Our Amuse-Bouche series offers little bites once a month to keep you satiated between issues. Dig into a smorgasbord of genres every third Friday of the month!
When business was slow, the curandero would take his skills to the stable to heal horses. To the ladies at the barn, he speaks English, recommending an ointment, but there is no saying it in English. So, he says it in in Spanish: Cebo de Coyote con Aceite de Víbora. To the horses, he speaks […]
“Somebody’s got to bleed if anybody’s going to drink” (164). In his climate-fiction (cli-fi) novel, The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi’s cinematic writing begs to find its way to the big screen where his vast landscapes, dramatic dialogue, and poignant message on water consumption can reach the masses. While his story lands big, juicy punches, Baciglupi’s […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/waterknife.jpeg941631Kim Sabinhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKim Sabin2017-02-13 07:00:402019-06-29 16:05:56Writers Read: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
In the last year, both my mother and father died. They were gone within 42 days of each other, one to a stroke, one to heart failure. These paintings, part of a much larger collection, were attempts to convey feelings of being submerged, of being unable to put words to experience, being unable to surface […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Steiner_Swimming_with_My_Eyes_Open.jpg480640Donna Steinerhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngDonna Steiner2017-02-06 08:26:042019-06-29 16:06:54Spotlight: Swimming with My Eyes Open
Coal Mountain Elementary is a noteworthy example of investigative poetry, which incorporates data and reportage—including statistics, historical documents, news media, interviews, and images—into, most commonly, lyrical and prose poems. Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004) is a well-known example of the former type as it lets the reader enter the […]
[fiction] Our room is around the back of the motel, away from the highway floodlights. Hiram and Baby are sleeping in the backseat by the time we pull up, and Mama carries Baby while Daddy slings Hiram over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Myself I walk. I’m grown enough to see the motel […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SJohnstonPic_opt.jpg400300Savannah Johnstonhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngSavannah Johnston2017-01-23 08:59:272019-06-29 16:14:28Spotlight: Shells II by Savannah Johnston
John McPhee writes beautifully. About anything. From conservation and aviation to art and citrus. His voice renders topic irrelevant. Relentless specificity of language is the main attraction. Think pieces can blur the line between journalism and literature. Between the academic and the personal. McPhee is investigative nonfiction’s spirit animal. Even The John McPhee Reader’s ‘70s […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/johnmcpheecover.jpg499334Ari Rosenscheinhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAri Rosenschein2017-01-16 07:00:172019-08-11 18:04:29Writers Read: The John McPhee Reader by John McPhee
[fiction] I hunt in the morning, because the world makes sense when you watch it beginning. The woods, they wake up like my 5-year-old, Emma. Kind of slowly, fluttering, then suddenly it’s all action everywhere all at once and you can’t keep up. The trees and bushes light up from inside, and then the sun […]
Play it As it Lays is the perfect novel and Maria is a fascinating mix between Lana Del Rey (the old Hollywood glamor, the detached gloom) and Little Edie Beale (the saltine tins, the psychic instability, the domestic disarray), appealing in large part because she is unapologetically herself. As Amy Schumer highlighted through a now-viral sketch, […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/playitasitlays.jpg475316Anna Dornhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAnna Dorn2017-01-02 07:00:482019-08-11 17:43:01Writers Read: Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion
This work has been selected from an ongoing series, Leisure Seizure.
Theres a lot of weird stuff out there, some of the objects were created to promote long gone businesses, abandoned building projects or doomed theme parks. Some of it is simply an act of whimsy. […]
Fred Moten’s writing is being lost. Or found. Or the kind of lost you want—the wind whipping through trees in Alabama or words that come in meaningful bursts, though you are unsure of the meaning or the source of the bursts. You reel in a mad maelstrom of feeling, entirely precognitive but at once familiar, […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Feel-Trio-Cover.png259350Alex Simandhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAlex Simand2016-12-19 15:36:372019-08-11 17:49:52Writers Read: The Feel Trio by Fred Moten
In the introduction to his essay anthology, About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory, Barry Lopez describes becoming a writer and finding his voice. He writes of the universality of story in all cultures, a binding theme in this collection: “Stories do not give instruction, they do not explain how to love a companion […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/abouthislife.jpg499325Katelyn Keatinghttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKatelyn Keating2016-11-28 07:00:352019-08-11 17:21:16Writers Read: About This Life by Barry Lopez
After the ring, strip naked Peel your original self like a grape, become unrecognizable when you meet yourself in the mirror. When you meet your husband’s colleagues, just after they get a whiff of baby vomit, glance at your waistline, ignore your proffered hand, say: I am raising our children. Watch them head for the […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Kathryn_Paul_headshot_Resized.jpg600400Kathryn Paulhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKathryn Paul2016-11-20 20:45:222019-07-07 21:31:20Spotlight: After the ring… / Prayer / She’s a lot more fun…
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, chronicles the stories of peoples living in Annawadi, a slum on the outskirts of the airport in Mumbai, India. Between 2007-2011, Boo interviewed 168 people and reviewed over 3,000 public records with the help of translators. She did so in order to answer some pretty […]
Waiting room TV wanna know “CREDIT NO GOOD?” in blinkedy blue letters blue plastic chairs hard as rocks blue scrubs and blue shower caps on the nurses and docs blue-eyed po-lice ++all in blue beat my cousin black and blue the PA system sayin ++code blue ++code blue I wonder if they talkin bout him […]
This is a novel written by an author in extremis, an author both blessed and possessed. John Banville admits to experiencing a nervous breakdown while writing the book. He called it his attempt to set himself free in the practice of writing. The story is a first-person narration in the past tense. It is set […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/mefisto.jpg562408Mary Kay Wulfhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngMary Kay Wulf2016-10-31 07:10:502019-08-11 17:40:12Writers Read: Mefisto by John Banville
I don’t know how he figured it was me who told the school he had AIDS, but he found out—and finds me under the bleachers, smoking a cigarette. He even throws the first punch, which I think is out of character for the rich bitch star of our high school track team, headed to Yale […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sara_Dobie_Bauer_Resized.jpg400300Sarah Dobie Bauerhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngSarah Dobie Bauer2016-10-23 19:13:022019-07-07 21:46:53Spotlight: I Hate Myself for Loving You
I read the essay collection Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio, and returned to my own work-in-progress that suddenly resembled the cute chicken scratch of a toddler. Or an actual chicken. I looked at my attempt at an essay and thought, surely there’s a mistake. This can’t be my most recently revised draft. Alas. And so D’Ambrosio’s […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/loitering.jpg499323Mary Birnbaumhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngMary Birnbaum2016-10-17 05:23:262019-08-11 18:03:56Writers Read: Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio
Picking Blueberries My mother’s colander: metal with small, heart-shaped mouths— It was an old thing, probably my grandmother’s before, just like that blueberry bush in our backyard, planted 50-odd-years ago, a natural inheritance. We never used the colander except when picking blueberries, and even that became a hobby my parents left for their aging relatives […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/megeden_headshot_Resized.jpg312280Meg Edenhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngMeg Eden2016-10-10 04:09:182019-07-07 21:50:14Spotlight: Picking Blueberries / Organ Stop Pizza, Mesa, AZ / I Go Into The McDonald’s Bathroom
Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment explores a woman trying to survive the emotional storm after her husband leaves her. While thin on plot, the specificity of the character study strikes a universal chord. The brutal and ugly honesty is striking, off-putting, and at times self-indulgent, but the character always remains true, which makes her […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/daysofabandon.jpg930600Roz Weisberghttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngRoz Weisberg2016-10-03 04:18:592019-08-11 17:45:31Writers Read: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
On a heavy Saturday in June, Steven and I wait for strangers to pound through my mother’s front door, but the strangers never come. Exclamation points, dotting our Craigslist posts like lollipops, have failed to lure buyers for the Vintage, Mint Condition! Italian provincial dining room set! and the Like New! Singer Sewing machine. No […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/lisa-2_Resized.jpg400300Lisa Lebduskahttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngLisa Lebduska2016-09-26 05:25:572019-07-07 22:05:51Spotlight: The Things We Saved
Writer’s block. We’ve all experienced it. Sometimes we force ourselves through it. Wait it out. Try a writing prompt, take a break for coffee or something to eat. And sometimes it’s stickier than that. Now, you can’t get a word down. You’re staring at the white page. Maybe a revision? Maybe you should start over—like, […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/onbeingstuck.jpg499324Katy Avilahttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKaty Avila2016-09-19 03:44:052019-08-11 17:40:42Writers Read: On Being Stuck by Laraine Herring
A Thin Season (For a young man beheaded for listening to Western pop tunes in his father’s grocery store) It is a thin season culling the air of blue breath choked sudden as a sword at the throat of a young infidel the forbidden pop tune of his innocence still playing in the annals of […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/karen-ch_Resized.jpg400300Karen Corinne Herceghttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKaren Corinne Herceg2016-09-12 16:51:432019-07-07 22:09:49Spotlight: A Thin Season / In My Travels
Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History consists of a series of 366 vignettes, one for each day of the Roman calendar year, not noticeably related to one another, which create a mosaic of fractured memories of human history. The volume continues the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano’s Hegelian approach to understanding and articulating Latin […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/childrenofthedays.jpg500327Juliann Allisonhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngJuliann Allison2016-09-05 04:28:002019-08-11 17:30:47Writers Read: Children of the Days by Eduardo Galeano
I am interested in different forms of communication (verbal, written, body language, etc). I generally paint the female form in uncomfortable positions and circumstances to see if an idea, emotion, or critique can be communicated using bodies, symbols, and titles. People are gregarious by nature. We are not meant for solitary existence. Our need to affectively communicate with each other […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/9_van_Schaap_Smoke_Signals.jpg12581000Anna van Schaaphttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAnna van Schaap2016-08-28 23:29:462019-07-07 22:12:12Spotlight: Say It Like You Mean It
What I Brought Back Peace Corps Lesotho, 1980-82 I brought images of a motorcycle, a tsetututu, sputtering down pot-holed roads to a village where men stuff mint in their nostrils, women stretch their mouths in ululation, boys extend legs in Bruce Lee moves, and babies are secured on mothers’ backs by blankets with airplane designs. […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sally-Vogl_opt.jpg400300Sally Voglhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngSally Vogl2016-08-21 23:08:572019-07-07 22:14:53Spotlight: What I Brought Back / Freya at the Farmers’ Market / If an Egg Floats
My last living memory is of my husband carrying my half-conscious body away from the thick heat and clinging wetness of the rice field. Something has bitten my right heel, leaving a crescent of bloody marks. He places me on our cart, jumps on, and prods Sakhi, our cow, into a jingling trot. Sweat and […]
A Field Guide for Immersion Writing is Robin Hemley’s non-fiction methodological primer for writers on immersion journalism. In this compilation, Mr. Hemley covers a gamut of approaches to tackling immersion-writing projects, using examples of his work and other writers’ works to apply the mechanics of the narrative process. His techniques cover advice for undertaking and refining […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Screen-Shot-2016-06-14-at-11.47.33-AM.png391259Miriam González-Poehttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngMiriam González-Poe2016-08-08 05:55:502019-08-11 17:20:18Writers Read: A Field Guide for Immersion Writing by Robin Hemley
Moorings Suppose you say water. We’re on the boat, making for Babson Island, one of three tiny beach slabs that connects at high tide. We set anchor, mark the drift, account for wind, row to the shallows. This place has sand dollars. You find some, bring them to me. I will wrap them in tissue […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Emily-Franklin-Photo_Resized.jpg400299Emily Franklinhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngEmily Franklin2016-08-01 02:55:432019-07-07 22:27:20Spotlight: Moorings / Walking the Dog in Autumn I Stop to Tie My Shoelace
On the Friday following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Chinaka Hodge performed selections from her newly released poetry book, Dated Emcees, at 826LA to benefit the literacy organization. With poems honoring Jordan Davis, references to Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant, and tributes to Tupac and Biggie, Hodge has no shortage of words for […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/writersread_datedemcees-2.jpg576396Nikki San Pedrohttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngNikki San Pedro2016-07-24 22:56:322019-08-11 17:32:09Writers Read: Dated Emcees by Chinaka Hodge
The train ride from Osaka to Arashiyama took an hour. Noriko rested her head against her husband’s shoulder and drifted off into a light sleep. She was exhausted from long days working at the Tesagara Tea Room and taking care of their two-year-old son, Eiji. Disembarking at the station, Ichiro instructed the cab driver to […]
Spotlight: Eso
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Jimena BurnettWhen business was slow, the curandero would take his skills to the stable to heal horses. To the ladies at the barn, he speaks English, recommending an ointment, but there is no saying it in English. So, he says it in in Spanish: Cebo de Coyote con Aceite de Víbora. To the horses, he speaks […]
Writers Read: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Kim Sabin“Somebody’s got to bleed if anybody’s going to drink” (164). In his climate-fiction (cli-fi) novel, The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi’s cinematic writing begs to find its way to the big screen where his vast landscapes, dramatic dialogue, and poignant message on water consumption can reach the masses. While his story lands big, juicy punches, Baciglupi’s […]
Spotlight: Swimming with My Eyes Open
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Donna SteinerIn the last year, both my mother and father died. They were gone within 42 days of each other, one to a stroke, one to heart failure. These paintings, part of a much larger collection, were attempts to convey feelings of being submerged, of being unable to put words to experience, being unable to surface […]
Writers Read: Coal Mountain Elementary by Mark Nowak
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Juliann AllisonCoal Mountain Elementary is a noteworthy example of investigative poetry, which incorporates data and reportage—including statistics, historical documents, news media, interviews, and images—into, most commonly, lyrical and prose poems. Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric (2004) is a well-known example of the former type as it lets the reader enter the […]
Spotlight: Shells II by Savannah Johnston
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Savannah Johnston[fiction] Our room is around the back of the motel, away from the highway floodlights. Hiram and Baby are sleeping in the backseat by the time we pull up, and Mama carries Baby while Daddy slings Hiram over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Myself I walk. I’m grown enough to see the motel […]
Writers Read: The John McPhee Reader by John McPhee
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Ari RosenscheinJohn McPhee writes beautifully. About anything. From conservation and aviation to art and citrus. His voice renders topic irrelevant. Relentless specificity of language is the main attraction. Think pieces can blur the line between journalism and literature. Between the academic and the personal. McPhee is investigative nonfiction’s spirit animal. Even The John McPhee Reader’s ‘70s […]
Spotlight: Tapetum
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Hannah Ford[fiction] I hunt in the morning, because the world makes sense when you watch it beginning. The woods, they wake up like my 5-year-old, Emma. Kind of slowly, fluttering, then suddenly it’s all action everywhere all at once and you can’t keep up. The trees and bushes light up from inside, and then the sun […]
Writers Read: Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2017 / Anna DornPlay it As it Lays is the perfect novel and Maria is a fascinating mix between Lana Del Rey (the old Hollywood glamor, the detached gloom) and Little Edie Beale (the saltine tins, the psychic instability, the domestic disarray), appealing in large part because she is unapologetically herself. As Amy Schumer highlighted through a now-viral sketch, […]
Spotlight: Selections from Leisure Seizure
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Bob DeBrisThis work has been selected from an ongoing series, Leisure Seizure.
Theres a lot of weird stuff out there, some of the objects were created to promote long gone businesses, abandoned building projects or doomed theme parks. Some of it is simply an act of whimsy. […]
Writers Read: The Feel Trio by Fred Moten
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Alex SimandFred Moten’s writing is being lost. Or found. Or the kind of lost you want—the wind whipping through trees in Alabama or words that come in meaningful bursts, though you are unsure of the meaning or the source of the bursts. You reel in a mad maelstrom of feeling, entirely precognitive but at once familiar, […]
Writers Read: About This Life by Barry Lopez
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Katelyn KeatingIn the introduction to his essay anthology, About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory, Barry Lopez describes becoming a writer and finding his voice. He writes of the universality of story in all cultures, a binding theme in this collection: “Stories do not give instruction, they do not explain how to love a companion […]
Spotlight: After the ring… / Prayer / She’s a lot more fun…
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Kathryn PaulAfter the ring, strip naked Peel your original self like a grape, become unrecognizable when you meet yourself in the mirror. When you meet your husband’s colleagues, just after they get a whiff of baby vomit, glance at your waistline, ignore your proffered hand, say: I am raising our children. Watch them head for the […]
Writers Read: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Teri FullerBehind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, chronicles the stories of peoples living in Annawadi, a slum on the outskirts of the airport in Mumbai, India. Between 2007-2011, Boo interviewed 168 people and reviewed over 3,000 public records with the help of translators. She did so in order to answer some pretty […]
Spotlight: Sou’Memphis ER
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / R.A. AllenWaiting room TV wanna know “CREDIT NO GOOD?” in blinkedy blue letters blue plastic chairs hard as rocks blue scrubs and blue shower caps on the nurses and docs blue-eyed po-lice ++all in blue beat my cousin black and blue the PA system sayin ++code blue ++code blue I wonder if they talkin bout him […]
Writers Read: Mefisto by John Banville
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Mary Kay WulfThis is a novel written by an author in extremis, an author both blessed and possessed. John Banville admits to experiencing a nervous breakdown while writing the book. He called it his attempt to set himself free in the practice of writing. The story is a first-person narration in the past tense. It is set […]
Spotlight: I Hate Myself for Loving You
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Sarah Dobie BauerI don’t know how he figured it was me who told the school he had AIDS, but he found out—and finds me under the bleachers, smoking a cigarette. He even throws the first punch, which I think is out of character for the rich bitch star of our high school track team, headed to Yale […]
Writers Read: Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Mary BirnbaumI read the essay collection Loitering by Charles D’Ambrosio, and returned to my own work-in-progress that suddenly resembled the cute chicken scratch of a toddler. Or an actual chicken. I looked at my attempt at an essay and thought, surely there’s a mistake. This can’t be my most recently revised draft. Alas. And so D’Ambrosio’s […]
Spotlight: Picking Blueberries / Organ Stop Pizza, Mesa, AZ / I Go Into The McDonald’s Bathroom
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Meg EdenPicking Blueberries My mother’s colander: metal with small, heart-shaped mouths— It was an old thing, probably my grandmother’s before, just like that blueberry bush in our backyard, planted 50-odd-years ago, a natural inheritance. We never used the colander except when picking blueberries, and even that became a hobby my parents left for their aging relatives […]
Writers Read: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Roz WeisbergElena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment explores a woman trying to survive the emotional storm after her husband leaves her. While thin on plot, the specificity of the character study strikes a universal chord. The brutal and ugly honesty is striking, off-putting, and at times self-indulgent, but the character always remains true, which makes her […]
Spotlight: The Things We Saved
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Lisa LebduskaOn a heavy Saturday in June, Steven and I wait for strangers to pound through my mother’s front door, but the strangers never come. Exclamation points, dotting our Craigslist posts like lollipops, have failed to lure buyers for the Vintage, Mint Condition! Italian provincial dining room set! and the Like New! Singer Sewing machine. No […]
Writers Read: On Being Stuck by Laraine Herring
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Katy AvilaWriter’s block. We’ve all experienced it. Sometimes we force ourselves through it. Wait it out. Try a writing prompt, take a break for coffee or something to eat. And sometimes it’s stickier than that. Now, you can’t get a word down. You’re staring at the white page. Maybe a revision? Maybe you should start over—like, […]
Spotlight: A Thin Season / In My Travels
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Karen Corinne HercegA Thin Season (For a young man beheaded for listening to Western pop tunes in his father’s grocery store) It is a thin season culling the air of blue breath choked sudden as a sword at the throat of a young infidel the forbidden pop tune of his innocence still playing in the annals of […]
Writers Read: Children of the Days by Eduardo Galeano
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Juliann AllisonChildren of the Days: A Calendar of Human History consists of a series of 366 vignettes, one for each day of the Roman calendar year, not noticeably related to one another, which create a mosaic of fractured memories of human history. The volume continues the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano’s Hegelian approach to understanding and articulating Latin […]
Spotlight: Say It Like You Mean It
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Anna van SchaapI am interested in different forms of communication (verbal, written, body language, etc). I generally paint the female form in uncomfortable positions and circumstances to see if an idea, emotion, or critique can be communicated using bodies, symbols, and titles. People are gregarious by nature. We are not meant for solitary existence. Our need to affectively communicate with each other […]
Spotlight: What I Brought Back / Freya at the Farmers’ Market / If an Egg Floats
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Sally VoglWhat I Brought Back Peace Corps Lesotho, 1980-82 I brought images of a motorcycle, a tsetututu, sputtering down pot-holed roads to a village where men stuff mint in their nostrils, women stretch their mouths in ululation, boys extend legs in Bruce Lee moves, and babies are secured on mothers’ backs by blankets with airplane designs. […]
Spotlight: The Waiting
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Jenny BhattMy last living memory is of my husband carrying my half-conscious body away from the thick heat and clinging wetness of the rice field. Something has bitten my right heel, leaving a crescent of bloody marks. He places me on our cart, jumps on, and prods Sakhi, our cow, into a jingling trot. Sweat and […]
Writers Read: A Field Guide for Immersion Writing by Robin Hemley
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Miriam González-PoeA Field Guide for Immersion Writing is Robin Hemley’s non-fiction methodological primer for writers on immersion journalism. In this compilation, Mr. Hemley covers a gamut of approaches to tackling immersion-writing projects, using examples of his work and other writers’ works to apply the mechanics of the narrative process. His techniques cover advice for undertaking and refining […]
Spotlight: Moorings / Walking the Dog in Autumn I Stop to Tie My Shoelace
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Emily FranklinMoorings Suppose you say water. We’re on the boat, making for Babson Island, one of three tiny beach slabs that connects at high tide. We set anchor, mark the drift, account for wind, row to the shallows. This place has sand dollars. You find some, bring them to me. I will wrap them in tissue […]
Writers Read: Dated Emcees by Chinaka Hodge
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Nikki San PedroOn the Friday following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Chinaka Hodge performed selections from her newly released poetry book, Dated Emcees, at 826LA to benefit the literacy organization. With poems honoring Jordan Davis, references to Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant, and tributes to Tupac and Biggie, Hodge has no shortage of words for […]
Spotlight: Burning Nettles
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2016 / Loren StephensThe train ride from Osaka to Arashiyama took an hour. Noriko rested her head against her husband’s shoulder and drifted off into a light sleep. She was exhausted from long days working at the Tesagara Tea Room and taking care of their two-year-old son, Eiji. Disembarking at the station, Ichiro instructed the cab driver to […]