A Caged Bird, a Quinceaneara, and the American Dream. By Florina Rodov.

Girls stole from me. It started my first year of high school. They didn't mean any harm by it. It was always little things they stole, the kind of thing that could be taken easily from a careless person. I was a careless person. They were magpies... By Priya-Alika Elias.

He wasn’t just my teacher. He was the rockstar teacher of our theater program. By Marissa Korbel.

Q: Which is heavier, a ton of feathers or a ton of gold? A: Everything is equal in a cruelly indifferent universe. By Ethan Kuperberg.

“During those weeks it rained so much that the L.A. River was full. Walking back to your house from Claudia’s, you went two blocks up Gage Avenue to the river and watched from the bridge, its low concrete railing the only thing keeping you from the froth kissing the lip of the river bed.” By Vickie Vértiz.

By Lisa Mecham.

By Percival Everett.

By Lara N. Ehrlich.