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Word From the Editor

December 2, 2015/in Essays, Essays, Winter-Spring 2016 / by Arielle Silver, Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016

A few days after our last issue’s publication, in South Carolina, a gunman entered a 199-year-old church during a prayer service. This specific place of worship had held a prominent role in social activism from the slave era to the Civil Rights Movement to the Black Lives Matter movement. The white gunman, in what is now known as the Charleston church massacre, confessed that he attacked the black congregation during a prayer service and killed nine people in the hopes of igniting a race war.

A few weeks later, an officer in Prairie View, Texas pulled a woman over for a routine traffic violation. In viral footage from the officer’s dashcam and a video recorded by a bystander, the male officer, reported to be Hispanic, harasses the black female driver, Sandra Bland, a civil rights activist, forcefully pulls her from the car, threatens her with a Taser, and arrests her. Three days later, Bland was discovered dead in her jail cell. As of this writing, the investigation is ongoing.

This summer, as protests waved across the nation in response to these and other manifestations of culturally-ingrained biases—police brutality, racial injustice, economic inequality—another story about equality also dominated the news. In its landmark decision on the Obergefell v. Hodges case, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and expanded the scope of human rights in this country. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.” The marriage equality victory didn’t end the struggle for equal treatment and protection for non-heterosexual and non-binary-gendered people, but the ruled marked a significant cultural shift.

Like Antioch, our university-affiliate, Lunch Ticket is committed to dismantling ethnic biases, heterosexism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, discrimination based on religious, cultural and political affiliations, and other forms of oppression. As our staff engaged with the summer’s equality struggles, sorrows and triumphs, our submission windows opened, and our editorial teams began reviewing work for this, our Winter/Spring 2016 issue. Our own diversity underscored the powerful outcomes of respecting and reflecting a wide spectrum of values and voices. We were unified in our celebration of marriage equality, in our disdain of racial inequities, and our outrage at the senseless loss of lives. All the while, we have wondered how, as a literary and art journal, Lunch Ticket can make a meaningful difference in the cultural conversation.

In this state, I reached out to LeVan Hawkins to write the featured essay for our Winter/Spring 2016 issue. Individual narratives drive the broader cultural narrative, and as a journal, Lunch Ticket strives to publish work that has been and continues to be underrepresented in the literary ecosystem. LeVan’s talents as a poet, performer, and essayist, are rooted in his fierce commitment to honesty and insights. He is someone who I knew would draw upon his experiences as a black, gay man to illuminate universal truths of great import to all communities. We spoke for a long time about life as a writer, and about the intersections between the personal and political, and when I mentioned the featured essay, he knew exactly what he wanted to write about. However, before our conversation ended, he said, “You know, I wish people would stop reaching out to me to write essays about being black and gay.”

I understood what he meant. For a moment, I wanted to backpedal, to invite him to write about anything of his choosing. But we both knew that I had called because I wanted him to write about exactly that. We need writers willing to share their personal stories about moving through a world that is often oblivious to its own biases and stereotypes. We need writers who are willing to write about the intersection of their personal lives amid the socio-political climate. Their willingness to share their experiences can change the world for someone who identifies with those experiences, yet never sees them reflected on the page. So, too, they can change the world for all of us, by shining a light on experiences that, while new or uncomfortable to some, need to be known by all. And we need publishing platforms: newspapers, film and television outlets, online media, and literary and art journals that are passionate about publishing our collective and individual realities.

At Lunch Ticket, we believe in excellent craft, moving stories, intriguing art, and social activism. Reading and publishing is both a reflective and radical act. It is both local and global and it is unacceptable to strive for anything less than the removal of the prefix “under” from underrepresented. We must shift the meaning of marginalized away from any particular group of people, reserving it for that space where editors and others write notes. When we read works that illuminate the emotional connection between the familiar and the unfamiliar, we gain insight, empathy, and compassion toward others in our global community. This is our mission at Lunch Ticket: to be an amplifier for stories that move beyond historic conventions and traditional constraints into a truer reflection of our diverse, culturally rich, and complex world.

In this Winter/Spring 2016 issue, we feature 65 new pieces, from original material to translated works, across fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, author interviews and essays. Several pieces touch on grief and longing, as in Sara Walters’s “Where the River Ends,” a story in verse about a teenager grappling with love and loss, and in Dana Mele’s “Bats in the Attic,” about miscarriage. Many of our authors, poets, and translators take us on cultural journeys—to China, Vietnam, Israel, Argentina, Turkey, Japan, Ecuador, and more. Others share narratives that capture the complex multicultural U.S. quilt, as in Talar Malakian’s piece “Want Cokes?” about Armenian- and Mexican-Americans, Sabrina Fedel’s “Honor’s Justice” about an Iraqi-American family as their daughter assimilates, and Yoshie Sakai’s video installation, “‘Koko’s Love’: A Soap Opera Tale of One Family” about Japanese-American stereotypes. In their photography collections, Candace Jahn and Brooke Johnson tackle gender stereotypes, and in Robert Robinson’s “Boiler Rat,” he offers an insider view of the working conditions in an Iowa industrial power plant. These are powerful, moving works of art and literature, ones that we believe should be out in the world and read.

Of the whole collection, however, Carmella Guiol’s flash CNF “Lifted” perhaps best sums up what Lunch Ticket is about. In this piece, strangers standing on line at a grocery store connect over an unexpected moment of beauty. Music sparks the shoppers to connect with each other in just a glance across imagined and real differences. Throughout this issue of Lunch Ticket, I hope that you find meaningful engagement with narratives that resonate both familiarly and with strange newness. And, writers among you, whatever your journey through the infinite and constantly evolving combinations of identity, cultural or otherwise, I hope you’ll choose to share your unique voices and perspectives. After all, readers turn to story not only to discover other worlds, but to retrieve something that will be of use to them back in their own.

 

Take good care,

Arielle Silver
Editor-in-Chief

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Arielle Silver https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Arielle Silver2015-12-02 18:18:412020-06-18 16:35:38Word From the Editor

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/paul-volkmer-qVotvbsuM_c-unsplash-scaled-1.jpg 1704 2560 Sanaz Tamjidi https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Sanaz Tamjidi2022-12-16 16:12:142022-12-16 16:12:14The Night I Want to Remember

From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Point Break & Top Gun Are More Than Homoerotic Action Movies

March 3, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Michaela Emerson
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ECD45731-BD0A-4144-9DDE-DBE45519C4A6.jpeg 2461 1882 Michaela Emerson https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Michaela Emerson2023-03-03 23:45:542023-03-04 00:06:21Point Break & Top Gun Are More Than Homoerotic Action Movies

Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/jason-briscoe-VBsG1VOgLIU-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Megan Vasquez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Megan Vasquez2022-10-07 23:55:352022-10-07 19:31:09Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

March 17, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Jemma Leigh Roe
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/JLR.jpeg 1204 1042 Jemma Leigh Roe https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Jemma Leigh Roe2023-03-17 11:55:192023-03-15 10:14:41On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

The Russian Train

February 24, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cammy Thomas
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/06BA84B9-9FF6-4D6C-97E3-9F02075E851D.jpeg 2042 1609 Cammy Thomas https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Cammy Thomas2023-02-24 14:30:592023-02-24 11:40:48The Russian Train

Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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