Last month just before residency at Antioch University I was paying my late fees at the public library’s website, when I came across the main page announcing New York Times Best Seller author/illustrator Yuyi Morales. Since I’m specializing in Young Adult, I got excited. When I saw that she was Latina, I got even more excited! […]
I stand with my back to the bus shelter, my coat hunched over my shoulder just an inch more so my nape won’t be exposed.
Years ago, when I first met the girls who are now my stepdaughters, and when we were still getting used to each other’s company, I invited them to call me by the nickname my family has always used: Ari. “Arielle” felt a little cumbersome for five-year-old Shiloh’s lisp, and too formal for nine-year-old Rose’s warm […]
On July 4th,1776, thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain and later formed the United States of America. Independence Day is now a federal holiday in the United States. Independence is a tricky state of being for it can be a good thing or a bad thing. Writing is an independent profession, but for many of us, […]
and I know you will not listen, you are like the cupboard,
but please forgive, yet again, my shredding, indefinite removal…
They say cardio is the first to go, which I suppose explains last evening’s huffing and puffing through my first run since the day before residency began. Normally I’m a runner—around 25 miles a week—but last night it was hard to tell. Each step on the asphalt was foreign. My lungs were weak. Despite what […]
When I am three years old, I feel the burn of a cigarette on my arm…
I never thought I’d be doing this. I recall sitting in a foxhole as a paratrooper, reading the book of Psalms and thinking, hey, I kinda looove this. I always thought the point of poetry was to confuse. Thousands of couches later, five books and literary festivals all over the world, I want to take […]
Survivor (as in “Eye of the Tiger”) is to play a free show in Los Angeles later this summer. I stumbled upon this exciting news the other day while browsing Thrillist LA’s list of (they say) every free outdoor concert in LA. It was mid-afternoon, June gloom burned off, the sky clear blue, the asphalt […]
In summer, Gram lazily waves at me with the flyswatter while Gramp chain-smokes Swisher Sweets in his underwear, wrestling always playing on the heavy wooden-entombed TV…
I knew that being the editor of Lunch Ticket would require filling some pretty big shoes, but it wasn’t until I was directing the journal that I fully understood the extent of what that implied: it wasn’t just a matter of successfully leading a staff of almost 40 volunteers, but of building upon what the editor before me […]
My favorite Boston bookstore—my singular favorite in a city purportedly abounding with more bookstores per square mile than any other—is like a reversed Narnia wardrobe. When I think of it, there’s a wide glowing window display and thirty minutes disappearing faster than a J.P. Licks frappe. Those thirty minutes would be, of course, window-browsing moments. […]
Some authors write along the questions, Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind? Long Division is true. More than ever, it is necessary. But is it kind? Rarely are things in this complicated world that are true and necessary also kind. Long Division does not shrink away from this dichotomy—instead, it rises to meet the challenge. The bravery of writing a story without shrinking away from the violence,
Grossman is a New York Times national and international best-selling author. His first novel, Warp, was published in 1997. His second novel, Codex, became an international bestseller. The Magicians, the first book of a trilogy, was a New York Times Best Seller, won the 2010 Alex Award […]
Cosme Cordova was born in San Pedro de la Cueva in Sonora, Mexico, and brought to Riverside, California at five years old, where he still resides. Cordova is the owner of Division 9 Gallery (Riverside, California). In 2002 he co-founded Riverside’s Arts Walk along with Mark Schooley (Riverside Community Arts Association), which has run monthly […]
Elizabeth Earley holds an MFA in Fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles. Her stories and essays have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The First Line Magazine, Fugue, Hair Trigger, and Glimmer Train, among other publications. Elizabeth is the recipient of the David Friedman Memorial Prize for Fiction, has twice been a finalist for the AWP […]
Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, and librettist from Altadena, California. Kearney has received a Whiting Writers Award, a Coat Hanger Award, and fellowships at Cave Canem, Idyllwild, and others. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry, nocturnes, Pleiades, Callaloo, Fence, LA Review of Books, The Iowa Review, and The Ninth Letter. His produced operas include Sucktion, […]
To S.B If I’m not dead, if somebody isn’t dreaming or imagining me, then I’m rocking back and forth and it’s cold. Back and forth. To the rhythm of the thing that for such a long time I’ve called heart. Back and forth. Without effort, to and fro. The difficult part is departing, leaving the […]
D.J. Waldie is the author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir, Where Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles, and other books about Southern California. He also is the author—with Diane Keaton—of two architectural studies: California Romantica and House. Jennifer McCharen: What are you working on right now? D.J. Waldie: For some years I’ve been writing a blog twice a week […]
They delivered the news of his death with a sharply creased flag. She was nursing their two-week-old girl-child on the worn couch, lulled by the glow of the television then the hard rap on the door snapped her awake. She yanked her breast back into the nursing bra and bounced the squalling baby in […]
1. She walks by. Her gait grabs your attention. She is about to go onto the footbridge. At the last moment, she changes her mind. The speakers announce a train is about to enter the station. You look at the clock: almost nine pm. The train’s not yours. Time to kill. Nothing to read. The […]
Then in the motel room they rented by the month—with the kitchenette & the microwave & the mini-refrigerator & cable tv When he sat upright & peered at the ceiling each lung an ocean eyes wide & hands tight on the arms of the recliner My father swears he saw the host of heaven call […]
Lately I have been feeling a little sad, concerned about the future of San Francisco. I consider myself very lucky to live in a place that has always been considered a hot spot for the liberal, the arts, museums, and endless good coffee, teas, poetry, and music. After all Lawrence Ferlinghetti considers it his city. […]
[flash fiction] Thinking about cunnilingus in the elevator is hardly a cause for concern. That was what Dr. Wendy Savannah told Vega while they were having lunch this afternoon. It’s every time I ride the one at work though, replied Vega. I think it’s because my husband won’t do it right. Dr. Savannah looked out […]
A mild winter meant a busy first shotgun season for hunters in the rolling hills of southern Iowa. My father and I had made the hour drive from Des Moines south on I-35 to my grandfather’s land midday Friday for the hunt that night. When we arrived, the evening air was cool, but not cold, […]
[flash fiction] It started when she was thirteen. It started because she was always cold. When she was cold her knees would knock echoes down the mountains. The sound tested avalanches. It was a thing that was sistered to womanhood. A movement from within, like the beginnings of an itch. She started like her mother […]
While the one divides into two: the heart and its shadow, The world and its threat, the crow back of the sparrow. -“Of Ancient Origins and War” Brigit Pegeen Kelly “Doesn’t look like much,” Mom said, as we pulled into the parking lot of the Titan Missile Museum. The main building was low to the […]
As told through the lips of Nước Hoa. I stood angry. I entered the waters of the Xepon in a wild and arrogant gait. Meiet, the tallest of all the village teenage girls, quieted my sloppy entry with a stare. It did not register with my tortured mind her appearance. She stood in the river […]
from The Ep[is]odes: A Reformulation of Horace xiii The sky is rough, fierce with sound, as Jupiter launches rain and snow. From woods to sea, nothing but northern winds. Let’s celebrate the occasion, friends, before our blooming knees are shrouded and broken by age. By my order, let’s open the wine pressed in that consul’s […]
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