Back Issues

Spring and Summer 2009
Volume 2 | Number 1
Single Issue: $12

Grand Prize Winner: Jess Wigent / “What I Did to the Littlest”

“Calm down or you’re not gonna play.”  I know he won’t continue to wiggle and risk exclusion.  I’m right.  While Oklahoma’s winter winds plead against the windows, he is quiet.  He awaits instruction.  “We are playing Slap the Face.”  He looks confused.  “I’ll go first,” I continue.  He looks a tiny bit terrified.

–Excerpt from “What I Did to the Littlest” by Spring/Summer 2009 Grand Prize Winner Jess Wigent 

Prose: J. Malcolm Garcia / “For Now You Are Here”
Poetry: Anemone Beaulier / “Postcards”
Photography: Political Narratives / “Protests and Riots”
Graphic Memoir: Dan Archer / “They Won’t Learn”

Additional Contributors Include:
Nin Andrews, Dan Archer, Anemone Beaulier, Louisa Billeter, James Warren Boyd, Peer Brockhoefer, Veronica Chater, Avery Colt, Angela Coppola, Genie Cotner, Steve Crane, Brian Cronwall, Teresa Chuc Dowell, Ralph Dranow, Renee Emerson, Muriel Fish, Ray Fudge, Jeff Galasso, J. Malcolm Garcia, Richard Gilbert, Deb Hall, Danny Hammontree, Steev Hise, Lacy M. Johnson, Laura Jones, Brian Kusler, Eric David Lough, Greg Majewski, Rob McKnight, Joe Newman, Thuy Nguyen, Pam O’Brian, JoAnne Preiser, Carl Rosenstock, Brendan Scherer, Jo Scott-Coe, Madeline Sharples, Teresa Sutton, vanou, Jess Wigent, Edward Frederick Wong

Fall and Winter 2008
Volume 1 | Number 3
Single Issue: $12

Grand Prize Winner:  Rafael Torch / “The Naming of Frank Torch”

At the bottom, the name is all the gestures he has in him and presents to the world.  Who is this man, at root, to go so carelessly into the New World with this new name?  The title seems to have reconciled a silent deal that was made at Ellis Island.  It was the last balance to be transferred.  You agreed, Frank Torch.  You walked away from the inspection desk and into Manhattan with it.  You wandered into the Lower West Side with it among other peoples, tall buildings, small crowded streets.  Frank Torch fit all the possibilities of the here and now.

–Excerpt from “The Naming of Frank Torch” by Fall/Winter 2008 Grand Prize Winner Rafael Torch

Best Graphic Memoir: Kelly Clancy / “Silence”
Poetry:  Dena Taylor / “Fire Season”
Prose:  Kathy Chetkovich / “How I See It”
Art:  Rune Spaans / Frozen Statues

Additional Contributors:
John Battenberg, David Campbell, Glenn Harper, Esther Silva, Peter J. Pochylski, Rune Spaans, Robert Edward Stokley III, Gladstone Taylor, Dena Taylor,  Darien Cavanaugh, Lianne Spidel, Rochelle Jewell Shapiro, Jessica Grumet, Valerie Bender, Kathy Chetkovich, Zoe Borkowski, Robert Weinberger, Jill Widner, Robert Hambling Davis, Ingeborg Gubler Casey, Anne Maslin Dorst, Glen Wood, Kyle Deacon, Will George, Kelly Clancy, Crystal Freeman, Chris Gladis, Jill Greenseth, Robert Huyser, Dorothea Lange, Valerie Lauffer, Lesley Middlemass, Michael O’ Reilly, Rafeal Torch, Mark Wilson

Summer 2008
Volume 1 | Number 2
Single Issue: $12

Special Double Issue: Two Grand Prize Winners!
Fall 2007 Grand Prize Contest Winner: John Philipp / “Ginne-After, Despite, Because”
Spring 2008 Grand Prize Contest Winner: Nancy Penrose / “The Warp of Memory”

After she stepped onto the health club patio and commented “It’s less windy out here,” after I lowered the book and my eyes walked up long tan legs that wouldn’t quit, after we talked for thirty minutes and then left to attend to things-we-had-to-do-today, after she called two hours later and said the hell with her client did I want to take a ride, after we spent the rest of the day in Sonoma driving, walking, talking, after we sat outside the Kenwood restaurant surrounded by beautiful baby mountains that sloped into green-graped acres, after we nibbled on brochetta, cheese, and pate, sipped chardonnays, merlots and cabernets, after we spoke of vineyards and vintages, mountain lions and Mexican laborers, past hells and future hopes, after I gently kissed her good night and worried all next week working in Chicago she wouldn’t feel the same when I got back…

–Excerpt from “Ginne-After, Despite, Because” written by Fall 2007 Grand Prize Winner John Philipp

I am returning to Laos.  It is 1993.  I lived here as a child, a ten-year-old transplant from an Oregon farm.  It was 1963.  As the wing of the plane dips right, I press my head against the window.  I see the silver snake of the Mekong, see rice fields of dry gold, see coconut palms that cluster near villages, see roads of burnt orange.  I am home.

–Excerpt from “The Warp of Memory” written by Spring 2008 Grand Prize Winner Nancy Penrose.

Additional Contributors:
Eddie Bell, Sally Bellerose, Karen Benke, Yvonne Cannon, Linda Coleman, Richard Costello, Rachel Dacus, Frances Pettey Davis, Sally Lipton Derringer, Glenn Deutsch, Marshall D. Dury, Anne Matlack Evans, CB Follett, Diane Gage, James Randolph Jordan, Candida Lawrence, Scott Lucero, Maude Meehan, Gordon McAlpin, M. B. McLatchey, Bonnie J. Morris, Mariah Burton Nelson, Mariluz Otero, Nancy Penrose, John Philipp, Danny Rosen, Bonnie Singer, Anne Warren Smith, David Tippetts, Andrew Young, Joy Wilson-Young, Zayra Yves, Sebastian Barre, John G. Crosslin, Dawid Kot, Carolina A. Miranda

Inaugural Issue
Volume 1 | Number 1
Single Issue: $12

Inaugural Issue Grand Prize Winner: Candy B.K. Schille / “The Thread of God”

When I was a toddler, I used to gather minute pieces of lint off the front lawn and bring them to my father, who would happily stuff them in his navel. I know this is true, because I’ve seen it on home movies:  Me, pudgy, intent, butt-up in the green grass, retrieving something too small for the camera to record; him in a lounge chair, seeming to examine it, tucking it into his navel, and giving me a big grin.  Well, some of us are Daddy’s girls or aspire to be, and if lint was what it took, lint it would be.

–Excerpt from “The Thread of God” written by Inaugural Issue Grand Prize Winner Candy B.K. Schille

Additional Contributors:
Candy B.K. Schille, Sharon Fain, Kate Falvey, Ellen Bass, Joseph A. Farina, Jennifer Noble, Peter D. Goodwin, Ken Pobo, Laura Rose, Scott Lucero, Katherine Kindred, Robert Weinberger, Karen Weil, Salvatore Difalco, Kristi Gedeon, Ruthann Robson, Gary Osterman, Sheridan V. “Dan” Merritt, Martha Christina, Ellen Treen, Gretchen Butler, Bradley Littlejohn, Candida Lawrence, Emily Hawthorne, Mallory Geitheim,  A.J. Waterbourne