Spring/Summer, Issue Four
Selections from our Spring/Summer issue include an excerpt from "Thrown" by Arielle Bernstein; "Reader" by Jenn Blair; "Teeth" by Alexandra D’Italia; and "Aviation Dentistry" by Jake Wolff. read full essay here read full essay here read full essay here read full essay here
". . . I dreamt I was an astronaut, collecting samples of the universe and putting pieces of them in my pockets. It was a hard job, primarily because the universe kept expanding and contracting at odd intervals, which the other scientists didn’t understand. My boss kept giving me unreliable information based on logarithms that kept being disproven by large turtles in giant tanks inside the space station. One of my jobs was feeding these turtles."
"Sitting on the second floor of the library, I laugh at potatoes. In the 1700’s, when they came for the first time in full force to the old world, many people were suspicious of them. One sect in Russia called them "apples of the devil" and thought for sure that potatoes were the fruit Eve ate in the garden. Another group thought that eating a potato would be like eating a soul. This was because all the potato eyes reminded them of a face."
"I have no specific recollections of my mother’s teeth before they were bad, except they were often compared to mine. I have a small overbite; my lips barely cover my teeth, which are big and white. I either look young with a permanent smile or I look like a mouth–breather, a step backward in the evolutionary chain. After years of dental and periodontal problems stemming from bad genes, diabetes and smoking, my mother decided to have her teeth pulled."
"It is 1944. There is a young fighter pilot stationed on an aircraft carrier somewhere near the Caroline Islands. Let’s give him a name—something old–timey and sweet. He was probably born in the ’20s, maybe in Rhode Island. Eugene wakes up early and flies toward the enemy air force base. His orders are simply not to turn back, no matter the resistance. It’s like an arrow, he heard someone say. When an arrow hits, you never pull it out."
Fall, Issue Three
Selections from our Fall issue include "Greedy Girl" by Kristina Zdravič Reardon; "Triptych of My Grandmother: A Still Life With Three Fruits" by Julie Marie Wade; and "The Autism of Shame" by Tana G. Young. read full essay here read full essay here read full essay here
"“Look at them!” I said to my mother every year when we
come to the high-end German toy store in Florida. “Aren’t
they beautiful?” There were shelves full of dolls, floor to
ceiling, against three walls—all with the same molded faces, twenty inches high. “Aren’t they so beautiful?” I’d said dreamily."
"First Panel
She comes to this world late—eighth of nine children—fated to
outlive them all. Her husband also. And her youngest child, the daughter she dotes on for fifty–nine years. What is the secret to her stillness? they wonder. What special interstice does she inhabit, what footbridge does she tread—resilience to one side, resignation the other?"
"Shame is a word connected to another word, “piss ant,” the
name my father calls us when we wet the bed, and we always wet the bed. Hardly a night goes by when we don’t wake up soaked through to the skin.The contempt he feels for us plays every morning. Like layers of rain, the smell of urine permeates the air, shrouding us."
Spring, Issue Two
Selections from our Spring issue include a montage memoir from Ellen Birkett Morris; several short essays by Rachael Peckham; and essays from two students, Jennifer Patino and Ashley Parada.
“Important Things I Learned from my Dad
It is never too late to be your best self.
Death is the last adventure. Open yourself to it. Don’t be afraid to live up until the last moment.
Take your stool softener. Save your energy for something more important than fighting your own body.” read full essay here read full essay here read full essay here read full essay here
"The sow was dying, that much I know, and my dad could not have predicted
this for early morning chores with me at his side. I say I grew up too
sheltered and that awful clichè wet behind the ears but there’s the sight of
that sow’s blood slipping easy-like behind her through slats in the floor
made for times like this and that awful clichè about everything and a
reason. "
"EXAM #1
(Location)
In her essay “My Mother’s Mexico,” Ana Castillo describes the dispensaries in Mexico City. Long lines, liberal prescriptions, scant medical attention. Only drugs. The author’s grandmother frequented these dispensaries seeking the medical advice then unavailable in rural Guanajuato where she was from. She died of tuberculosis."
"The door of his home slammed closed behind me, by the force of my exit alone, gravel under my feet, my shoes were still nearly untied, I ran hoping I wouldn’t fall, making my way onto the street with a burst of excitement that was ill–fitting when considering the situation, my face still sore, under my nose small spots of blood, but I fought."