “The narrator’s interiority and voice make this hypnotic, image-rich poem truly unique. This reads as an emotional caesura, the moment of stillness between confrontation and rejection, mirrored in the post-earthquake calm was both beautiful and terrible in its humanity.” The 2025 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Award winners for Poetry by a Service Member or Veteran are: 1st Place “Song of Tsunami” by J. Villanueva, 2nd Place “Sacrament” by D.A. Gray, and 3rd Place “Tea Party” by Shawn M. Jones. Thanks to everyone who submitted!

Literary Journal for America's Military Veterans, their Families, and Active Duty Members. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

05/08/2025

It took everyone a little extra time this year. Judge Jillian Danback-McGhan said, “These were all so beautiful” and lamented about how difficult it was to sort the finalists from all the categories. The 2025 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Award winners for Poetry by a Military Family Member are: 1st Place “Shipwreck on Padre Island” by Emma Comery, 2nd Place “Last of Autumn” by Lisa Stice, and 3rd Place “Rolling Hills” by Erick Garske. Thanks to everyone who submitted!

Literary Journal for America's Military Veterans, their Families, and Active Duty Members. Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

07/07/2025

Sorry for the late post. Mrs. LOA and I drove all the way around Lake Michigan for the 4th. Thanks to everyone for the submissions. 121 in total!!! Okay getting back to reading them.

28/06/2025

Fun night on the lake. Still a week or so left to submit before the 2025 Wright Prize closes. Submit at lineofadvance.org.