Doug Cornett is a writer and high school teacher living in Portland, Oregon. He was awarded the Denise Marcil Prize for fiction at Skidmore College, as well as first prize in the 2015/16 William Van Dyke Short Story Contest from Ruminate Magazine. His fiction has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Lime Hawk, Fiction Southeast, Permafrost Magazine, and elsewhere. He is a monthly blogger for Ploughshares.
Out here, on this retreat, that distance has decreased to an uncomfortable proximity. We have no collective task to keep us on the rails. We have nothing to cue us our lines. As a result, each of us is gradually being revealed.