Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Young Adult
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
      • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
      • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
      • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
      • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
      • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • X

Word From the Editor

May 20, 2019/ by Kori Kessler, Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019

A psychic I saw once said that 2019 was the year of reconstruction. This was not my personal reading, rather a global prediction. See, 2018 was the year of transformation—a tumultuous year, according to my psychic, where difficult changes had to occur to make way for the future. In 2019, she predicted that the human collective would build off the chaos of 2018 to reconstruct, for better or worse, the trajectory of our future.

Of course, it’s imperative that any discussion of the future of Lunch Ticket include the people who will lead us there: people of color, LGBTQ+, and women. The selections featured in Issue 15 Summer/Fall 2019 continue to help the journal as we strive to fulfill the mission we began in 2012. As Lunch Ticket looks for ways to expand our outreach, assuring that the voices of underrepresented and misrepresented communities remains at the core of the journal is non-negotiable. But here’s another voice I’d like to add to that list, a group that is often brushed off as inexperienced or idealistic: youth.

“There’s a reason why youth movements often are the ones that seek change in our world,” young adult writer Jennifer Brody says in On the Importance of Young Adult Fiction. “It’s a special time in life when a person is willing to question the current society and even topple the system.”

Young people are already leading lives as artists, scholars, writers, leaders and activists. Many are organizing, taking a stand against gun violence or marching for policy change to combat the disastrous effects of climate change. These young people have already established themselves, not as the leaders of the future, but as the leaders of today. Perhaps it’s time that we look to these leaders rather than keep insisting they would benefit from our advice.

As our team discussed what we wanted our trajectory to look like, we knew we had to expand our mission to include writing by young people. In March of this year, we launched School Lunch, a bi-weekly youth spotlight for writers between 13-17.

As we move to a brand-new website with our eye on the future, we continue to honor the bedrock of our literary foundation: our two contests.

Our Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation and Multilingual Texts continues to ensure Lunch Ticket’s commitment to works in translation. This year’s Gabo Prize winner Matthew Landrum translates “The Sun’s Taste” by Rannvá Holm Mortensen. Guest judge Dick Cluster says, “The images just keep coming in Rannvá Holm Mortensen’s poem, and Matthew Landrum brings them to us in English with a deft, sure hand.’” Landrum’s prize-winning translations appear alongside our first ever multilingual text finalist as well as other literary works translated from Spanish, German, Italian, French, Hungarian and Mongolian, which we featured in our Gabo Prize and translation sections.

This issue’s winner of our Diana Wood’s Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction, “Secret Ingredient” by Nicole Nimri, captivates us with what guest judge Terry Wolverton describes as “inventive structure to explore themes of culture, diaspora, family and gender expectations. By focusing on traditional foods, the author brings us into the intimate customs and rituals of this Jordanian family living in the U.S.”

Lunch Ticket continues to look for new ways to connect with people to build a literary community, in April 2019 we added a monthly Twitter Poetry contest. Lunch Ticket has worked to establish a brand and update our look for the future. Those are important concepts for an online literary journal. But how do we come out from behind our platform, our brand, to ensure our vision of the future? This is something I think about every time I put an issue of Lunch Ticket together.

In her essay “True Passion in Paradise,” youth artist and activist Sumayah Chappelle questions the course of humanity in a digital age: “We are all working to build our platform; we are constantly building, and building, climbing, and climbing to get to the top so that all eyes are on us, but once all eyes are on us, what do we have to say? What do we have to offer? What will move us forward?”

Chappelle makes an excellent point. Truth is a sticky concept in 2019, especially when it comes to building a platform or branding. How many corporations and individuals have proclaimed themselves a friend to the environment or a champion to the marginalized? How many times does a meme about Earth Day or Mental Health Awareness Month have to circulate before real change is made? As Chappelle points out, branding keeps the stakes relatively low. It’s safer to hide behind a brand because they allow us to align ourselves with the concept of change without actually having to enact real change.

If Lunch Ticket seeks to change the future of publishing, and become a platform which ensures a more encompassing world view, we must continue to focus on progress and action. For far too long the publishing world privileges the voices of a select few. We are an impetus for change, and the time is now. We amplify voices, experiences, and stories that strain to be seen and heard even in the world as connected as ours.

As our staff of fifty-one worked together to put together Issue 15 Summer/Fall 2019, we looked for works which haunted and moved us; we found it in the voices and stories about and by youth.

From Luz Pinilla’s “Letters from My Childhood” to eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Wing’s “Theodore Draws Wolves,” as our readers plunge into the pages of this issue they’ll stories of childhood, college, puberty, first-time experiences, and long held memories.

When looking back on our own youth, we recognize the challenges of finding language for our experience. Perhaps that is because many of us were told that children should be seen and not heard. In our interview with Carmen Maria Machado, she discusses her new memoir The Dream House. In the memoir Machado speaks to her younger self with compassion and understanding. By giving her younger self a platform to speak her truth, she invites all younger people to voice their truths. As a result Machado is modeling solidarity with youth to make systematic change.

The works in this issue find their voice in a chorus. With poems like Anna Wang’s “Dis / obedience,” Arianna Hayes’s essay “Representation of Systemic Racism“, and Christina Paries’s short story “The Jesus Christ of Henworth High,” the pieces in Issue 15 are bold, vibrant and unapologetic.

Kori Kessler has a degree in literary theory and a Master’s in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the former editor-in-chief of Lunch Ticket and a 2018 Los Angeles Book Review Fellow. She will be attending the Barrel House writer’s camp in the summer of 2019 as well as the Disquiet International Literary Program in the summer of 2020. Her work has appeared in Tiferet Journal and Emerson Review. One of these days she plans on settling down in LA with her dog, Ginsberg.

Issue Archive

  • Issue 26: Winter/Spring 2025
  • Issue 25: Summer/Fall 2024
  • Issue 24: Winter/Spring 2024
  • Issue 23: Summer/Fall 2023
  • Issue 22: Winter/Spring 2023
  • Issue 21: Summer/Fall 2022
  • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
  • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
  • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
  • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
  • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
  • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
  • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
  • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
  • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
  • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
  • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
  • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
  • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
  • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
  • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
  • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
  • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
  • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
  • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
  • Issue 1: Spring 2012

Genre Archive

  • Creative Nonfiction
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Flash Prose
  • Lunch Specials
  • Poetry
  • Interviews
  • Translation
  • Visual Art
  • Young Adult

Friday Lunch Blog

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

Today’s course:

Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

May 9, 2025/in Blog / Gale Naylor
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Gale-Headshot-01July2024.jpg 1791 1587 Gale Naylor https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Gale Naylor2025-05-09 11:55:262025-05-11 09:48:03Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

Products of Our Environment

March 14, 2025/in Blog / Mitko Grigorov
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mitko_Grigorov.jpg 378 300 Mitko Grigorov https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Mitko Grigorov2025-03-14 11:00:082025-03-31 11:51:57Products of Our Environment

Mother-to-Mother: An Open Letter about White Privilege and Fragility

November 22, 2024/in Blog / Dr. Valerie Nyberg
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Nyberg-stairs-2.jpg 1600 1200 Dr. Valerie Nyberg https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Dr. Valerie Nyberg2024-11-22 11:55:082024-12-04 15:05:42Mother-to-Mother: An Open Letter about White Privilege and Fragility

More Friday Lunch Blog »

Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/paparouna-photo.jpeg 960 720 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2025-04-25 23:55:312025-04-24 15:06:46The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

On The Map

March 28, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Ariadne Will
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/20220807-ariadnesaxt-MurielReid-01.jpg 1123 2000 Ariadne Will https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Ariadne Will2025-03-28 23:55:152025-03-31 11:49:32On The Map

Disappear Where? A Meditation on the Lost and Getting Lost

November 1, 2024/in Midnight Snack / Reid Delehanty
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/why-kei-8e2gal_GIE8-unsplash-scaled-1.jpg 1707 2560 Reid Delehanty https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Reid Delehanty2024-11-01 23:51:172024-12-04 15:37:16Disappear Where? A Meditation on the Lost and Getting Lost

More Midnight Snacks »

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/headshot-translator-Gabriella-Bedetti.jpg 400 400 translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png translated from French by Gabriella Bedetti and Don Boes2025-05-16 11:00:362025-05-14 17:05:21we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

Fourberie

May 2, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Terese Coe
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Head-shot-TC-new.jpg 377 311 Terese Coe https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Terese Coe2025-05-02 11:00:092025-05-01 15:09:24Fourberie

Vernacular

April 18, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Mary Morris
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/mary.jpg 576 480 Mary Morris https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Mary Morris2025-04-18 11:00:362025-04-16 16:24:31Vernacular

More Amuse-Bouche »

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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
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

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

The managers of Lunch Ticket all agreed that issue 26 needed to have a theme, and that theme had a responsibility to call for work relating to what we are seeing in society. We wanted a theme that resonated with Antioch University MFA’s mission of advancing “racial, social, economic, disability, gender, and environmental justice,” and we felt it was time to take a stand…

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instaX
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2021 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top