(do not erase) based- (on the) -evidence transgender (adults) (children) (are) […]
I was born and raised in Shanghai. By the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping initiated a more open-door policy, but I still had a deep desire to experience America as well as Western culture. Immigrating to Boston to study art in graduate school, I discovered a more complex society than I had imagined. Longing for a democratic system, I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of consumption […]
The radiology department lies deep in a basement of the Chao Cancer Center in Orange County. A nurse told me to arrive two hours early for my CAT Scan, so that I would have time to drink a liter of contrast, one cupful at a time. Once imbibed, the liquid would make my insides vivid […]
I had forgotten how completely ubiquitous sexual harassment was in my youth. So common place on the streets and transport systems in a city like New York that young girls and women took it in their stride, assuming the abuse to be the price paid for a sense of autonomy, for the freedom of movement. […]
[creative nonfiction] To My Daughter, and All the Daughters, This is the letter I should have gotten from my mother, and that she should have gotten from her mother, and that should have been passed down through the ages like baking cloths, or photo albums, or funeral cards. It is the letter that tells you, […]
Dana Johnson is the writer of the short story collections Break Any Woman Down and In the Not Quite Dark, and the coming-of-age novel Elsewhere, California, which was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, and her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Callaloo, […]
[creative nonfiction] I should be writing. You are not here. For the next one hundred and twenty minutes, you are not my job. “Are you going to the coffee office?” you asked on the way to preschool, your cute phrase for what I do. Yes, yes. Three days a week, three slivers of a life […]
The bar was always full on Christmas day, like most days in Muskogee. I never could resist counting the number of trucks and occasional cars lined up outside as I drove home. It bothered me when I first saw the symbol of the Nation on a bumper sticker, but not anymore. My thought was always […]
[fiction] It’s getting dark and my arms are crawling with goosebumps. My butt is pretty much asleep at this point too, which makes it nearly impossible to get comfortable in this here stupid tree. The branch I’m on is like Mom’s eggshell mattress topper only the eggshells are more like little rocks. Like sitting on […]
[fiction] She starts training for everything at once: motherhood, the apocalypse, a local 5K. The Pulitzer-winning earthquake that promises to obliterate the Pacific Northwest. A high-altitude decathlon. North Korea. She stops drinking (but still drinks some, because obviously the world is terrible and who can bear it?), stockpiles prenatals, buys new shoes. Functional shoes. She […]
[creative nonfiction] July 4, 1976. Our town parade, when everything waves—beauty queens and politicians sprouting from convertibles washed and dried in the street with soft rags the night before, Betsy Ross flags nodding off porches. Firemen’s kids pelt non-firemen’s kids with hard candy, sirens moan, only this time, nobody’s hurt. Everyone still smokes. And later, […]
It’s been said that you are only as happy as your most unhappy child, and I believe there is some truth to that. Lately, I am all about my twenty-six-year-old daughter, Phoebe, who keeps veering into crisis like a motorist drifting into oncoming traffic on a highway. For instance, Phoebe and I recently visited the […]
Nothing distracted Gloria more than evidence of a baby in the room. The cold white crib delivered by the guest runner. The scatter of plastic objects that emit their soft whistles and rattles as she gathers them. Sometimes a tablet, its screen’s luster buried beneath layers of tiny fingerprints. She always took the extra minute to arrange these treasures on the glass […]
[translated fiction] In his account of traveling along the Orinoco, Humboldt describes a strange ritual in which the native people go into the depths of a cave to catch birds with pitch-black feathers that they call tayos. As they penetrate the cave, the men bang together enormous river-bottom rocks and shake rattles made of dried […]
“Justice work is life work,” Ashaki Jackson says in her interview with Lunch Ticket. “Think of it as a chorus: there will always be more than one voice looking for the perfect, rich harmony.” The staff and contributors at Lunch Ticket are part of this chorus. Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018 is an offering from our […]
I want them and there is no turning back. I won’t leave without them. I make sure no one is around before selecting the red one. I ease my hand into my pocket and finger the pen until it drops through a hole that feeds into the lining of my coat. Green, blue, gold, and purple follow. I consider taking the orange but I can’t decide. I stop. I walk calmly to the sketchbook section and pretend to browse. …
“I have a special affection for Kajar… It is a wonderful and mysterious place.” ~S. Ann Dunham, Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia On our way from Yogyakarta, my friend Satriyo braced himself at the handlebars like a speed demon, overtaking slowpokes and narrowly sideswiping oncoming trucks in the maelstrom of traffic. As […]
[translated fiction] Just a moment please (they all look at me: they’re recent graduates, twenty-four, twenty-seven years old), then you can try out the program and do what you have to do, but before you download it be aware that it isn’t compatible with Macs or the latest version of Windows. So, if you’re using […]
[creative nonfiction] New in Indianapolis and recently divorced, Charles went out to Madame C. J. Walker’s Ballroom in 1942. He heard it was the place for Negroes to mingle. On a mission to find a nice colored girl to start over with, he straightened his tie before following the music up the stairs. There he […]
When I’m on my way to meet Marco’s father for the first time, I can’t help but remember all the things I know about the guy. I know he flew into a rage when Marco was seven because he found him playing happily with his sister’s dolls. Afterwards, he discarded Marco’s own toys as a […]
Cecil Castellucci’s stories remind us that we find vulnerability and courage in the face of new situations and obstacles. Castellucci is a flexible writer, capable of expressing her stories through several artistic mediums. Her characters embody the passion, joy, and confusion of those delicate young adult years. Her world-building immerses the reader into the 1930s […]
It’s that time again. We’re coming up on the holidays. Leaves have fallen, blanketing the lawn in warm shades of yellow and red; Christmas lights are aglow. Tumultuous 2017 is edging toward its close, the promise of another year on the horizon. Joy to the World! For some reason, I’m just not feeling it. It’s […]
[fiction] The gravel churns under the wheels of the boxed-up Peugeot, the sound falling behind them into a quiet that exists where cities do not. Abbey checks her hair with her fingers. She’s learned how to turn it in a twist and secure it behind her head, letting chunks fall from the barrette and tickle […]
I nearly die laughing you’re a hunter in costume—Eckō Unltd. Pepe Jeans, Timbs with the tag an official member of the House of Decoy in the cab you’re pungent—consumed by the Michael Jordan Cologne I gave you inching close, you affirm you’ll shield me from the freaks two tabs of Love dissolve under my tongue—it […]
[self-translated poetry] Feast of the Sacrifice and no sacrifice neither wealth nor goats yet each one a sacrifice— It hurts hurts of hunger and thirst hurts of fear and belittlement sacrifices of the invaluable, the self Feast of the Sacrifice and each one is Ismail under the looming hand sacrifice small and weak witnessing the […]
I’ve been looking for myths about gulls, and found only ravens. Raven, the trickster, who eats Raccoon’s young. Raven, with his head stuck in a bison skull and bumbling tree to tree to river. Raven led by stomach. I want a story to frame my own. But I did not grow up with ravens. They […]
[fiction] My daughter, the ballerina, has a mane, thick as a horse’s, and bronze from two weeks ago, when she dyed it. It’s impossible to get the whole thing in your hands. Delicate flyaway strands escape my fingers. She sits on a stool I have wedged in the bathroom. A ray of sun lights up […]
[creative nonfiction] for Rose Williams Close-cropped curly hair, pitted, blueberry skin—my first reaction was dread, with my incipient bias spluttering warnings: They are all violent. All a bit crazy. Stay away. We ignore each other—I huddled by the corner grading answer sheets while you ruled a coterie of veterans of shelters, prisons, rehabs, halfway houses. […]
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