Fairytale Sestina - Olentangy Review

OLENTANGY REVIEW
1
winter | 2014
PUBLISHED BY | Moonkind Press
EDITORS | Darryl & Melissa Price
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY | John Lauer
Poems “the Unseen” and “why am i here?” will appear in Joanna Kurowska’s poetry volume The Butterfly’s Choice, coming in
2015 from Broadstone Books.
“Archer” by Beate Sigriddaughter was previously published in Cultural Weekly.
The cartoon by Bob Eckstein was previously published in the Harvard Review.
Copyright 2014 Moonkind Press | All Rights Reserved
The Olentangy Review is a literary website and magazine.
For subscription information and how to submit work, email [email protected].
Contributors retain all rights to their work.
OlentangyReview.com
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CONTENTS
Easter walk through the swamp at Blacklick Metro Park
John Lauer
Cover
Editor’s Note
Darryl Price
4
the Unseen | why am i here? | denial
Joanna Kurowska
5-7
Spoon
Susan Tepper
8
Fairytale Sestina
Frankie Saxx
9 - 10
Dear Busy Undergrads, Dear Sleepless
Stephanie Spector
11
Charlie Patton | Boys | Dana
Allen Forrest
12 - 14
colder months | post marked “up”
Marty Thompson
15 - 16
Before the Confounding
Andrew Stancek
17 - 18
Archer
Beate Sigriddaughter
19
This Much We Know | Makeovers by Fatima | The New Generation of
Creative Writing Students Reads the Work of a Sixty-Year-Old Poet
Pamela Miller
20 - 22
Barbie Commandos | One Day | No warning at all
Cathy Calkins
23 - 25
Selfie with Comet
Marcus Speh
26 - 27
The Planet Will Be Fine without Us | Land Fill at Morning
Gary Hardaway
28 - 29
Cartoon
Bob Eckstein
30
Contributors
31 - 32
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EDITOR’S NOTE
These are troubled times we live in, but they are no
more troubled than always. People like to cause
trouble. Nature causes trouble all the time. Trouble
causes more trouble. Misunderstanding all you see,
John Lennon sang. But let’s remember the one thing
that really matters, there is love in the world. Is it
coming from you? Will you accept it from others?
This issue is about what it has always been about,
freedom of expression. We’re not here to tell
anyone what to express or how to express. We’re
simply here to celebrate those expressions that we
find interesting. We found them, or they found us,
and now we want to share them with you. To me
that is the meaning of community. It’s very good
work and the fruits of it are in your hands, where it
belongs. The hope is that you will be inspired,
engaged and motivated to participate. It doesn’t
have to be with us. We are only one gateway to the
field. You can get there by many, many more, but we
thank you if you choose ours, of course!
The magazine is meant to be a door, not a door
knob. It is a window, not a lock. But most of all it is a
basket offered in friendship and peace. Welcome to
the neighborhood.
Darryl Price | December 21, 2014
[email protected]
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the Unseen | Joanna Kurowska
when you walk in the forest
chances are you’ll see a deer
a chipmunk, maybe a raccoon,
a few bunnies, swarm of flies
a spider, a bunch of sparrows
the red cardinal, a butterfly…
then you’ll hear a sudden crash:
maybe Hansel seeking Gretel,
the ghost of a departed love,
or a god who has lost her flock…
but you’ll rush to curb the Unseen
saying “eh, it’s only a branch.”
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why am i here? | Joanna Kurowska
“i am here because i am christian”
“i am here because i am muslim”
“i am here because i am jewish”
“i am here because my buddies and i
are watching a football game in a
buffalo wild wings”
these are all reasons
for me not to be here
but i am
i am
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denial | Joanna Kurowska
with my elbow, I draw
your breath in
the sand
my skin’s tips still
sensing the hue
of your echo
the toes licking
your voice’s
scent
the nostrils flared,
I hear your eyes’
gray-blue;
drowning the thought
of what you
have done
7
Spoon | Susan Tepper
Doug did I ever tell you the story of my marriage. To whats-her-name. Doug is lazing coiled in his fish tank. He seems to
blink. With snakes it’s touch and go. You can’t really tell. Are they sleeping or maybe just dozing. I pick him out and
hang him ‘round my neck. Good fella I say. He wiggles getting into position. Doug we’re like a married couple I say. We
spoon together. It’s nice right. Naturally Doug can’t answer. I pretty much know when he’s happy. So anyway the
wedding was small I tell him. Her sister that maniac. Wore a black dress. Black. A bad omen. That sister could crack an
egg just looking. I hold her in part responsible I tell Doug. I pat his head to reassure him. I know he worries I might
crack. I can get close at times. But then I’ll pick him up like today. We might go out for a stroll. To the market. The dog
park. We might drive out to Injun Joe. We might do nothing. Long as we’re together I say. He snuggles even tighter
‘round my neck.
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Fairytale Sestina | Frankie Saxx
Once upon a time you fell in love
with me. That’s how the story
goes. There were no dragons, only your heart
grown old, and no sleeping princess I,
to be kissed awake in a new life,
an ivory prize for heroic men.
Oh, broken prince among snake-oil men
know this: if I could love
anyone I could love you. If life
were a rose-tinted story
in which love conquered us all, I
would tender you my glass heart.
But I am not fragile. My heart
is bound by iron bands and untouched by men
bearing cages of filigree promises. I
wonder: could you love
me? There is a story
I once lived, another life
where I chose the same. Love or a life
unbounded — always the heart
forfeits. It knows the story
worth living is a story where men
cannot extinguish destiny. Love
is a choice, not a fate; you and I
are not constellations. At night I
can’t bear the weight of stars and life
travels faster than light. What speed love?
Is it possible for one heart
to echo another across time and space? Men
are only stardust when the story
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ends. Now, weary prince, another story:
you are grown old, worn, and I
am cold under the stars and empty men
offer only hollow life
in the confines of a banded heart.
This time I could choose love.
This is not a love story, no life
is — but if I gave my unbroken heart
to you, among men, what then, my love?
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Dear Busy Undergrads, Dear Sleepless | Stephanie Spector
We lie, you and I, wide awake up on the heavier side of the valley. Tiny beacons of liquid-gold light, little dandelions
preserved in amber and frisbee-thrown along the curb; these are our sentries. They sit cemented on iron posts to light
up the roads for us, like star projections across a planetarium ceiling. I know. The last thing I used to do before falling
asleep in bed was count the lampposts like sheep. At four o’clock in the morning, once, an old friend of mine twitched
his bad leg and snorted—the mattress, the books on his bookshelf, his trophy beer bottles, my body, that flesh trophy
belonging to him, too—all rattling. I thought the whole bunk might collapse. I tucked myself closer in to his armpit,
partly to smell him, partly to steady him. When I was sure he was asleep, I craned my neck back toward the window for
another look at the lights outside, remembered what home looked like, and counted.
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Charlie Patton | Allen Forrest
12
Boys | Allen Forrest
13
Dana | Allen Forrest
14
colder months | Marty Thompson
My words spill out as empty harmonies to a pitch perfect world.
I write the song of empty praise, a gospel sung to deaf ears.
You yell at my face,
The Great Oak does not try to be beautiful
It spreads out leaves for the sun and expects no praise!
I feel ashamed
That I can not bear myself naked to the cold,
Stolid as fall trees
In the face of complacent winter.
15
post marked “up” | Marty Thompson
I have seen the great lights
And been invested in their success.
I have sat on the brink of a universe
Lifting my legs and spitting into the void.
My psyche has slipped on that fifth-dimensional banana peel
And having fallen,
Picked itself up.
Where are you now
Fifth-dimensional banana peel?
And how come you will not take me down
The rabbit hole of deep mentality,
And a place without habit
That exists only to hold
Our dreams.
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Before the Confounding | Andrew Stancek
Mom says that when I was three, I proclaimed that I would learn every language, every single one, and understand
everyone in the world. She laughed then and laughs now, but soon enough my claim may came true. This body, well,
just a shell, isn’t it? But I’ve been gifted with so much more: a tongue- teeth- lips agile combo, a superlative brain, and
an indomitable spirit.
The story of Babel, before the confounding, is one of hope. People have one language, only one, and as a result
can achieve anything they imagine.
Even before The Day, I was mouthing amazing sounds: “Svoloch’,” “Scheisse,” “Sviňa,” “Salaud.” Mom indulged
me and brought tapes of introductory Russian, German, Slovak, French and guides to Gujarati, Tagalog, Hopi and
Oromo. She sat on the side of the bed, reciting Slovak rhymes she remembered from her childhood. I relished “Vo dne
v noci blabotajú, mne smutnému spať nedajú,” about giggling goslings, preventing sleep. I giggled as she tickled me and
told me to close my eyes. We cackled, her mouth forming wondrous sounds and her voice trilling.
Swear words are scrumpdelicious, of course, but sometimes a conglomeration of consonants makes words that
aren’t swear words sound profane. Czech has whole sentences without a single vowel, a mind-blowing stunt. “Strč prst
skrz krk,” means “stick your finger through your throat,” and Mom always pretended to stick it into my Adam’s apple,
and take it out the other side. Hour after hour I repeated sounds, and in my frequent half-wakeful state they were all
one language: the universal language before Babel.
Perthes. Osteochondritis. Necrosis. Epiphysis. These are not swear words but they could be. The doctors mumble
them with averted eyes and behind closed doors. Regular swear words are about feces and iniquities but these are
about my body and its malignancies.
Complications. Unforeseen. Unique. Doctor Rothko used those with Mom, and even though they were ordinary
words, they made Mom cry. “Why?” she yelled. “What has he done to deserve this? Adam’s a child!” She reached over,
squeezed my hand and told me to go to the waiting room. I knew what the doctor would say, that they’re doing
everything they can and that the prognosis is inauspicious, weeks at most, but I was determined to look after Mom as
long as I can, so I went.
Languages are freeing. A word for everything but in different parts of the world the sound is different. Sometimes
the sound is so great, expresses the very essence of the object so well, that the sound is the same, all over. Chai. The
word has a smell, a calmness, a letting go which makes it recognizable in Mandarin and Persian, Punjabi and Turkish,
throughout the world. Mom and I have been inhaling and slurping many cups.
Trans. A liberating syllable. You trans-late in moving from language to language but more and more, as Perthes the
Unforeseen moves through my body, I am captivated by the verb trans-cend. My defective shell will soon decompose
but before that, if I go deeply enough, I can overcome its limitations, lift into another dimension. Transform. Transport.
Transfer and transfix. Even translocate. Transmigrate. Transmute. But I am aural, not reading languages, but sounding
them. So “trans” and “trance” are cousins and as I work on my transmogrification, I go further and further into a
trance and…
Mom was fanatic about sharing our reading. Even before I declared that I would know all languages, she read me
Biblical stories, Greek myths, folk tales. I visualized adventures unfolding as her voice bellowed and trembled.
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Sometimes I fell asleep only hearing the sound, not the words. “In the beginning was the Word” I must have heard a
hundred times.
Babel was another beginning. Later in that particular narrative, the apostles speak every language known to
mankind. So I knew it was possible even when I was three, and if they could do it, why couldn’t Adam Zajac? The sea
was parted, the dead were brought to life and speaking every language is equally conceivable.
The flying, well, it wasn’t really that big a deal. I was bed-bound with an affliction which, while serious in boys,
usually does not have dire consequences. But it combined in a unique way with an unpronounceable swear word, and
there we were, the docs saying to Mom she’d better kiss me good-bye. I felt sorry for her, but for me, well, I know of
other planes of being. I pondered in my heart and looked at birds through my big window. And then I knew.
I transcended body particles.
I was able to move this shell, disease-ridden and finite, towards the infinite. I move appendages, and for lack of a
better term those of little insight call it flying, and squeal “ooh”, “aah”.
It is just a matter of language. I transmigrate.
I’ve been willing to go along, to be examined by this kind of doctor and that kind of scientist and this spiritual guide
and that guru. The TV people and the Internet and the tabloids, they all love me. I lift off from my bed, I fly in labs, over
the Grand Canyon and from tall buildings. They are impressed.
I won’t be at it long.
I will move in another direction.
If I was going to become one with the universe, I’d rather have been given the gift of universal language but I
mustn’t look a gift horse…
Oh, what’s the use? Maybe the language is yet to come.
They are busy asking questions. They want to probe and poke. It makes me so tired.
I thought the universal language would lead to understanding, that I could channel, oh, I don’t know, insight?
Enlightenment? Good old trite “world peace”? This gift I have, maybe I’m the one who has to be enlightened about its
use. Maybe it is as good as what I thought I wanted.
I have to translate myself.
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Archer | Beate Sigriddaughter
She has always wanted to belong. Now
it looks like she does. Dad offers
a sip of his beer. She giggles, shakes
her head. Heartthrob Rogelio nods,
his dark eyes gleam with admiration. First
time he looks at her like that. Nobody
says the dread words, "for a girl."
The men offer to skin and gut
the deer. She ponders this, accepts.
She still feels the sinew of the bow,
her strong and steady arms, the whistle
and velocity of death. The wounded eyes
film over, lifeless, without accusation.
"Well done," someone says. She wants
to ask back: "Have you ever looked
into the eyes of a deer?" Their calm
and dark acceptance, shy round
innocence with just a hint of question.
And the bold nose. But no words come.
She is in a different league now.
Tomorrow she will be sixteen.
They promise her first taste
of the meat. She feels empty, silenced,
betrayed. No one explained triumph
would feel like this. She remembers
wide surprise in eyes so black that
they could make you weep. The finches
in the juniper have lost their charm.
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This Much We Know | Pamela Miller
All disasters begin inside tiny padlocked boxes.
The periodic table is dissolving before our eyes.
Therefore, the Taj Mahal will become a hotel for ghosts.
All women secretly want to be Theodore Roosevelt.
But none would be caught dead in this centipede bikini.
Therefore, who am I to dip my fingers in boiling oil?
No cathedral of exhaustion has spires that point sideways.
An imploding neutron star can’t dance on the head of a godsend.
Therefore, we must all till the futile fields of sleet.
All human beings compare themselves to battlefields.
All fallen warriors are reborn as shards of silence.
No man is an island, but some women are.
Consequently, our hearts turn so easily into ladders.
Therefore, the world politely refuses to end.
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Makeovers by Fatima | Pamela Miller
Mistranslated from Nina Cassian
Your face is not appropriate for satori—
so impure, garish, maladroit.
Yet you too can soar like a svelte little cutie,
look young again in a patriotic obi,
and blissfully burn your old photos.
Why wear those awful ruglike pajamas,
that runny Rapunzel rouge?
I guarantee a chance to strut your stuff
in lingerie made of honey,
in a strapless ensemble of enigmatic microbes.
It’s simply a matter of attitude:
You can live out your days as a frustrated frump
or blaze your stamp on the sun.
You’re my perfect, perfect project.
Telephone Fatima today.
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The New Generation of Creative Writing Students
Reads the Work of a Sixty-Year-Old Poet | Pamela Miller
for B., who keeps subjecting his students to my poems
I was a little taken aback by the beginning with the vaginas.
I thought Pamela Miller’s poems were good but hard to understand.
One thing I disliked about her poetry was that she was a feminist.
In the very first couple of lines, I was already confused.
The humor she uses in her poetry could be considered a bit obscene.
The first line was crazy to me and I did not want to read on.
She has lines of a typhoon of spaghetti sauce and airports in your hair.
I tried to read between the lines but all I got was confusion.
I did not really enjoy the poems that talked about genitals.
It doesn’t seem as though she writes by the rules.
I just simply didn’t understand the imagery.
Talking about genitals in poetry is just a little weird in my opinion.
I feel I am lacking in vocabulary when I read these poems
because I am not sure what is going on.
When she wasn’t using invectives, she did a great job.
To me, the things she wrote were kind of weird, though.
Although Miller is being humorous, she is truly lust-driven.
There were references I did not fully grasp.
I did not much care for them because they were too feminist.
I hate them because they just make no sense to me.
But maybe that’s the point.
I just shook my head in disbelief.
The first poem in her book is about vaginas.
Instantly this shows that this poet does not beat around the bush.
Please by all means correct me if I am wrong,
but the problem with Pamela Miller’s poems
is that I personally don’t understand them.
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Barbie Commandos | Cathy Calkins
Did you lay in the dark wondering
if the scufflings you heard were Barbies
escaping from their suitcase?
Dressed of course in their best,
that green-print sheath
or the pink satin two-piece
ball gown with the cunning
pill box hat that looked so much
like Jackie Kennedy’s hat.
Did you imagine them
tiptoeing quietly
in their open toe heels
across the bedroom floor
toward your bed,
scrambling up the pleats
of your chenille bedspread,
then creeping up to your face
to plug your nostrils
with their tiny panties,
suffocating you
all because they hated
their legs being permanently
stained from your dirty
six-year-old hands?
You can be honest,
it was such a long time ago.
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One Day | Cathy Calkins
for Addie
You’ll click on CNN
and find he’s gone.
They’ll bury him
next to Linda of course.
We’ve talked of this many times.
His sweet face lined,
his voice unchanged.
One day, probably sooner
than later,
only Ringo will remain.
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No warning at all | Cathy Calkins
You look down and see
your grandmother’s feet
at the end of your own legs—
The grandmother you never
even liked. Why don’t
they tell you, you think.
Why don’t you learn this
in health class, in P.E.,
that someday, some far away
Day, your mouth, your feet
your eyes, your skin
will betray you, viciously
Becoming your own version
of all you once despised.
No one tells you in fear
You’d take an ax
to those two feet
a month before they changed.
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Selfie with Comet | Marcus Speh
In general, comets get to do whatever they like. They whirr
among planets and suns like happily glowing children,
orphans that don't answer to anyone. It happens that a solar
system captures a comet: it will then spend some time
circling within the confines of its captor, but give it any
opportunity to escape — and only gaseous memories remain
of its glorious presence. Once a comet’s good opinion is lost,
it is lost forever: it’ll take care not to return to the ungrateful
neighborhood.
What's to be grateful for? Oh, so much: comets are beings of
divine beauty. They're so vulnerable. Their frail tails
illuminate the dark netherworld between the planets where
nothing else exists, not matter itself and where even the
spirit is spread out thinly over many light-years. Here, a
single atom is cause for celebration. When the comet enters,
it breaks the slumber of eons, spitting colors into the corners
of his corridor of light, tumbling about, dancing its heavenly
choreography. Its praise has not nearly been sung enough.
The comet is a harbinger of hope, a fiery Angel on wings of
gas, a painter of the skies. It deserves its own eulogy.
Rosetta's Selfie | Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Who is the poet of the visible and the invisible heavens? It is the astronomer. When I was young I longed to be one of
them but my old ball of fire went into a different world and has yet to return to the stars. Astronomer are namers; they
measure, they ponder and then they name. Their baptism is not a sacred act, it's a dry course of endless cataloging:
M97, M98, M99. Their task is infinite but their progress is infinitesimal. Many of them must be terribly bored. It is
boredom, if not malice, that I hold responsible for the naming of “Churyumov-Gerasimenko”, the latest of the comets
to be snagged, bagged and tagged by the horde of astronomers. Its name is unprecedented: not Halley or Wild, Lovejoy
or Holmes, Tempel or Caesar — great names for the great comets, if not outright poetic at least not bizarre. But
Churyumov-Gerasimenko? At best, it's unique in its ugliness — nobody will remember it but nobody will mistake it
either for, say, a vodka ("Gorbachev") or a car ("Lamborghini").
As I said, a comet is free at heart and their freedom is dear to them. This is in no way negated by the fact that the
comet will only glow near a sun body. Imagine a surfer among the stars: he rides a quiet wave until he spots the big one
— creeping towards it stealthily he rises with the big wave, higher and higher, in a daring act of defiance. Gravity?
Momentum? Humanity? Nothing but word spray in surging waters. This courage has no name: when the beast comes
down with a roar, the surfer clawing its back, all naming is nought. This is what the comet does in its flight through the
night, flinging himself from star to star.
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The latest human invention is a spacecraft that hunts the comet down as if it were a dangerous animal. It is called
“Rosetta” — adding insult to injury: the hunter's name is prettier than the prey’s! — and it circles ChuryumovGerasimenko many times before attacking. Poor Caliban! Rosetta is looking for the comet’s soft heel and when it has
found it, it grinds down with its metallic boot, the landing craft “Philae”. Before setting its spike on the comet’s icy hull,
Philae snaps a selfie: a small part of the heavenly creature, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and a large picture of itself. The
selfie is about the beholder and not about the beauty of the spot or the surroundings. “Me, me, me”, mankind shouts
brandishing the selfie that is triumphantly sent around the world. Billions are in awe of our technology. Everyone will
remember the spacecraft and its mysterious name, Rosetta, few will think of the comet, and nobody can know what it
feels.
As Churyumov-Gerasimenko escapes, since Earth and its minions cannot hold it, as its majestic glow disappears behind
the solar horizon, Rosetta’s lander, a small pebble of platinum and plastic, a pewter of our pride, tags along as a free
rider. Like a broken harpoon that sticks to the side of a blue whale when it dives into the deep.
Years later, after having seen the universe with the comet's eyes, the signal from Philae suddenly dies: God has shown
mercy and removed the hook from the fish.
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The Planet Will Be Fine without Us | Gary Hardaway
It circled the sun four plus billion times
before we happened and will circle at least
four more billion times after we destroy ourselves
and a few thousand species of our closest relatives.
The planet will be fine without us as it was
once Ordovician and Silurian events
emptied the seas.
The planet will be fine without us as it was
after the Devonian catastrophe ended
three quarters of species, land and sea.
The planet will be fine without us as it was
when the Permian extinction made the goo
that made the Rockefellers wealthy.
The planet will be fine without us as it was
after the Triassic and Jurassic made the death that made the coal
that gave us the power of our own gradual death.
The planet will be fine without us as it was
when the dinosaurs were snuffed out by shock and awe
of that terrible asteroid and the dark sky after.
The planet will be fine without us after wealth,
torn from under earth, burns and stokes the final fire
that will extinguish all we know and all we knew
and the planet- fine without us–
sprinkles sediment over our remains
to entomb all we were for the brief, frantic, time we were.
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Land Fill at Morning | Gary Hardaway
The seagulls here—no, no Sea,
just Gulls, I suppose—enjoy
the scraps of the Ray/Gonzales
wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales—
of course they took his father’s name—
sip banana breakfast daiquiris
on a beach in Belize. The gulls
have somehow mastered the art
of avoiding the nooses of six-pack
plastic rings and swallow uneaten thirds
of sun-ripened jumbo shrimp.
They’ve acquired a taste for cocktail sauce.
Beyond, the Caterpillar-yellow dozers
bury the dried remains of deader days.
Further on, the matrix of white PVC pipe
vents methane to a rust-red sky.
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Cartoon | Bob Eckstein
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CONTRIBUTORS
Cathy Calkins, a writer and retired nurse, has lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico her entire life and often uses images
from the desert in her poetry. She's had poems published in North American Review , Kalliope , The Evansville
Review , Cider Press Review , Weber Studies , Salt Hill , Agnieszka’s Dowry, Electric Acorn, The Hurricane
Review, Olentangy Review and RN .
Bob Eckstein is a writer/illustrator for the New York Times. www.bobeckstein.com.
Born in Canada and bred in the U.S., Allen Forrest works in many mediums: oil painting, computer graphics, theater,
digital music, film, and video. Allen studied acting at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, digital media in art and design at
Bellevue College, receiving degrees in Web Multimedia Authoring and Digital Video Production. Forrest has created
cover art and illustrations for literary publications: New Plains Review, Pilgrimage Press, The MacGuffin, Blotterature,
and Under the Gum Tree. His paintings have been commissioned and are on display in the Bellevue College
Foundation's permanent art collection. Forrest's expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde
expressionism and postimpressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh creating emotion on canvas.
Work by Gary Hardaway has appeared at Gumball Poetry, Manifold, Silkworms Ink, Connotation Press, Divine Art
Quarterly, Cu.ren.cy, and Blue Fifth Review. He currently lives in Plano, Texas and has earned his living as an urban
planner and architect. [email protected]
Joanna Kurowska is the author of five poetry volumes, most recently The Wall & Beyond, eLectio Publishing,
2013; Inclusions (forthcoming 2014, Cervena Barva Press), and The Butterfly’s Choice (forthcoming 2015, Broadstone
Media). Her creative work appeared in American and European journals such as Atticus, Bateau, International Poetry
Review, Kultura (Paris), Levure littéraire, Off The Coast, Penwood Review, Room, Vine Leaves, and elsewhere. Joanna’s
critical works have appeared in The Conradian (UK), Slavic and East European Journal, Journal of Religion And The Arts,
Sarmatian Review, Southern Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Pamela Miller has published four collections of poetry, including Miss Unthinkable and Recipe for Disaster (both from
Mayapple Press). A downsized magazine editor, she now makes her living as a freelance health care writer and editor in
Chicago. She is currently working on a series of 14-line poems prompted by Surrealist writing techniques, tentatively
titled “Accidental Sonnets.”
Frankie Saxx lives & writes in Northern Sweden.
Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.com, lives and writes in Silver City, New Mexico. Her work has
received four Pushcart Prize nominations. She has also established the Glass Woman Prize to honor passionate
women’s voices. Her new novel "Audrey: A Book of Love" is due out July 2015.
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Stephanie Spector is a junior creative writing major from Freehold, NJ. She studies at Roanoke College and is the
2015 Content Editor for the Roanoke Review. This is Stephanie's first publication.
Marcus Speh is a German writer who lives in Berlin. His short fiction collection “Thank You For Your Sperm” is
forthcoming from MadHat Press. He blogs at marcusspeh.com.
Andrew Stancek grew up in Bratislava and saw tanks rolling through its streets. On occasion he has claimed direct
descent from Janosik, the Slovak Robin Hood. Other times he has talked of his distant cousins Jerry Lee and Elvis.
These could be tall tales. In the world of reality he writes, dreams and entertains Muses in southwestern Ontario. His
work has appeared in Tin House online, Every Day Fiction, fwriction, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, Prime Number
Magazine, r.kv.r.y, Camroc Press Review and Blue Five Notebook, among many other publications. He’s been a winner
in the Flash Fiction Chronicles and Gemini Fiction Magazine contests and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The
novels and short story collections are nearing completion.
Susan Tepper is the author of four published books of fiction and a chapbook of poetry. Her current title The Merrill
Diaries (Pure Slush Books, 2013) is a Novel in Stories that begins in 1976 and traces one woman's journey for a decade
over two continents. Tepper is the recipient of nine Pushcart nominations and one for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Her
story 'Distance' (Thrice magazine) is a 2014 finalist in story/South Million Writers Award. Her two columns on writers
and the writing life appear monthly at Flash Fiction Chronicles and Black Heart Magazine. FIZZ, her reading series at
KGB Bar in NYC, is sporadically ongoing these 7 or 8 years now. www.susantepper.com.
Marty Thompson is a writer based in Washington D.C. Recent work includes the screenplay for "Catherine King", a
short film screened at Ithaca College, as well as "Spatial Relations", a short play staged by Weekday Players as part of
their one act festival. He enjoys things like dogs and mandolins.
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