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!
but I fell in love over the phone in 1989, his name two low notes shoved out my throat, repeated like a gulf smacking shore rocks in starlight, our letters tucked between issues of Uncanny X-Men because I did not want a willow switch across my back
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ben-Kline-Headshot-scaled.jpg25601707Ben Klinehttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngBen Kline2020-10-12 12:54:552020-10-13 17:27:37When My First Cousin’s Husky Puppy Licks My Face / They Say Men Are Always About Looks
The hijab had made her feel blessed when she had first been allowed to put it on. She thought she was praising Allah. She knew she was pleasing her father. He had looked at her in a different way that day.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/L.-Shapley-Bassen-Headshot.jpg493301L. Shapley Bassenhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngL. Shapley Bassen2020-10-05 13:26:062020-10-13 17:30:23The Night Before the Snow Day
This was different. This was x-rays, exams, and endless procedures. Like everything in this god-forsaken land, her body seemed to be drying up beneath the unrelenting sun.[…]
The women from my mother’s generation would have held their hands to their cheeks in shock and dismay. They would have cursed me for acting like a widow when I was fortunate to have a husband, alive and well! They would have whispered darkly about me, the irresponsible married woman who wore the symbol of widowhood so blithely![…]
I think of Korean immigrant writers who lived longer in the United States than I have, writers who wanted to share their stories but died without doing so. And others who did, wrote in Korean and were not translated. Their immigrant experiences are different from mine. That is why I feel compelled to write and share stories on behalf of those voiceless, invisible, powerless women.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ko_Tanya_credit_Arce_Jebbel.jpg640427Janet Rodriguezhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngJanet Rodriguez2020-09-14 11:47:522020-09-14 12:00:19The War is Still Within: An Interview with Tanya Ko Hong
She has tried opening up about her trauma to people she thought she could trust, but some friends distanced themselves or chided her for not “getting over it” when her story didn’t fit neatly into a survivor narrative. They didn’t want to hear how the twin poisons of abuse and silence seep their way into the body, how even the most processed trauma lies latent.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/3_Beez-scaled.jpg25601656Shannon Elizabeth Gardnerhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngShannon Elizabeth Gardner2020-08-31 11:25:562020-08-31 11:25:56Spotlight Arts: Dark Art
You are invasive, like water through stone cracking grey
shimmers inside, like jelly fish in the Pacific swimming,
stuck to legs and arms, stinging skin in the salty brine.
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/MSoledadCaballero_AuthorPhoto-scaled.jpg25601923M. Soledad Caballerohttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngM. Soledad Caballero2020-08-17 11:59:512020-10-13 17:33:14Stage Two/Follow-Up/All Love Stories are Death Stories
I need to tell the stories of African American people’s history and accomplishments in hope of strengthening and building confidence in the community. I examine the precious moments that have been erased from our timelines and that need to be brought back, such as their backbreaking work and the unforgivable wrongs they endured.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/9_Brown_is_Beautiful.jpg1104800Karen J. Andersonhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKaren J. Anderson2020-08-10 13:35:132020-08-10 13:35:13A History
isn’t it funny how
femininity is shamed even when it’s on women? i find it funny as a man very much in touch with his feminine side just how much of men’s hatred of women gets projected on me.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Sunderland.jpg720720Mercury-Marvin Sunderlandhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngMercury-Marvin Sunderland2020-08-03 11:56:302020-08-03 11:56:30It Takes Twelve (12) Onions to Make My Mom Cry
The poetic form has a compressed intensity to it. There’s such a focus. With the essay form, there’s more room to expand upon things. In an essay, I can wander around a little bit more; I can go on a tangent and reconnect with the main focus of the essay later. I like having that room.[…]
My drawings incorporate various combinations of paper, crayon, watercolor, ink, and digital embellishments using the Procreate app. Some are all digital. Whatever I’m working on, my goal is to make it new.
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Suddenly_the_world_lifts_a_considerable_sum_of_its_darkness-1.jpg20482048Bryan Voellhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngBryan Voell2020-07-20 13:38:392020-07-20 14:50:08Meditations Disrupted By Red Lemon Ghost With Strange Head Knocking Device: Drawings
I’m one of those poets who gets the most creative satisfaction out of editing. That said, I don’t think I would enjoy working on a poem or group of poems after more than a few months. I tend to tinker until I make myself sick of it.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NF1qIid8_400x400.jpg400400An Interview with Sen Shermanhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAn Interview with Sen Sherman2020-07-13 10:52:582020-07-13 10:57:28LitDish: Joshua Rourke, Publisher and Author
Stage Two You are invasive, like water through stone cracking grey
shimmers inside, like jelly fish in the Pacific swimming,
stuck to legs and arms, stinging skin in the salty brine.
Dark murmuration, wall of bones and feathers and small
bodies swooping through the sky, blotting out light and time […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSoledadCaballero_AuthorPhoto-scaled-1.jpg25601923M. Soledad Caballerohttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngM. Soledad Caballero2020-06-18 21:43:082020-09-14 11:35:27Stage Two / Follow-Up / All Love Stories are Death Stories
Allen, TX In a stash of nostalgia my parents keep a piece of orange paper. Typed at the top it reads: “What three things are most important to you?” and underneath in neat rounded writing my teacher transcribed my answer: “God, Jesus, and money.”[…]
how often and when to learn significant places significant conversations significant persons to provide personalized experiences relating building memories building navigation assembling itself language feelings to black one binary white zero[…]
My work explores an inner world of stored images and reflects on the shifting space of landscape, narrative, and memory. In the context of globalization, I am interested in how any image conveys a sense of time and place specific to a personal and cultural history; drawing and painting have been the constants on which I rely to investigate these questions […]
That radical melding of reader and character is, in my opinion, one of the highest rewards of reading, and I strive to create stories that encourage readers to experience it.[…]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Lisa-Bunker.jpg600600Adrien Kade Sdaohttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngAdrien Kade Sdao2020-05-25 01:31:392020-05-25 01:31:39LitDish: Lisa Bunker, Author and American Politician
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/IMG_2967.jpg1152864Talya Jankovitshttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngTalya Jankovits2020-05-18 02:34:282020-05-18 02:34:28Bad Dreams in America
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Koss-Pic-1.jpg640549Kosshttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngKoss2020-05-09 23:00:322020-06-17 10:18:51Magpie’s Dazzling / The Magpie Draws its Sorrow Line / Don’t Call Me Noo-Noo
Chief Smiling Officer of the Art Cart, Saba Shahid-Moir, MS, has made it her mission to help those who can’t smile so easily anymore due to complications from Parkinson’s disease […]
Women always choose survival over sadness. The story of our constant lack goes like this: in a land, some land, any land, men
stole the beans & rice, fed our bodies to the war, any war […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20191015_192945-1-scaled.jpg25601920Roshanda Johnson IIhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngRoshanda Johnson II2020-04-27 00:10:062020-04-27 00:10:06Letter to a Black Girl from her Great, Great Grandmother / Such Strange Fruit / Africa
My art was born out the quest for perfection, and in every work that I create, I make a realistic drawing of people, showing the emotions they wish we could see through their eyes, with pencils. […]
When she visited Antioch University, Los Angeles in December 2019, Rae Dubow hosted a seminar entitled, Writers at Work: Performance Workshop for Writers, where she worked with several students to teach more effective ways for them to read their work in front of the class. […]
It takes an inundation to isolate my isolation. I hope you remember―how a moon flooded fields for yellow spirits to rove, how we hastened through terraces into shrubs of pleasure. You: denuder, I: stony road. […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/poet_Image_3.png570436Satya Dashhttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngSatya Dash2020-04-05 13:22:092020-04-06 07:35:38The Question / Where It All Began / A Quietness of Magic
I do not think my family knows how to talk without belligerence behind the lilt of their jaws. We are the kind of people who do not deserve to love. I want to place a bouquet of flowers I cannot name in my mouth […]
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/5-scaled.jpg25602310Liam Stronghttps://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.pngLiam Strong2020-03-30 12:03:312020-03-30 12:10:45À La Carte: Second Wedding
Can I find the words I mark electronically without the cluster of stars I draw in margins to show what is important? Can I discover a buried treasure finger-flicking entries on a screen? Can I flip pages for perusal of bright maps on unexpected pages? […]
I think the question for writers is what do you want the legacy of your work to be? And how can approaching your work through an inclusive solidarity-driven cultural humility framework actually support the expansiveness of your legacy? I want writers to sit with that, to let that shape their writing […]
By definition, the grey area is the mixing of different characteristics or the lack of clearly definable characteristics. In this collection, I have attempted to do both, by merging and mixing three of the things I love most about art. These are: nature, skin tones, and geometry, as a whole, that is found naturally in both. Aesthetically, I have always loved the endlessness of what can be created in the spectrum that is found between black and white.[…]
When My First Cousin’s Husky Puppy Licks My Face / They Say Men Are Always About Looks
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Ben Klinebut I fell in love over the phone in 1989, his name two low notes shoved out my throat, repeated like a gulf smacking shore rocks in starlight, our letters tucked between issues of Uncanny X-Men because I did not want a willow switch across my back
The Night Before the Snow Day
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / L. Shapley BassenThe hijab had made her feel blessed when she had first been allowed to put it on. She thought she was praising Allah. She knew she was pleasing her father. He had looked at her in a different way that day.[…]
Family Prayers
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Stephanie RaelThis was different. This was x-rays, exams, and endless procedures. Like everything in this god-forsaken land, her body seemed to be drying up beneath the unrelenting sun.[…]
Baldilocks
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / ShikhandinThe women from my mother’s generation would have held their hands to their cheeks in shock and dismay. They would have cursed me for acting like a widow when I was fortunate to have a husband, alive and well! They would have whispered darkly about me, the irresponsible married woman who wore the symbol of widowhood so blithely![…]
The War is Still Within: An Interview with Tanya Ko Hong
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Janet RodriguezI think of Korean immigrant writers who lived longer in the United States than I have, writers who wanted to share their stories but died without doing so. And others who did, wrote in Korean and were not translated. Their immigrant experiences are different from mine. That is why I feel compelled to write and share stories on behalf of those voiceless, invisible, powerless women.[…]
Resistance
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Louise JuligShe has tried opening up about her trauma to people she thought she could trust, but some friends distanced themselves or chided her for not “getting over it” when her story didn’t fit neatly into a survivor narrative. They didn’t want to hear how the twin poisons of abuse and silence seep their way into the body, how even the most processed trauma lies latent.[…]
Spotlight Arts: Dark Art
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Shannon Elizabeth GardnerShannon’s use of watercolor and India Ink are unforced and create beauty within flaws while crafting an earthy grunge appearance.
On Trying To Guess My Newly-Dead Father’s Computer Password
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Megan Nevillecheck under the keyboard because that generation no
try: [my name + sister’s name] he liked me more no
Stage Two/Follow-Up/All Love Stories are Death Stories
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / M. Soledad CaballeroYou are invasive, like water through stone cracking grey
shimmers inside, like jelly fish in the Pacific swimming,
stuck to legs and arms, stinging skin in the salty brine.
A History
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Karen J. AndersonI need to tell the stories of African American people’s history and accomplishments in hope of strengthening and building confidence in the community. I examine the precious moments that have been erased from our timelines and that need to be brought back, such as their backbreaking work and the unforgivable wrongs they endured.[…]
It Takes Twelve (12) Onions to Make My Mom Cry
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Mercury-Marvin Sunderlandisn’t it funny how
femininity is shamed even when it’s on women? i find it funny as a man very much in touch with his feminine side just how much of men’s hatred of women gets projected on me.[…]
LitDish: Chen Chen, Poet and Educator
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / An Interview with Regan HumphreyThe poetic form has a compressed intensity to it. There’s such a focus. With the essay form, there’s more room to expand upon things. In an essay, I can wander around a little bit more; I can go on a tangent and reconnect with the main focus of the essay later. I like having that room.[…]
Meditations Disrupted By Red Lemon Ghost With Strange Head Knocking Device: Drawings
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Bryan VoellMy drawings incorporate various combinations of paper, crayon, watercolor, ink, and digital embellishments using the Procreate app. Some are all digital. Whatever I’m working on, my goal is to make it new.
LitDish: Joshua Rourke, Publisher and Author
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / An Interview with Sen ShermanI’m one of those poets who gets the most creative satisfaction out of editing. That said, I don’t think I would enjoy working on a poem or group of poems after more than a few months. I tend to tinker until I make myself sick of it.[…]
Stage Two / Follow-Up / All Love Stories are Death Stories
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / M. Soledad CaballeroStage Two You are invasive, like water through stone cracking grey
shimmers inside, like jelly fish in the Pacific swimming,
stuck to legs and arms, stinging skin in the salty brine.
Dark murmuration, wall of bones and feathers and small
bodies swooping through the sky, blotting out light and time […]
The Holy Trinity / Seen, A Conversation with Josephine Baker
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Kyndal ThomasAllen, TX In a stash of nostalgia my parents keep a piece of orange paper. Typed at the top it reads: “What three things are most important to you?” and underneath in neat rounded writing my teacher transcribed my answer: “God, Jesus, and money.”[…]
Call Me Spes #7/ #9 / #11
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Sara Marronhow often and when to learn significant places significant conversations significant persons to provide personalized experiences relating building memories building navigation assembling itself language feelings to black one binary white zero[…]
Land of Lights
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Dan JianMy work explores an inner world of stored images and reflects on the shifting space of landscape, narrative, and memory. In the context of globalization, I am interested in how any image conveys a sense of time and place specific to a personal and cultural history; drawing and painting have been the constants on which I rely to investigate these questions […]
LitDish: Lisa Bunker, Author and American Politician
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Adrien Kade SdaoThat radical melding of reader and character is, in my opinion, one of the highest rewards of reading, and I strive to create stories that encourage readers to experience it.[…]
Bad Dreams in America
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Talya JankovitsAnd this is when fear grips me the tightest. How can I protect them? How can I keep them safe—[…]
Magpie’s Dazzling / The Magpie Draws its Sorrow Line / Don’t Call Me Noo-Noo
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / KossMagpie’s Dazzling
when the magpie comes
he skulks behind his splendor
listen as he mirrors your tongue
careful, your ear, to the mummer
Saba Shahid-Moir, Art Therapist
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Loumarie RodriguezChief Smiling Officer of the Art Cart, Saba Shahid-Moir, MS, has made it her mission to help those who can’t smile so easily anymore due to complications from Parkinson’s disease […]
Letter to a Black Girl from her Great, Great Grandmother / Such Strange Fruit / Africa
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Roshanda Johnson IIWomen always choose survival over sadness. The story of our constant lack goes like this: in a land, some land, any land, men
stole the beans & rice, fed our bodies to the war, any war […]
Art and Emotions
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Chinedu ChidebeMy art was born out the quest for perfection, and in every work that I create, I make a realistic drawing of people, showing the emotions they wish we could see through their eyes, with pencils. […]
Rae Dubow, Business Owner and Speaking Coach
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Barbara PlattsWhen she visited Antioch University, Los Angeles in December 2019, Rae Dubow hosted a seminar entitled, Writers at Work: Performance Workshop for Writers, where she worked with several students to teach more effective ways for them to read their work in front of the class. […]
The Question / Where It All Began / A Quietness of Magic
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Satya DashIt takes an inundation to isolate my isolation. I hope you remember―how a moon flooded fields for yellow spirits to rove, how we hastened through terraces into shrubs of pleasure. You: denuder, I: stony road. […]
À La Carte: Second Wedding
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Liam StrongI do not think my family knows how to talk without belligerence behind the lilt of their jaws. We are the kind of people who do not deserve to love. I want to place a bouquet of flowers I cannot name in my mouth […]
Bibliotechnical Sins
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Carol HamiltonCan I find the words I mark electronically without the cluster of stars I draw in margins to show what is important? Can I discover a buried treasure finger-flicking entries on a screen? Can I flip pages for perusal of bright maps on unexpected pages? […]
LitDish: Four Questions with Povi-Tamu Bryant, Activist, Artist, Author
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / Regan HumphreyI think the question for writers is what do you want the legacy of your work to be? And how can approaching your work through an inclusive solidarity-driven cultural humility framework actually support the expansiveness of your legacy? I want writers to sit with that, to let that shape their writing […]
The Natural Skin of Geometry
/in Amuse-Bouche, Amuse-Bouche 2020 / J RobertsonBy definition, the grey area is the mixing of different characteristics or the lack of clearly definable characteristics. In this collection, I have attempted to do both, by merging and mixing three of the things I love most about art. These are: nature, skin tones, and geometry, as a whole, that is found naturally in both. Aesthetically, I have always loved the endlessness of what can be created in the spectrum that is found between black and white.[…]