https://www.christophernotarnicola.com/contact daily 0.75 2021-11-02 https://www.christophernotarnicola.com/writing daily 1.0 2026-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/777a1521-9504-4198-ac72-2ea51658ef7a/Gulf+Coast https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/2f3fc42e-a16a-40dd-8d5a-a4a44ac892af/Five+Points+Christopher+Notarnicola.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/501733a9-4460-473f-a66e-c57c7b9fe829/Baltimore+Review+Christopher+Notarnicola+Best+Microfiction%7E2.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/db7a0514-5d66-44c2-bd1d-09c2ab7e38a3/PC+14.9.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/2c63d713-0f80-48ee-b9a8-ac87bd079eee/Bridport+Prize+Anthology+2023%7E2.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/f5cfe1d1-5aab-4260-a257-25a82671edaa/Sweet+Lit.PNG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/a8fecfa6-225c-4e75-8987-90d5bb905fa0/old-man-shadow-by-Christopher-Notarnicola.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/597c9a6d-10c7-4625-bb3e-3dd33db8fa22/Passages+North+44.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/8c6e92b9-7542-403d-9c8e-a643fb17ccbb/Screenshot_20230222-090327_2+%281%29+%281%29+%281%29+%281%29.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/2b4761dd-3cca-4544-ae9f-1869fcf63ddc/Southern+Indiana+Review+Notarnicola.PNG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/18ffaba9-0fe1-4977-b222-5ac89e6c733d/AGNI_Notarnicola.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/47cd6652-e64a-4e68-be7a-b92aa078535a/Xray-55_And_Older-1024x535.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/f1ecb82e-08a4-4e24-824c-dbf58d4d3ee7/Lauder-Made-1x1.jpg Writing - “All’s Fair” New City Players In a Marine Corps barracks, an unannounced return turns a private moment into a darkly comic conversation about masculinity, loneliness, and the quiet costs of military life. Short Plays: Lauder Made → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/5f23eaf9-c3e3-49f1-8442-90f2cf7010dc/2023+best+microfiction+Baltimore+Review+Notarnicola Writing - “Available in Standard Sizes” Baltimore Review Best Microfiction 2023 They press to your chest a half-jacket—just the part of the dress uniform that the camera needs to convince your friends and family of your newfound commitment to country—the front. You stand in line with the unphotographed. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/6005dd14-3b85-49f1-93d7-1a5c4b119fd5/River+Teeth+Notarnicola.png Writing - “Seven Weeks or About the Size of a Coffee Bean” River Teeth - Beautiful Things The morning is here again. My fiancée and I have taken to acknowledging the miracle of recurrence. The water is hot again. The towel is dry again. The mirror is us again. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/2791cac1-9e0a-440d-8046-779847a42728/Cincinati+Review+Notarnicola.PNG Writing - “Steel beneath Your Chin” The Cincinnati Review Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist You let it grow too long, so you might have expected Staff Sergeant to pull you aside after the convoy, this being the third time he had gone out of his way to address the length of your hair, but I bet you never expected him to snag a fistful the way he did when you turned your back and sucked your teeth… → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/6bba8180-5583-42ab-93e3-4d44e963921a/Zip+Ode+33062.gif Writing - “33062” O, Miami Poetry Festival — Zip Ode Our Lighthouse keeps boats from sinking. What will boats do when our lighthouse sinks? Literally Everyone’s Invited: An Ode to South Florida → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/eb735d72-4a53-48cd-a709-f498119f7a62/Epiphany+Christopher+Notarnicola.jpg Writing - “The Sound of Nerves Strummed” Epiphany The morning sun had not yet crept through the blinds, and I felt what I could not see: sand ferried by overnight air through door seams and window seals, sand collected on wall lockers, lampshades, and nightstands, sand thrown like a rug across the floor. A small problem for another time. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/999a5dd9-857f-4d64-93a1-981ffa95920f/FF-Banner-v3.jpg Writing - “The Subtropics” Flash Frontier The subtropics need—first from the ground. Sand spurs hobble barefoot boys, cripple their gait, their pinch. Iron droplets down coral tongues. High knees through the empty lot. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/7c99cb29-89c8-4489-b567-d02697b1199c/Chicago+Quarterly+Review+Christopher+Notarnicola.jpg Writing - “Models of Recognition” Chicago Quarterly Review, 34 While resupplying a platoon camped upon what seemed the barren-most swath of desert in northwestern Iraq, I experienced the psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia—the mistaking of random stimuli for a more familiar pattern—lunar geography, say, for a rabbit. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1623189448821-Z9XI9O01TNNV69F1FQCH/American+Short+Fiction Writing - “To Deaden the Nerve” American Short Fiction Marines sit on the ground with their feet in their hands, their bare knees against the wet morning grass to stretch their groins, to loosen their limbs, to gather themselves near the flight line behind company headquarters. They await the arrival of their instructor, the start of their next round of martial arts training. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605131891271-OAWUIYAWH5XFB8BE24T2/Hobart+In+Ram+Corpse+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “In Ram Corpse” Hobart Wigleaf Top 50 He slept among a pile of used truck tires, bald or blown or spidered with dry rot, his legs crossed at the ankles, hips down in the hole, arms hooked around monstrous treads to keep the rest of him from falling through. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1619535945157-814GKSDK0W82KLV355NR/Salem+State+University+Separation+Veteran+Play+Festival Writing - “Separation” Salem State University The collaboration on a jigsaw puzzle and a clinical conversation become a subtle struggle about meaning, memory, and ownership of experience. Veterans 10-Minute Play Festival → Soundings East, volume 43 → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605131751575-ADEUB9EGBOSURH6QM7CU/Bellevue+Literary+Review+Sloth%2C+That+Wicked+Siren+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Sloth, That Wicked Siren” Bellevue Literary Review Why he stopped showering, no one could say for sure, though everyone had their guesses. Most assumed it was a matter of convenience, which evolved into laziness, and then absentminded comfort. Showers, the somewhat infrequent occasions that they were, became difficult to appreciate in the dark, wrapped in cold, wading waist-deep through lack-of-sleep, the length of the day dragging the body down with more weight than the collected grime of the road. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605131580864-ERCLR1EYRYGP7DNQIZYC/Prime+Number+Magazine+Natural+as+a+Sigh+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Natural as a Sigh” Prime Number Magazine It is difficult for you, when they call it a theater of operations or, more dramatically, a theater of war, to see yourself as more than a player. These orders are your stage directions, and this base and that town and the roads between and the trucks that carry you along, your stage. Places, everyone. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605358677718-WYXJ30IGV2BRT6X46YPU/CONSEQUENCE+magazine+You+Receive+a+Certificate+of+Commendation+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “You Receive a Certificate of Commendation” Consequence Magazine For outstanding achievement in the performance of your duties while serving as your platoon’s quality control non-commissioned officer during transport and combat logistics operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. You spend your deployment money on a sixty-eight Thunderbird, vinyl interior, pearl white with a navy top, chrome bumpers that reflect the world. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605358570677-IW1N6I5AD40OH2H1DFU2/Image+Art+Faith+Mystery+Down+From+Sinjar+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Down from Sinjar” Image Orders said haul our happy platoon up the Sinjar Mountains, and, at the convoy brief, Lieutenant told us this is what we had trained for—honest—when we had been running routes outside the wire for months. If where we were headed was what we had trained for, we couldn’t help but wonder what was supposed to have prepared us for where we had been, for the operations and orders we carried out in those places. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605131159568-I038KEXIKNSEDI8E56JY/Failbetter+Dockenhaus+and+Home+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Dockenhaus and Home” Failbetter Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist In each room someone is doing something. Grandma declines the paper at the dining table. Baby Sis burns kerosene in the garage. Pop fiddles F.M. dials in the study. Brother wears tan boots to shower. Oh, brother… They don’t come off! → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605358417459-NQ88WTHZVZTJADZZ7LR1/Hotel+America+A+couple+Sit+on+the+Beach+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “A Couple Sit on the Beach and Think” Hotel Amerika Benjamin's helpless if he can’t lean on humor. Weather, an excuse to retreat indoors. A bricklayer cuts through the breeze. People withstand so much to be near the ocean, to be with one another. No one needs the door held. This wood rots at night, moisture and salt, the air. Cracks in the halogen morning. An entire industry paid to design and build outdoor furniture. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605130304683-HZD4G9ZVG069HO6GRSAZ/The+Southampton+Review+The+Cleaners+and+Touching+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “The Cleaners” The Southampton Review A burst of cloth over shoulder where pants and shirts and rotten skivvies pushed sweat and powdered earth down his back. He waited in the fluorescent cool of a doublewide laundry trailer. Three weeks’ mess in a mesh bag. Washers and dryers beat staccato behind a counter, their cords jigging other cords, extensions and power strips chained as electric daisies. → “Touching” The Southampton Review Across the desert, marines are touching themselves. This is happening. One is slouched against the rear wall of a guard post at the north-facing perimeter of a forward operating base unbuttoning his trousers to air out his barrel, to clear out his bore before his partner returns with a box of hot, cockblocking chow. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605129839526-QN2XP1TZEKILYT6FWQ1F/Smokelong+Quarterly+Field+Protective+Mask+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Field Protective Mask” SmokeLong Quarterly There is a public restroom in the Dadeland mall which smells so much like the inside of the M40 field protective mask that he stops to check his right side as the door swings closed. → https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fa9ad6184e4a27db88f337d/1605129267966-BMTFE7ID607N128FNBFY/North+American+Review+Best+American+Essays+Indigent+Disposition+Christopher+Notarnicola Writing - “Indigent Disposition” North American Review Best American Essays 2017 If your body dies in Broward County, Florida, and nobody claims your body as the body of their next-of-kin, your body will be burned and disposed of by the Broward County Indigent Cremation and Disposition Program. The Broward County Indigent Cremation and Disposition Program will tend to your body’s final disposition in accordance with the law. → https://www.christophernotarnicola.com/about daily 0.75 2023-04-25