Side Roads and Detours
Side Roads and Detours issue cover
Life is like a meandering path through a fantasy world forest. Amid the trees wildlife, monsters, and new directors could come at you, detouring your life plan, your hopes, your dreams. But not all side roads are bad things. Some could be wondrous moments that lead to delights and growth, others may simply bring you path to your truest road after a bit of wandering. After all, as our beloved Tolkien once put it, “Not all those who wander are lost.”
Come away with us and ramble these trails from the MockingOwl Roost. See what adventures you might uncover, lessons you might learn, or moments of laughter from your own past that you might remember as we take you along our own Side Roads and Detours in 2026. Within these pages find fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and stunning artwork from artists all over the world.
If you need some reads while you navigate these detours in life, you might enjoy these short stories, poems, creative essays, and other magazines from the MockingOwl Roost contributors and staff.
- Alone in St. James’s Park – Creative Nonfiction
- Nothing More Than a Lesson – Poetry Reading
- Beauty – Quarterly Magazine Issue
- To the Ringer With a Toothache on a Plane – Writing Memories
- All the World’s a Stage – Performing Arts Stories and Poetry
- Divergent Memory of a Burning Heap – Micro Essay
- We Did It! – Inspirational Essay
- Birth of a Dream – Narrative Poetry
- The Pirates and Seafaring Issue
- To Be Known – Poetry
- I Will Answer “Yes” – Personal Christian Faith Journey Essay
- The Isle of Arran – Literary Travel
- When Schizophrenia Came: A Remembrance – Personal Essay on Mental Illness
- Meatloaf for One – Unhappily Ever After Flash Fiction
- Yugen – Quarterly Magazine Issue
- It’s Jesus Or Your Car – Personal Christain Faith Essay
- Princess Piano Box Full of Teeth – Flash Fiction
- Emotional Widow – Personal Essay
- Dragon Scales and Other Tales
- Good Versus Evil – a Fairy Tale
- Pangolin Love – an Essay About Coworkers, Pangolins, and Life
- Memories on a Rainy Evening – An Emotive Short Story
