Featured Fiction
Sympathy for Wild Girls
by Demree McGhee
Between the slurred lisp of her words, Daisy’s mother starts to whisper to her about dead girls. It starts off as a trickle of information, gossipy fascination over the feral, invited by a story on the news or something that her mother heard on the radio while driving. But before Daisy can stop it, her mother bombards her with the stories every time she sees her, as if the presence of Daisy incites death. Normally, Daisy can forget her mother’s words. They’re usually able to fall between her fingers and dry off in the light of day like water, but these words stick to her like sweet gum barbs, becoming more entangled in her hair and clothes as she struggles to pull them out.
Creative Nonfiction
On Twerking and Writing
by Rois M. Beal
“Dancing is very like poetry,” Martha Graham said. Although she has been one of my idols since I happened to stumble upon her biography in my elementary school library decades ago, I only began to understand the connection between the art of the pen and the art of the body recently. Growing up, I idolized not Michael Jackson as so many of my classmates did, but Graham and Josephine Baker. I dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but back in those days, when children’s hobbies were regarded as luxuries reserved for those who could comfortably afford them, rather than basic entitlements of middle-class childhood, lessons that had to be paid for were out of the question for me and my three sisters.
Writing for Young People
Ferris Wheel
by Rachel Raiola
At the end of the world, in the perpetual twilight, there is a carnival. A beacon of warm, pink light and noise against an empty backdrop. Jangling calliope music plays while the tantalizing scent of cotton candy distracts from the smudgy, starless sky. The caramel corn is the best you’ve ever tasted and prizes at the game booths are guaranteed. Mark and Todd run the Ferris wheel.
The Ferris wheel is tall and bright and dazzling. Each cart is lit with thousands of delicate little lightbulbs, and the spokes radiating from the center blink and twinkle. You can see it from miles away, Mark is sure of it. Well, he isn’t sure. He’s never been miles away. But he imagines that it’s possible.
Featured Poetry
An Ode to MC Jin Ending in Response to the Chinese Virus Outbreak
by Masaki Takahashi
The outbreak poured
all over the hallways
flooding with freestyles.
Biters with their teeth marks
on another person’s rhymes.
The truest emcees, always stay ready
to spit some sick shit.
Flash Prose
It Happened at 4:32 pm After Daylight Savings
by Angie Kang
[creative nonfiction]
That is to say, it was still bright outside when eight strangers knocked him down on Philadelphia pavement and kicked him until his jaw unhinged on both sides and his ears burst and blood smeared his vision. When he relays the story over the phone, he doesn’t repeat what they said to him, but I know enough to know they could also be applied to me, to my family, to my best friends, could be said to any Asian on the street who is or is not Chinese, who does or does not wear a face mask.
Featured Translation
Forgetting My Mother
by Barbara Bedin,
translated by Rachele Salvini
Every day, when I’m done with work, I call my mom. Today she was in a good mood; she told me that grandpa came to lunch. My grandpa died twenty-five years ago.
My mom told me that this morning she got up early, showered, and got dressed. She went to the kitchen, where she set up the tablemats for breakfast; she couldn’t make coffee though, because her arms are not strong enough anymore and she can’t reach the stove. One day, she leaned over to touch the tips of her feet, but her arms seemed to have grown shorter out of nowhere, the tips further away. She was stuck, folded like the page of a book you closed in a hurry.
Featured Interview
Jen Brody and Jules Rivera, Authors
Interviewed by Adrien Kade Sdao
With identical green hair and a semi-spooky space-witch aesthetic, Jennifer Brody and Jules Rivera were a matched set as they filmed the book trailer for their forthcoming young adult graphic novel, Spectre Deep 6.
Brody, the award-winning author of The Continuum trilogy, graduated from Harvard University and is now a creative writing instructor. She teamed up with Jules Rivera, the Latinx artist who SyFy Wire called, “a multi-talented force in indie comics,” to do the multi-genre Spectre Deep 6. Rivera is the creator of a weekly autobiographical cartoon strip, Love, Joolz, and feminist sci-fi epic, Valkyrie Squadron, but she also worked on Barbie: Star Light Adventure graphic novels and Barbie Video Game Hero for Mattel.
