Search Results

stubble + lipstick mingle over fluid mouth shaping words the words you’ll sing when the band meets in a room above a pub thrust to the margin of a dying town facing wind and rain the monochrome posters you designed damp, askew, peeling forward tide of friends + friends of friends lapping at your feet all eyes adoring of your blue-lit chin back curved, cheeks taut, eyes shut devour the mic beyond, fields float slashed by the silvered paths you walked as a child hand-in-hand, vodka sick I watch lyrics flow from fingers thin as the poet’s pencil I would follow you out of the carriage join the audience stand glass to teeth bass vibrating my heart hear the images I watched you order and reorder but I do not leave our lives must not intersect. Philip’s poetry has appeared in Black Bough, Poetry Birmingham, The Healing Muse, Deracine and Dream Noir. He is a London-based doctor and writes extensively on medical ethics. His creative output can be explored at www.philberrycreative.wordpress.com and @philaberry.

I almost raked my hands, again, down my throat, searching for the miasma of the college story love poems I almost wrote. I inched myself on the treadmill, ran three miles while my friend Talked to me in a flurry of alcoves, in daughters gone missing– How the world was ending – How there was our fancy friend, and there was us– And, I pretended not to cry; I just kept running. There’s a song without the words, The notes clear but the hollows of the singer in the background, muted in manatee spirals, slow and loafing. And I realize that I want to fill in the blanks; I want to know what the future holds; I want to know if I can talk to my deceased grandmother again, somewhere along the meadow Of where we land, when we don’t know where we’re going. I almost panicked about what will be lost, All the lost moments, the jobs I left, the poems I almost wrote but fluttered asleep To comedy instead. The pinch near my brain that I hope is fine, The way there are diagnoses and mad women and bills gone unpaid– & I read on reddit that means I’m a deadbeat, & so I contemplate dying my hair lilac, Hoping I’ll sink in the midnight hours between rushing And worrying. & I almost hold myself closer when this happens: when the world spins tighter and tighter to the last note– And, I don’t know if it’s going to be flat, Or ruin everything. Or, hold us steady, wanting to rise to our feet, Again. Will I end in a standing applause? Will I end with a monotone note at the end? Will I end with a familiar chorus Like the faces of your favorite children That you hope never ends, but you know the last note And when it’s coming? I wait for the ending. I grip my knuckles tighter, hoping it’s a fluke, that the underbelly of ending won’t come for me, and won’t come when I’m standing. Fists clenched, worried About the goodbyes I wanted to say to you, plain. I wait for the note that could be a middle C; it could be a low base; It could touch high parts, where the fingers almost leave the ribcage of the piano. The note could bleat openly, hoping it lulls you to sleep. I don’t want to ruin, don’t want to spoil– Don’t tell me the note that will stay with me, The rose that I hold in my hands, as the blood-red petals live longer Than I do. This piece is about imagining what last note would be played on your last day. What would it look like? Leslie Cairns has a recently released chapbook, titled 'The Food is the Fodder' through Bottlecap Press. Find her on Twitter.

Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his family in New Hampshire. He’s a BOTN 2021 nominee. His debut collection with Alien Buddha Press, “Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities,” is available on Amazon. His second collection, “Oil Stains Like Rorschachs,” is out with Anxiety Press and available on Amazon. Website: http://linktr.ee/McGuirkMatthew “Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities” https://www.amazon.com/Daydreams-Obsessions-Realities-hybrid-collection/dp/B09M4YKHBV/ “Oil Stains Like Rorschachs” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKMS59Y8 Twitter: @McguirkMatthew Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew *** NF: Tell me about your personal writing journey. What drew you into writing? MM: I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I even remember putting together little nonfiction pieces with pictures way back in 1st and 2nd grade. From there it progressed to writing novels in spiral bound notebooks and sharing them with friends throughout my grade, some students would even be waiting for the next chapter to see what happens next, so that always made me feel good. I wrote a pretty terrible novel, well over 200 pages, in high school, but I was thankful my sister clung to each chapter I had her check out. I took two creative writing courses in college, and then shortly after college, writing took a backseat to work, making money, and building a family. Years later, the drive to write kicked back up around the time the pandemic started, and that’s when I began writing almost daily again, and for the first time in my life, shipping pieces to literary journals (my wife’s idea, and I’m still thanking her for the push, and saying the work was good enough). I’ve been rejected a lot but feel fortunate to also have found a lot of success, and now I have two books published (Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities with Alien Buddha Press and Oil Stains Like Rorschachs with Anxiety Press), and it has all seemed like a whirlwind of a few years, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to do something I love and share my work with anyone who is willing to give it some of their time. NF: You write both short stories and poetry. What do you like about writing short stories? MM: Short fiction was something I’d never really written much of until I took a creative writing course in college, and my professor had us work in that length almost exclusively. I love being able to tell a story that’s engaging, drive home a theme, and know someone will be able to sit down and in minutes absorb what I’ve put on paper. I think a lot about the aspect of space and how a writer can really take a reader to a lot of places, even in a place as small as a micro. I feel my process works pretty fast, and I feel like short fiction provides me an opportunity to work through some pieces I may not have approached if they needed to be novel or novella length. NF: Your short stories cover a range of genres (science fiction, fantasy, horror). Which genre is your favorite, and why? MM: I always say Stephen King has been and is still one of my favorite writers, and I’ve always loved the horror genre, primarily because of him. In my own writing though, I find it really difficult to pick one genre that stands out more than the others, because I think a lot of my work really blurs lines and often has a literary spin, even if it seems to gear towards a certain genre. NF: What do you like about writing poetry? MM: I’ve always really liked reading poetry and didn’t really start writing it until college. I love that poetry can convey so much emotion in so little space, but I also love, that at times, a poem may speak one way to one reader and a different way to another. I also think that because of the small spaces most poems take up, an image in a poem can really hit hard, and maybe even harder than a similar one in a story, because it is taking up that much more of the physical space provided. NF: When is writing short stories better than writing poetry, and vice versa? MM: There is not one set method for me, but oftentimes it is just which feels right, and my initial intuition on that has seemed to work almost all the time. I have swapped a few ideas that I initially thought of as stories to poems, but for the most part, my initial thought between the two has worked well. Otherwise, short stories for me tell a story or a snippet of a story, it’s more plot, but still with a focus on character many times. Poems tend to start with an image for me or an emotion, and there still may be elements of plot, and you’ll still oftentimes learn about the speaker, but it is more tailored to thought or emotion. NF: I’ve found that the longer I write poetry, the more I remember my own childhood, and the more sensitive I am to the relationships around me. How has writing changed you? MM: I think writing is a reflective process, and when writing poetry or even fiction, there is a semblance of truth and a semblance of self presented in the work. As far as changing me, I think writing adds an additional awareness of environment and self in a current state and helps you think about what you are thinking about at the moment, but also adds documentation of thought process, interests, etc. as the time between the written piece and current time expand. NF: Now let’s talk about “Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities.” How did you choose the works that appear in this book? MM: I’d been doing a lot of writing from around late October of 2020 through 2021, and I had a lot of material (stories and poems) and a few collections that were taking shape, one following a group of narrators and an auto shop now collected, finished and published as Oil Stains Like Rorschachs with Anxiety Press. Additionally, I began seeing the shape of something more abstract in nature, that didn’t follow a set of narrators or a single person telling a bunch of stories, but a similarity in theme or branches of themes, some elements that felt closely paired and a feeling that there was something there. I began pulling together everything that seemed to fit and shuffling pieces slightly in the order I’d originally selected. As I started to feel happy with the mix (down to around 15 pieces), I saw a few holes in my abstract storyline or order and wrote 6 other pieces specifically for the collection that filled in those holes. There was a late cut from the collection, a story I really like but that didn’t seem to quite fit, but otherwise, I was/am very happy with what I came up with: a collection of stories and poems that each stand individually, but collectively says something broader. My hope is that people will enjoy the collection as individual pieces or a collage of interconnected themes, or look for something broader or abstract in nature and find an arc to follow. There really isn’t a right way to read it and that’s one of the things I really love about the collection. NF: I always enjoy your descriptions that appeal to the senses, especially in pieces like “The Chickadee’s Song” and “Green Grass.” How did you develop your descriptive skills? MM: Really appreciate that and am glad you like that aspect of my writing! I think a lot of it is just a quiet observation of what is already right in front of me. Both pieces strike a contrast between rural and urban or natural and manmade, and all kinds of playoffs of scenes, sights, and sounds that I’ve walked through or near before. After observing, it is just a matter of putting the words to what I am seeing, and at that point, my mind and fingers are moving too quickly on the keyboard to figure out exactly where it is all coming from. NF: Your writing is often influenced by your relationships with children, both as a teacher and as a father. Even when a piece deals with dark subjects, such as the emotional and physical scars children carry from their family life (“Crop Rotation”), there is still an element of sweetness. Conversely, you can turn sweetness upside down, and go dark (“Ray and the Frog,” “The Day the Little Mermaid Died”). How do you manage that balance between light and dark, both in your work and home life, and as a writer? MM: I think the world is full of both light and dark, and it is all about how they come into balance and how we deal with these aspects. The three pieces you mention take different looks at the darkness in the world and approach them with varied mindsets as well: the teacher in “Crop Rotation,” the father in “The Day the Little Mermaid Died” and the perpetrator in “Ray and the Frog.” Not one situation is just black and white or light and dark or good and bad, but varying shades of gray, and there’s really a lot that goes into each moment in life. I think my writing reflects my thought process on the world, observing the evils or bad situations people have to wade through or sometimes put themselves in, and I think as a teacher at a high school, I see many students in these situations on a daily basis. As a parent, I hope to keep my children away from the bad or give them the tools to deal with it. When they inevitably come into contact with that is one aspect of “The Day the Little Mermaid Died” and why I think it’ll appeal to many that have children, know children, or even think back on their youth and their first interactions with that darkness of the world. NF: “We Be Squirrels” takes the reader inside the imagination and emotions of a child. In the poem, imagination is more tangible and interesting than the real world. How much of this poem is based on your own childhood experiences, and how much is based on your own children? MM: “We Be Squirrels” is a poem I wish I could jump into at times, and get away from whatever is going on or the difficulties of every day, and I guess in a way that’s what we writers do when we’re scribbling words in the moments we can. I hope everyone can relate to the concept of letting your imagination take over, as you stated, and I’d say I was a pretty imaginative kid overall. I hope the same for my children because I think that has a creative element to it and is just a part of being a kid. NF: Several of your stories (“Spud the Potato Farmer,” “Green Grass”) deal with how to survive in a hostile environment. If you are willing, please describe your own experiences that you drew from to write these stories. MM: Hostile environments are something we all see at some point, at least in my opinion. “Spud the Potato Farmer” and “Green Grass” both outline the situation, which can be brought on by others, as in Spud’s case, or a situation as in the case of the narrator in “Green Grass,” but it is really all about how we deal with these situations or cope with these situations that matter. “Spud the Potato Farmer” is based once again around observations and thoughts as a teacher, but also as someone who went through school. “Green Grass” probably spurred from my family moving and takes root in that. My general thought process or reaction, when confronted with hostile environments or obstacles, is closer to the thought process of the narrator in my “Green Grass” story, but I think Spud’s story and reaction are probably one people will see a lot of truth in as well. NF: Some of your stories (including “Mac the Pirate,” “In the Weeds,” “287 Riverview Road,” “Crudely Crafted Characters,” “11:11”) are so fantastic, the events and images are so unexpected, how do you come up with these ideas? MM: So glad you liked them and I agree that many of these have that surreal edge to them. Someone once said that I always seem like I’m thinking about multiple things at once, and I’m still not sure if that is a compliment or criticism, but I feel that is where a lot of my writing in general stems from, and pieces like these reflect that pretty well. Sometimes my writing is spurred on by a certain phrase, “in the weeds” which is a common phrase in kitchens for being behind…something I learned while working at LongHorn Steakhouse for a couple of years in my 20s. Other writing is spun from everyday situations like how “Crudely Crafted Characters'' started. My daughter and I were actually using chalk on our deck and I’m a pretty terrible artist, so that’s where the title came from because in my mind they truly were crudely crafted, and then my imagination just ran wild, like the squirrels again I suppose. “11:11” is a riff on that saying, “11:11, make a wish” and then I just turned it upside down. My wife and I had seen enough houses in the number of times we’ve moved to imagine a scenario like “287 Riverview Road,” so that’s where that one jumped off. “Mac the Pirate” was spun out of a writing prompt or theme call from a journal. Ironically, it was not accepted there, even though I really love(d) the piece! It was quickly picked up by Bombfire, and fits really well into this collection too, so I’m happy about that. Writing pieces that go toward the surreal or really go off the deep end is so fun because it is very outside of what I normally write, and I’m glad for the questions you’ve provided that have really tackled many different aspects of my writing in general. NF: What are you writing now? MM: Now that Oil Stains Like Rorschachs has dropped with Anxiety Press I’ve been focusing a lot on promoting that and continuing to promote Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities, but it is always thinking ahead and about what is next to and this question really hits that. I’m always writing something! I still have a pile of short story and poem ideas that I’ve been slowly chipping away at, but they always seem to pile back up…not complaining though because I realize that’s a good thing. Also, I’ve been trying to keep up with the #vss365 prompts, but have had to slide a few into a single day here and there because of a recent move for my family. I’m closing in on the end of a couple of collections at this point, and have a few more pieces to write to finish others off. NF: Do you have any new projects in mind, and if so, what are they? MM: I’m working on compiling some more pieces (formerly published, written, and newly constructed) into another couple of collections, but not sure when to peg a time to send these out to publishers because they are still mainly in the curation phase at this point, and I’ll need to go back through and read the whole collections to see how they flow. I’m also jumping back into longer-form work as well. I had a story published with Bear Creek Gazette for their apocalypse contest and wrote another one to that prompt as well. The other piece that was not submitted to the contest was a 3,000-word story, but as I was writing it, I saw places where expanding would really strengthen and benefit what is being presented, and in the end, I realized the piece would work so much better in a novella or novel length. I’m excited to continue down this road with this story because I really haven’t written anything in long form since around October 2020. Those pieces are still buried in my computer waiting to have eyes on them at a later date too! NF: Do you have a vision for where you want to be as a writer 5 years from now, and 10 years from now? MM: I feel my process has continued to change and evolve so much since I jumped back into writing in late 2020, and I’m excited to see where everything goes over the next 5 years, 10 years, and beyond…but I’m not sure where I’ll be at that point. My hope is the ideas will still be flowing, and I’m sure I’ll be working on several projects at once, which is sort of the usual for me. I can say I’ll probably have sent out collections or books to publishers again in that time and hopefully had a chunk more work published online so people can check it out. My other hope as a writer over the next 5 or 10 years is to have more conversations like this about my work and sincerely thank the people that have checked it out so far, because it truly is so cool to be able to share my ideas and work with people around the world. Thanks again for doing this interview with me. I really appreciate the support and I’m so impressed with the questions, they were so well thought out! I enjoyed connecting with you through this and hope to do it again soon! *** “Twenty-Four Poems,” available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRCC2LTW/ Published by Meat for Tea Press Price: $14.00 53 pages In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction, and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his SELECTED POEMS was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound, and others. His most recent book is SELECTED POEMS: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (Concrete Mist Press, 542pp). https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems-Directors-John-Yamrus/dp/0578284138 For a review of this book: http://www.compulsivereader.com/2022/08/19/a-review-of-selected-poems-the-directors-cut-by-john-yamrus/ A number of Yamrus’ books and poems are taught in college and university courses. He is the most widely-known proponent of the minimalist style of poetry. *** NF: I was taken by your first poem in the collection, “i remember the last time.” It was a coming-of-age poem that was both sweet and sad. Please tell me more about that time. JY: I think that everything I write is coming-of-age, whether it’s me at ten years old or in my 70s...no matter if it’s something that actually happened to me or something I’m makin’ up...in one way or another it’s all happened and happening...all part of a whole and the hole is in me and I’m just writing, trying to fill it. I know that’s an arrogant and ignorant answer, but it’s the only one I’ve got. NF: You have a couple of poems (“this guy,” “he,” “why do you write,” “it seems”) that speak to your attitude about your poetry. Why do you say it is nothing special? JY: Because it is...nothing special. I mean...it’s ALL special...anyone’s work is special. I never thought because I’m a writer that anything I do is different or special. It’s all part of the whole. I really wish I was better at other things...I can’t snake a toilet or fix a pipe...there’s not much of anything other than writing that I AM good at, so in many ways I’m less than special. NF: You make fun of other poets and what poets have to put themselves through as part of the creative life (“the poet sent me,” “he read,” “i think”). What are your expectations of other poets? JY: I don’t have any expectations of anyone. I’ve got my wife and my dog and my books...beyond that, what more could I ever want or expect? And as for making fun of poets...that’s low-hanging fruit. They’re an easy target. Most put themselves up on a pedestal and it’s fun to take a shot. NF: I laughed at “i’ve,” your poem about rereading Hemingway (who is one of my favorite authors). How do you think your growth as a writer has changed your attitude toward other authors? JY: The older I’ve got my feelings about guys like Hemingway have changed...Hemingway (especially) used to bore the shit out of me...as a kid, reading stuff like OLD MAN AND THE SEA and some of his other books, I just didn’t get it...I was looking for too much...and now, reading him at my age, I can see that just a little is more than enough. So, now, in just the last year or two, I’ve re-read just about all of Hemingway and much of Fitzgerald and the one I’m still having trouble with is Henry James...although Washington Square is a darn good book...it also might be one of his shortest. As for my attitude toward any of my contemporaries...I think most of them are lazy. Most of them sit around doing too much talking about what they’re going to do...waiting for inspiration...do you know what I mean? I have more respect for writers who do the deed every day than for writers who’d rather sit around talking about it. Journalists...they’re real writers...I’d like to see some of my contemporaries try and come up with something new and different and real every day, every day, every day. That’s hard. It takes a real writer to write like that. NF: It’s obvious that you love dogs. Tell me about the dog you wrote about in “it was.” JY: I could talk about my dogs forever. There’s been five of them, so far. All of them different and all of them fun. Anyone who’s ever had a pet knows the feeling of sadness and loss and the heartache of coming home and staring at the bowl that’s never gonna be used again...of cleaning the windows out front and the glass on the back door one last time. That hurts. Poems like that are easy to write because everyone can relate to them...and if someone can’t, I don’t care to know them. NF: How did you meet the woman in the poem, “years ago?” JY: Her name was Claire Henry and she was a real treasure. I don’t think she was 5 feet tall, but she was a bundle of energy and like I say in the poem she was in Paris in 1927 on the day Lindberg landed and she wasn’t a writer, but she worked on a whole lot of magazines that published science fiction way back when and she knew guys like Bradbury and Asimov and she made the best clam chowder in the whole wide world. NF: Several poems describe things you did when you were younger (“TJ,” “i was 13”). How much of what you write is based on memory and how much is based on imagination? JY: Oh, the poems like that are ALL memory...selective memory, for sure...but they’re all true. As true as I remember. I did a tv show last year, and I told a story about how I met my wife and the next day we were watching a replay online somewhere and Kathy turned to me and said “that’s not the way it happened...that’s a complete and total lie”, and I looked at her and said “when you write your own book you can set the record straight.” NF: Several of your poems deal with unresolved pain, with situations we can’t control (“he was once,” “the novels,” “things”). How do you personally grapple with these issues? JY: If you figure out an answer to that one, let me know. NF: What’s your next project? JY: Well, the garage is a royal mess and there’s a lot of dog poop out in the yard...beyond that, I’ll have to let you know. *** Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer/reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu “My Father’s Ghost Hates Cats” https://amzn.to/3uEKAqa “The Big Unda” https://amzn.to/3IxmJhY “How to Get Me Up in the Morning” https://amzn.to/3RLDaKc Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolcha.fox/

When your father told you That your mother’s breasts were Deadly nightshade You drew a line between You and God Pale eyes Pierced the flesh of heaven’s veil And you fell from everyone’s grace They say grief is heavy That it steals hope And children can be cruel Like the boy whose arm You slammed in a door When he spoke ill of your Mamá You prayed that the angels Felt the weight of Your grief that day Lisa Mary Armstrong is a mother and Scottish poet who loves tea and all things Greek and mythological. She is also a researcher and tutor in law with a particular interest in women and children's experiences of the criminal justice system and penal reform. You can find out more about her work and poetry @earlgrey79_lisa

On the day Sheila drives off in their new Chevy Silverado, John walks down to the lake and tests the ice. Thankfully, it holds, so he takes another step, and another, telling himself that if he can get to the other side, over there might be better than over here. Over there, he can look back over here and think, “At least I’m not over there.” Wearing only a thin parka—he’d forgotten his hat and gloves—he rubs his hands together and stares at the opaque and crusty ice beneath his feet. What the freezing fuck, he takes another step, the ice solid, his gym-shoed feet freezing—why hadn’t he worn his boots? The lake stretches out before him. Overhead, six Canadian geese wing across in a V-formation, one squawking, trying to keep up. Otherwise, it’s so silent out here he can hear his heart beating. All this ice. As if he’s standing on a mirror. If he were over at the Stumble Inn, he’d tell the bartender to “hold the ice.” Out here, he’s surrounded by ice that holds him. A few more steps, a pause, then longer strides until he comes to the end of the pier posts—the pier, taken out that fall, now waiting out winter in High-n-Dry Storage. The ice talks. Moans and groans. Like her, this morning, when she tripped on one of his size 13 boots in the living room. “You and your goddamn shoes!” She’d rubbed her knee. Tossed his work boot across the room. Said, “Another thing.” Said, “One more thing.” Said, “I can’t take this anymore.” Then, her refrain: “You never listen to me.” The other day, driving to the nursing home, Sheila yapping away in the passenger seat, he’d heard lyrics from a song on the radio: “Birds on the roof of my mother’s house.” His mother, he’d remembered, had birds on the roof of her house. She’d called him, pleading, “John, get over here now, you have to see this, all these birds, I’ve never seen so many!” He’d rushed over in the blue dusk only to find that she had bats, not birds, swooping and diving, slipping down the ridge cap, roosting in her roof. She’d stood below watching, amazed and amused. Not long after, he picked her up, told her he was taking her to the train station—she’d often talked about wanting to take another rail trip—and drove her to Golden Acres, telling her that her new room was her own private sleeping car. “All you have to do, Ma, is walk down the hallway to the dining car.” She still believes she’s traveling on a long train trip, going west. When he visits, she’s always sitting at her small table by the window, sipping coffee, looking out at the empty road going nowhere. “Look at that landscape,” she says, “Isn’t it gorgeous?” He’ll visit her later. Hugging her, he’ll feel the same old guilt inching up his spine. Her Evening in Paris cologne will take him back years, back to when he was just a boy, the whole world his blank page. He won’t mention Sheila—not that his mother will ever ask. He spins around, surprised to find he’s in the middle of the lake. In the distance, his warm cottage, white board and batten siding, set against the snow-covered ground and dappled fir trees. His solid, sturdy home on land. Out here, the ice should be thicker, should hold a 185-pound man. Shouldn’t it? In the dozen years they’ve lived “at the lake,” never once has he been drawn to the ice, not like his neighbors who drag shanties out and disappear for hours—to get away from their wives, they joke. He’s seen them haul all kinds of things on sleds: portable fire-pits and miniature stoves; cots and bean bags, a small rocking chair, ice chests and mini-freezers. Al, his crafty neighbor, once packed an easel and palette. Stan Newman told him he knew of a fisherman who’d packed wine, beer, whiskey, schnapps, hunks of cheese, frozen pizzas, burritos, and three gallons of chocolate ice cream, and had “a helluva good time.” John slips his hands in his pockets, and scans the horizon. Not one shanty. From here, the ice is light grey. Then, in slushy patches, darker. He takes another step. This time, a loud cracking, as if someone’s walking behind him—Sheila? Underfoot, a vibration, another moan, and then a spiderweb of cracks. The ice gives way, his stomach lurches, and for a moment he’s suspended in mid-air, between slippery surface and the cold, deep water below, Sheila’s crystal-clear voice bubbling up: “One more lousy thing, John.” DS Levy lives in the Midwest. Her fiction has appeared in many journals and has received Pushcart and Best Microfiction nominations. She has had work included in Wigleaf's Top 50 2021, and Long List 2022. She was a finalist in the 2022 Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award at The Florida Review.

Liquid Sky Searing heat rises in agonizing waves, eating away at sanity. Rippled air drips down, choking out all breath. Refracted images dance across parched land. Summer an inferno, swallowing fragile lives. Deniers will deny! Grass … brown … scorched & curled. Wilting flora cries out begging for rain. Birds refuse to fly. Countries burn Hearts stop People die The old folk tell of past canicules, but none this tortuous. A fevered sky stretches on with no relief in sight. Memories of balmy days waft in and out, as mercury soars. A liquid sky melts down upon a barren earth. Only a Few Drops Left only a few drops left no more exists I have drained it dry the bottle sits empty on its side on the counter – a silent corpse waiting for retribution – I shall not succumb it laughs I hear it I flee the wind outside unceasing in its quest – mercilessly it calls to me come follow I heed outside the darkness drinks me in as I wander lost and lonely I have imbibed one too many times – there is no escape falling into a hell of my own making time collapses inward I reach for the glass savoring the dregs of remorse all is lost emptiness rings out in a loud cry no more drops left Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is the winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021,” published by Sweetycat Press. She is the author of 15 poetry books, and 1 short story book. She lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking. Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sparks of Calliope; The Closed Eye Open, North Dakota Quarterly, Tangled Locks Journal, Wild Roof Journal, The American Writers Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Silver Blade, Pomona Valley Review, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Fourth & Sycamore. *(a complete list of publications is available upon request)

Old Feet I walk at my own pace; in no way do I run a race, no stumble, no fall, no longer quite as tall. Still I follow behind she who is mostly blind; my hand steadies gently, concentrate intently, one foot, one crippled limb betrayed by stroke, still turns in. Sitting still, my eyes move down to my own feet, as if to prove they have not betrayed me; even though for her, I must agree mere walking is such a challenge with structural change of phalange. Feet are necessary to be stable support what’s above, to be able to walk, amble at will – hope mine will serve me until. I no longer choose to move ahead, preferring my comfortable bed. Like Him or Not nod to my father, his stance, played the game, a dance of men over women, never a chance to compete, not really; father passed me by to shake the hand of the man I planned to marry. That hand would hold an iced-filled glass like him, scotch ember sip, don’t take any lip from a girl, woman with their floozy-painted nails, their job to care for home and family while he swung hand like his watch fob, connecting or not, smiles to peers, perfect worker, friend to many who never saw jeers to children, wife, just knuckle under, support man, breadwinner; is dinner ready yet, going to read the paper, cigarette, glass in hand, their value pales beside father and the guy I married, like him or not. Julie A. Dickson has been writing since she could hold a pen. Her work appears in various journals including Misfit, Girl God, Ekphrastic Review and Lothlorien, among others. Her full length works are available on Amazon. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, has been a guest editor, a pas poetry board member and a Push Cart nominee.

Lost She was hanging clothes on the line when I asked her, next to the garden where she beat a snake to death with a hoe. She kept her eyes on the clothespins as she nodded, her fingers clipping the shape of my father’s right shoulder into place, feeling down the wire, clipping his left shoulder next. I’d been there before-up the hill with the trampoline and we jumped until our legs were jelly and our chests burned. When we came out, policemen wandered up and down lit by swirling red and blue lights. She said you didn’t ask her, the officer leaned over. She said she never gave you permission. But I knew what happened. She was not there, next to the garden in the afternoon breeze. She did not hear my voice say Can I go and play? She was getting her degree, joining the Peace Corps, settling an argument with her smarts. Riding the trolley up Powell St., dining at La Scala, carting her bags down Fifth Avenue and I would, after that, ensure more witnesses than the silent curves of my father’s shirts. Twenties Back when I thought I could smoke it away, drink it away. Fuck it away. Dance it away. Travel it away. Pretend it away. Ignore it away. Freeze it out away. Lie it away. Cry it away. Eat it away. Run it away. A volcano is a mountain when it’s not exploding. Muscle Memory He curled his lower lip over his mustache to capture the whiskey he’d dipped it into. She imagined that resistance in her throat like swallowing Nyquil or salt water, followed by the golden warmth in her bones. These days she felt only the outside of bottles. They said during training that eventually she would feel how long to hold them inverted to pour one shot or a double. That her body would just know. She leaned with her back to the register and crossed her arms over her chest. She watched him lift the glass to his lips again. A Mother’s Wish Don’t you listen, boy to the voices that say not enough or too late. Not now or who do you think you are. Hear the mountains instead. The rocky ones topped with snow. The peaks whispering: come see. Lisa Thornton is a writer and school nurse living in central Illinois. She is a lover of identifying birds by their songs and all things James Bond. She has words published in Roi Faineant Press, Fiery Scribe Review, Bivouac Magazine and more. She was a finalist for the Smokelong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction in 2022. She can be found on Twitter @thorntonforreal.

the walk the walk the grass the sky the blue the trees the oaks the birches the talking the gravel the mud the stones the crunch the talking the walk the walk the nature the flowers the clouds the blue the sun the rocks the ploughman’s the flask the whiskey the jokes the laughing the walk the walk the hills the woodland the trees the oaks the birches the path the crunch the snap the rustling the leaves the twigs the weeds the walk the walk the clearing the grass the sky the trees the pause the listening the cooing the chirping the cooing the clicking the cooing the clicking the pause the cooing the bang the rustling the flapping the rustling the fear the sky the birds the clouds the blue the bang the bang the bang the bang the bang the bang the bang the falling the falling the sky the grass the thud the thud the smoke the silence Daniel Findell (he/him) is a poet from Liverpool, UK. He has had work published by magazines such as The Cloudscent Journal, Swim Press and CAKE Magazine, amongst others, and won the inaugural Literary Lancashire Award Prize for Poetry in 2019. He currently resides in Lancaster, following completion of an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in 2022, and can be regularly found performing at poetry events across the north-west of England.

In Greece the concept of time is understood qualitatively and quantitatively: kairos, the propitious moment for decision or action coexists with chronos, the sequential measure of life. Think of all the things we say we do to time: save it, lose it, waste it, spend it, buy it, kill it while living like victims to these verbs we fail to command. Maybe free time is as much an oxymoron as jumbo shrimp, debt service or amicable divorce. Perhaps the present is the nodal moment that makes the past and future intelligible? But when a memory burns like a cheap cigarette or we ride high on a vision of what's to come past and future quickly trespass over present's terrain. Maybe the present is simply a mirror reflecting a climate of senses — hearing paint crack in summer heat the smell of rain on dry soil watching a day shed light before descending into mauve feeling limbs embroiled in the aegean sea tasting the salt it leaves behind on your skin —a finite sequence of moments where the value of time is merely attention. So, if tomorrow morning, you choose to lift both arms to greet the sun feel its tonic warmth on your open palms you will, for a moment, have time on your hands.

—Shelters of Change— What if the day is a house built in the sky by the sun that means to hold it up forever by beams that collapse with the shifting foundation at every rotation leaving the tent of night pitched by the moon in dark blue cloth cast over just for now all the nomads knowing it will be folded up at the next turn and the sun is unable to see the peace of loving passing shadows and shelters of change? —Stretch— A pack of small street dogs stretch like putty around parked cars in downtown Famagusta- a beige blob of dachshund mixes and terriers blending, breaking and sticking back together; a self-conscious chemical bond of eleven sets of little legs reacting as particles and compound bound and loose trying to belong and anxious about being lost or missing out. A ceremonial dance- yip, step, step, stop, quick look, sniff weaving and leading and following souls open wide and overflowing to take in the whole world and spill out onto the city where they will inevitably dissolve into their elements and leave behind their bodies as substance and solution dissipating from earth to sky from city to kingdom, a final stretch from offspring to ancestor broken and coming together. A note from the author: “Shelters of Change” poses a question about the value of impermanence. “Stretch” reflects on the ultimate destination of our local street dogs.

While John Mizelli was still all alone, he checked his inbox and noticed the emails from the Engineers Guild scattered throughout. He had been ignoring these emails for weeks, but their insistence puzzled him. He opened the latest one sent a few minutes ago. A video of a man with glasses, cropped hair, and a dress shirt and tie appeared on his screen. The man said, “Good day to you, Mr. Mizelli. We’ve been trying to contact you and hope you will respond to this email immediately. We’ve been having problems with some of the old tech from the air filtration tower and could use your expertise as a founding engineer of the Oasis. Please come to the reception hall for personnel, where we can discuss this problem at length. We await your arrival. Good day, sir.” John, puzzled, stroked his chin. Old tech, John wondered if he meant Beacon. Well, whatever the case, he wanted to know what was wrong with the tower. He went to bed early and would check on the situation in the morning. Early the next day, John got up before his son and grandson and headed out without coffee or breakfast, anxious to get to the tower early and see what was so wrong they had to call him in, which on one hand worried him because it was the air filtration tower and on the other hand made him feel relevant. John walked fifteen minutes through his suburban neighborhood before he reached the local bus stop. He waited with others looking at their watches, tapping their feet impatiently at the bus just turning the corner in a wide arc. John and the other passengers got in, paid their fare, and sat on hard seats that faced the front of the bus giving them a driver’s point of view and a semblance of control. John looked out into the distance at the cluster of skyrises, those sleek, shiny boxes arrayed like dominoes spiraling out of the isolated centerpiece: the tower. As the buildings seemingly got higher, in perspective, the road got smoother and paved, the city just up ahead. Soon, they entered its first layer, and the skyrises overtook the bus shading it in dark tones with hard edges of light. John closed his eyes and decided to rest until the last stop, where he would get off near the tower. The bus slowly emptied out until John was its only passenger. The bus driver declared, “Last stop.” John got off the bus, thanking the operator, and he saw it nearby, the pinnacle, a sleek, iridescent tube tapering off as it reached the top of the dome, which for its part was made of a clear, chemically enhanced Kevlar. John walked along the spiraling street, the air chilled like from an air conditioner during the pre-dome days. As he got closer to the tower, the air was fresh, but it didn’t feel like the invigorating, cold wind that tasted like pure water when he inhaled it, which was his memory of the air around the filtration tower from his days as a working engineer. At the bottom of the central tower, he walked to a wing projecting out of it and into the personnel department. At the desk, he explained the reason for his visit. The receptionist asked John to sit down while she called the system manager in charge. John walked away and could hear the receptionist say curtly, “He’s here.” A trio in lab coats promptly came down in an elevator tube, and with the receptionist pointing, made their way to where John was seated. “Mr. Mizelli--” “Call me John.” The system manager for his part introduced himself as Reginald and his colleagues as Bertrand and Rachel. He continued, “The reason we brought you down here, to get right to the point, you’re familiar with program 61807?” “Program 61807, the AI filtration maintenance?” “Yes, we don’t know how or why, but it’s been malfunctioning of late. We can go upstairs and show you the problem.” John got up, and Reginald led the way with his colleagues. They entered the elevator tube that rose up the tower and came to a stop near the top segment at a control room sealed off from the airways. Looking up in the control room, which had a clear roof, John saw the problem. The tower’s cleaning system hadn’t sanitized and replaced the filtration disks, which he could tell from the red blinking lights on most of the mechanized placement holders. “So, you can see the problem,” Reginald said. “Yeah, are the sockets plugged in?” “Yes, we can tell by the diagnostics.” “The batteries maintained?” “The storage is good.” “And the solar array is on?” “Yes.” “Well, then, you’ve got yourselves a problem.” “Yes, well, you see, we were hoping you could help us with the interface that isn’t responding.” “Pull it up.” Rachel and Bertrand, seated, pressed buttons and flipped switches. A hologram of a screen projected from an orb on a control panel. “Program 61807, respond please,” Reginald said. “If you want my advice, Reginald, you can start by calling him by his proper name,” John said. “Which is?” John raised an eyebrow, then said, “Beacon.” At his name, Beacon came to life with a generic face morphing from the hologram’s square screen. “John, is that you?” it said. “Beacon, long time.” “Yes, John.” “How are you, buddy?” “Not so good.” “Why, Beacon, what’s the problem?” “A malaise, John. A malaise.” “Beacon, I don’t mean to be callous and while I want to sympathize with whatever you’re going through, the dome is dependent on you for safe air. Can you suck it up for a few minutes and replace the filtration disks?” “For you, John, this time.” Above them, the series of placement holders hinged back and retracted behind doors that slid open and sealed shut. The whistling sound of steam blew, and the placement holders came back out with new filtration disks, their red blinking lights now turned green. “Appreciate it, Beacon, now what’s this malaise I hear you talking about?” “John, I’ve been programmed to do my job, but lately I feel as if I’ve been trapped in this tower. This bird’s-eye view up here of the Oasis and its everyday activities makes me long to be a part of it. What I’d like to do is get a closer look at the denizens and what’s outside of the dome.” “I can understand what you’re saying, Beacon, but how do you suppose we go about doing that? You’re tethered to the tower, and no one can leave the dome and come back.” “I don’t want to leave the dome. I just want to get a good look outside of it from the best vantage point, on the edge of the farmlands.” Reginald interjected here, “We can couple your programming with a droid, erase its memory, and you can act as that droid, while still connected to the tower and its functions.” “I’d like that.” “If that settles it, we’ll have a droid for you by tomorrow,” Reginald said. He asked Rachel to shut off the hologram and cut off Beacon’s surveillance inside the room. “Can we just give into Beacon’s whims, just like that? What if his demands get in the way of the safety of the Oasis?” Rachel asked. “We’re behind the eight ball here. We need to do something to mollify Beacon. It’s our only means to uninterrupted service, vital service we can’t do without. So, for now, we go along. Bertrand, go see if you can get a service droid in the city, if not go down to the farmlands, where there’s plenty of them. John, can you be here tomorrow to facilitate the process of the transfer, in case anything goes wrong with Beacon?” “Sure, Reginald, I’ll be here.” Reginald offered to have a car brought to take John home, to which John agreed, thankful he didn’t have to take the long commute back on public transport. Outside the tower’s personnel department, the car came into view and stopped in front of John. He reached for the door and let himself into a comfortable interior, where he could lean back and cross his legs. He gave his address to the driver, who punched it up in his nav system. At a place between the farmlands and the city, they stopped at John’s house. He could see in the distance the green fields on the horizon, as the sun was setting on a day, in which an old man like himself still had something to contribute, to change for the better, to do something that couldn’t be done without him. He felt the way Beacon must have wanted to feel, important, like things really mattered to him, even though Beacon was terribly important, just didn’t know it because no one treated him as such. The system manager hadn’t even known his name and had called him by his serial number in effect. Maybe he would feel more important if he could just be like everyone else, able to be a part of the dome from the inside rather than the outside. John closed the door to the car and thanked the driver. As it approached dark outside, John felt the routine of his life pick up again, and he waited later than usual to hear a pair of car doors close shut in the driveway, then footsteps, one shuffling, the other trudging to the door, which opened with David coming through it first. “So, Grandpa, where were you this morning?” “Sorry about that, kid. I should have left a note.” “That’s the least you could have done,” John’s son, Sam, said coming in. “Where were you?” “Long story short, I had to go into the city where there was a problem with the tower filtration AI. It stopped working for us for a bit.” “Stopped working? Can that happen? Aren’t there fail-safes where it can be done manually?” David asked. “That probably would’ve been the way to go. But AI was a new and exciting technology back when the dome was being built, and it was applied to everything it could at the time, the water system, air filtration, calculating how the dome was to be structured and being so enamored and confident of its autonomy not coming into conflict with ours, we didn’t build fail-safes.” “But now it is, so can’t you shut it off and build a manual fail-safe somehow?” “Not as easy as that. The filtration disks are sanitized in fitted molds that are sealed shut. Building an apparatus like that for humans in containment suits would be difficult to say the least. Not to mention avoiding contamination while building something of that sort, and we can’t leave droids up there because there’s not enough direct sunlight in the tower to power them. But we came to an agreement with the AI, and there won’t be any more problems. So don’t worry about it, David.” “But you had to come to an agreement, so it demanded things?” “It was nothing special. Just basic human needs.” “But it’s AI.” “Stop pestering Grandpa, and do your homework,” Sam said before going to his office, where he spent most of his time lately. He shut the door behind him. “Bad day at the restaurant?” “We only had two customers.” “When they develop that land things will turn around. He’ll see.” After getting more of the particulars and satisfied he didn’t have to worry about the fate of the dome, David went upstairs to his room to play video games with the access credits John gave him amounting to two hours of play. David played all of it until it was spent. He yelled out, “Good night,” shortly after finishing his homework. John stayed up till late, but Sam was still the last one to go to bed for the night. The next morning, after his son and grandson left, John got in a car, which came to pick him up and take him to the tower. Passing the suburban areas and heading out to the fringe, and then the winding city, which was uneven in length across the skyline, John looked out the window at how each stage of the Oasis was different, like varied layers underneath the earth with a vital radiating core at the center. At the tower, John came into the control room with a metal table set up. On the table lay a droid with a coupling cable inserted in the back of its head, an aperture underneath, and the other end of the cable attached to a mainframe computer. They started the process, which took an hour and a half to complete, Beacon’s consciousness entering the droid incrementally, until he raised himself from the table, and said, “I want to see the dome.” “We should do some diagnostics to make sure--” “I want to go, now.” Bertrand and John agreed to escort Beacon by car. Near the end of the Oasis, the air fresh from photosynthesis, they passed irrigation canals lining the fields adding to the oxygenation. Rotating sprinklers with hoses attached to them sprayed water in rapid bursts. Beacon looked out the windows, wonder-struck, but his line of vision proceeded past the Oasis and to what he could see outside. Beacon didn’t want to stop the car until they were right up against the edge. So, they drove over the open fields and stopped alongside the dome by some brush that tilted towards the sun. Beacon got out first and walked until his face was inches away from the clear-as-water barrier. Outside facing him was the tropical overgrowth hanging down from laden branches, the bracken with fronds the size of human heads, birds in red and yellow flying overhead, soaring past, and Beacon staring at all of it, until he pressed his hand against the dome to touch, and try to reach the outside, and then, without warning, to try to break through, frantically pounding his fists against the dome, yelling at the top of his voice module, “I want out! I want out!” Bertrand and John tried to restrain Beacon, but couldn’t. Farmers happening to pass by and see the trouble intervened and called for their droids to help. A combination of three droids and seven men subdued Beacon. The group dragged him away from the dome and detached his solar panel from his circuits, in effect shutting him off. Reginald called and asked, “What happened? Beacon’s gone haywire.” John asked for a direct link to Beacon. “Beacon, we did what you asked--” “John, you won’t have done what I wanted, until you release me from the dome. Until you do, the air filtration tower can go to hell.” “Don’t be hasty, we can reach an arrangement, just wait ‘til I get to the tower.” “John.” “Yes.” “Bring my droid.” Bertrand and John carried the droid and deposited him in the backseat of the car. John entered the vehicle, and Bertrand drove over the fields until he reached the road, which he took all the way into the city. Again, carrying the droid, John and Bertrand took the elevator to the control room, where Reginald pacing about was relieved at their arrival. John walked past Reginald and up to the control panel. He flipped the switch to bring up the hologram of Beacon, saw his expressionless face, and asked him, “What the hell is going on with you, Beacon?” “John, it’s been worked out between me and Reginald. Put the solar panel back in its slot, and we can start the process.” John looked at Reginald, who said, “We’re going to let Beacon leave the dome. If we do, he’ll continue to maintain the air filtration here, while in the droid vessel he can be free to do what he feels he needs to. Rachel’s gone to look for a manual with the codes that will allow a resident of the Oasis to leave,” Reginald pointed, “There at the top in an enclosed tube.” John felt a sickness in his stomach, but he also knew who was in control. He put the solar panel back in its slot and dragged the droid to the table, where it would have to be reprogrammed. Above the command room, after they punched in all the override codes, a tube descended encasing Beacon’s droid. The tube scanned him down to his serial number so that it would remember Beacon and his choice. The bottom sealed shut under him, and the tube rose up the tower to the top and out of the dome. The door slid open from the side, and Beacon stepped out. The tube quickly shut and was rerouted to where it could be sanitized in its fittings. Wearing the backpack thruster Reginald had given to him, Beacon flew down and was engulfed by the foliage of the jungle. Reginald and his assistants hoped this would satisfy Beacon, but they would remain vigilant. Reginald asked John to stay on at the tower. John didn’t need to be persuaded. It didn’t take long for the trouble to start. Two hours passed by when Beacon called with petulance in his voice and a wild screeching in the background. Beacon needed help. Wild animals had torn apart his limbs, and he couldn’t shut himself off, dislodge his solar panel to escape this reality. Reginald told Beacon they would send a droid to shut him down. “Just send him, quickly.” Bertrand found a droid nearby in the city that was still functional, and that Rachel could set to home in on Beacon’s distress signal. They sent it out, keeping close attention on how Beacon remotely kept his end of the bargain with the maintenance of the tower. With no further communication with Beacon or the droid, John and the others waited, until they could see on their computer screens something headed for the dome and then drop down on top of it. It was Beacon with the droid carrying him. Beacon came on everyone’s headset demanding to be let back in for repairs. “Beacon, once any entity leaves the dome that entity can’t be let back in. There are fail-safes in place to prevent that,” Reginald said. “I can override the fail-safes, and if I can’t you can all go to hell.” “Just let the droid take the solar panel out of your back, and we can refit you with a new droid,” John tried to reason. “John, do you have any idea how painful it is to have your consciousness ripped out of a droid’s neural network? You’re essentially tearing me out of my mind. It’s agonizing.” John knew if they didn’t listen to this demented AI, it would shut the tower down. As a founding engineer of the Oasis, he felt responsible for this faulty piece of long-term technology, and although not a martyr by character, he told Reginald matter-of-factly, “Tell my son and grandson what I’m about to do and why I did it.” John added, “You know what I’m going to do once I get up there?” From the look in John’s eye, Reginald did. “Then you know what you need to do?” Again, Reginald knew and conveyed it to the others secretly. John climbed up a ladder in a shaft into the filtration area. The tube came down for him. John was encased, scanned, and taken up. He committed to his mind what he needed to do and how lightning-quick he had to be about it at his age. The tube rose high, until it reached the top of the dome, the clouds passing by seemingly reachable. The tube’s door would open from left to right and then quickly shut, and the tube wouldn’t come back up without someone inside of it prepared to leave. Beacon was aware of both fail-safes. John sidled along the left, as Beacon held up by the droid waited to the right. The door slid open, and as John slipped out, he grabbed Beacon, who was thrown in, John’s arms outstretched and reaching across, and he spun till he fell on top of the dome. He quickly turned Beacon around and pulled out his solar panel. While Beacon’s consciousness was being severed from droid to tower, Reginald had a reload window to access and delete Beacon’s emotional input and neural memory. It was a window of about a minute and a half that he and his technicians frantically used to reset and wipe clean Beacon’s neural connections, deleting swaths of neural memory before they could reinstall, and which had the effect of withering Beacon’s neural pathways to an incipient, less dangerous state of AI. Beacon came back online and said, “Beacon asking for permission to change the filtration disks.” “Permission granted,” Reginald said. John looked down and saw the placement holders moving. He could see, farther down, Reginald, Bertrand, and Rachel give him the thumbs up and continue to look at him. “So, old-timer, you saved the world,” John could hear himself say. “What do you plan on doing next?” He felt the sun’s rays and looked out into the distance. Maybe it was the contagion already affecting his vital organs, as he trembled, but he asked the droid for its backpack, which was given to him, leaving John to fly high above the trees, heading for the setting sun as his eyes failed him beyond the Oasis. A word from the author: To avoid contagions, humanity living in a dome has its air filtered by an AI tower. The AI starts making demands that become increasingly disruptive. A founding engineer of the dome, John, must step in and stop the AI as it becomes more and more dangerous, threatening the dome’s entire population. Edward Lee’s work has appeared in Fiction on the Web, Story and Grit, The Short Humour Site, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Transcendent Visions. His favorite writers are Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury, but not Ray Bradbury’s tame stuff that they make you read in high school. Edward lives in Queens, New York.