Short Stories by Alex Kudera

"Going to Hell," Russian trans. from Sergey Katukov, East West Literary Forum, Jan. 28, 2026

"A Separate Piece," Citywide Lunch, December 8-12, 2025

"A Day's Worth," Eclectica Magazine, July 2025

"Chinese Sun," Meniscus, Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 139 to 146, November 2024

"Going to Hell," Soyos Books, November 11, 2023

"An Amazing Turn," New Oxford Review, January-February 2023

"On the Plane," in Zeitgeist: Stories Capturing Different Eras in the Vast Expanse of Time, December 2022

"Early Morning Train," Humans of the World, June 2022

"An Old Friend Called," Lighthouse Weekly, March 2022

"A Thanksgiving," Eclectica Magazine, July 2021

"Bombing From Above," Heavy Feather Review, June 2020

"Over Fifty Billion Kafkas Served," Eclectica Magazine, October 2019 "Awash in Barach and Bolano," The Agonist, July 2019

"About Your Status," Monkeybicycle, June 2019 "Free Car," Heavy Feather Review, September 2018 "My Father's Great Recession," Heavy Feather Review, March 2018

"Frade Killed Ellen," Dutch Kills Press, July 2015

"Turquoise Truck," Mendicant Bookworks, September 2015

"The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity," Gone Dog Press, February 2011

Beauchamp's Gaddis

Beauchamp on Gaddis https://t.co/dZVirBTnih #FridayReads #Gaddis #PlayerPiano #JR #awp #mfa

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) July 4, 2020

what's wrong with college?

Joseph S. Salemi on higher education in the new edition of The Agonist: https://t.co/SXQocWwkjf#literary #journal #HigherEducation #adjunct #awp2020

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) April 16, 2020

Allen Ginsberg would be proud. . .

. . .if Patrick McCauley's "Howling Back" included five additional pages of free verse.

the language we have lost?

"Seaspeak is an artificial language, but it nevertheless symbolizes certain tendencies in the morphing of English itself. It shows us that grasping at universality comes at a price, that the expansion of our horizons reduces our ability to stand fast in the place from which we view the sky. Global communication necessitates a flattening out of richness, of vitality, of density. A language not only functions to communicate the bare essentials of subject and object, but provides a delicate web of opportunities for interweaving, situational ornamentation. Conversational speech between those who share a mother-tongue is lavishly interlaced with thousands of intricacies: instinctually opting for one synonym over another, spontaneously switching the syntax round for effect, and countless other nuances in structure and vocabulary. All this is to say nothing of a range of things that are exceedingly difficult or, in some cases, impossible to capture in writing, such as inflections, tonal changes, and variations in volume. Then there are all the invisible emphases of non-verbal communication, the coding of which is as complex and variable from one place to another as the verbal language itself."

as if he were holding a sacred chalice

Arturo moved ahead of me. He got down on his knees. I thought he was going to pray on behalf of every dirty dish near and far, but instead he picked up a saucer and some brown and sallow food scraps from underneath the machine. Ah,an eye for detail. Like Joyce. Like Proust. And then he rose. Removed from the murkiest depths of the soaking dishes a wide water glass and clutched it to his breasts, as if he were holding a sacred chalice. He lifted it to his lips,and drank. He drank for the poor dishwashers all over the world, and the émigré writers and the starving peasants who’d gladly consume potato scraps from any of this Parisian discard. He drank for Presidential hopefuls to be,for all those around the world who ever tasted the intoxicating liquor of hope and change.

This is about becoming a father. . .

"This is about becoming a father, so it begins with Barack Obama. A week before the 2008 Democratic Primary of South Carolina, K stands in the cold and awaits the candidate’s speech at Clemson. He is high above the lower amphitheater,apart from the crowd. Indeed, there could be thousands below him, young Southerners in search of unity. Or celebrity, some politics of inclusion, an American link to today’s Africa. A smart, cool black guy in their circle of friends. Together, he thinks, we want to feel there is hope. Those of us above the fray, intent on maintaining our peripheral status, stand apart from each other as well. K turns to observe his fellow countrymen, the people he lives among in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. The various souls of Clemson, South Carolina."

from "Awash and Barach and Bolano" by Alex Kudera

Awash in Barach and Bolano

I'm very thankful that Editor-in-Chief Christopher DeGroot published "Awash in Barach and Bolano" as part of The Agonist's Summer 2019 issue.

Summer Agonist

The summer issue of The Agonist is live!