I was, and continue to be, impatient. During the rests, I never counted properly, always stumbling forward to get to the next note. I didn't understand how a song worked, how to contextualize notes and phrases, the arc of a piece. When I performed, I relied on muscle memory: if you stopped me after I started, I couldn't go on.
—from "Common Time" by Cleo...
I never gave Judaism much thought until college. I happened upon a seminar on the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, who argues that holiness can be located not within space but across time, with each cycle of weeks binding us to the moment of creation. Enchanted by this idea, I started to believe that maybe the point of life isn’t to offer something new to the world but to do the same banal things over and over, with a bit more care each go-around.
—from "An Introduction to Exile," Volume 64, Issue 3 (Summer 2023)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Unlike a lot of writers, I didn’t write stories for fun as a kid. I’ve never kept a diary. I spent most of my adult life thinking that I wasn...
Our ambulance pulls up to the white bungalow in Three Oaks, Michigan. The 911 caller, Tim Harris, is waiting for us outside his house. He circles his porch like a hound. I can see him from the back window, his hands stuffed into his blue slicker. Red Lights flash on and off his aluminum gutters. The other EMTs, Hector Téodora, Robbie, and Jae, unbuckle their seatblets, Téodora from the front seat. Téodora cracks the door to the back section and we jump out.
—from "Lights and Sirens," Volume 64, Issue 3 (Summer 2023)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I was trying to write a collection of short stories for my college senior thesis. I’d had a hard time coming up with ideas, and had a lot of dread about the...
Listen hard! Do you cheek
a windchuckle against a cold
year? I promise you,
in a place with everyone
there is patience, and a warmth
ready to give you full home.
—from "My Heartful Songlikes," Vol. 64, Issue 2 (Summer 2023)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I don’t really remember much of how the piece went - but I like to tell people that I started writing poetry to impress girls. It was some cheesy middle school love poem confession that I slipped into her locker. I never made any copies or anything. I wrote it down once on a piece of torn and folded notebook paper and dropped it at her locker between classes, and I haven’t seen it since. I haven’t the slightest...
Mimi herself wasn't on great terms with the ancestors. Her altar was stuffed in the corner next to the laundry hamper, a sweat-stained sports bra thrown hastily over the incense sticks. She hadn't made a chicken thigh or alcohol offering since Po Po's diagnosis three years ago. And she certainly would never risk burning paper money in her circa-1900s apartment building—the smoke alarm had a vendetta against her.
—from "The Ancestors," Vol. 64, Issue 2 (Summer 2023)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
This is actually the second short story I’ve ever written! This piece wouldn’t be where it is today without Morgan Talty, whose mentorship shaped how I understand the short story as a...
Front Cover by Elise Kendrick
Vii, 2021
Acrylic on Canvas
24 x 24 in
