F(r)iction’s thirteenth issue jumps back in the ring with all-new features and red-hot talent. In these pages, a circus performer who can reconfigure his body finds a new meaning to life in the gaze of a silent friend, Little Red Riding Hood takes on a bloodthirsty burden, and a woman learns a lesson from a vicious fish. Our Comeback Issue raises a glass to the underdogs and the southpaws, the survivors of all the punches this world can throw at us.

Our Pioneering Writer features the words and sixty-year career of award-winning industry legend Joyce Carol Oates, as well as a chapter from her 2019 novel My Life as a Rat. In our Debut Author Feature, you’ll find an interview with Emily A. Duncan, as well as her blood-drenched debut fairy tale Wicked Saints. For powerful expressions of identity and grit, look no further than our community feature with Words Without Walls; for beautiful art, dive into Sarah Winifred Searle’s comic “Afterworld,” in which three courageous animate toys venture into the lush, post-apocalyptic world just beyond their home.

The stories in this issue say it all: We’re here to stay and ready to go the distance.