Summer Hammond

Third Time's a Charm by Summer Hammond


I.

“My mother is sending my room back.”

I gaze at my hands, twined in my lap.

My hands have aged. The blue veins, risen.

I am forty, and my own hands pierce my heart.

This should not be my first time in counseling.

My first semester of grad school in North Carolina.

Free visits through student services.

I came to talk about my dad’s death.

But here I am. Talking about my mom instead.

Go figure.

My first therapist poises his pen to write: “What do you mean, she’s sending your room back?”

The predicament is always, how to explain. Stories like this sit in darkness, untold, gathering dust and shame, for this very reason. “I left home fifteen years ago – after a blow up with my mother. I threw some things in a garbage bag. Whatever I could grab quickly. Books, some clothes. I left everything else, everything, my desk, my journals, my photographs – even my cat. The following month, I eloped. She cut me off. Stopped speaking to me. I could never get the rest of my belongings. She asked my dad to change the locks…”

My therapist sets down his pen. “A mother doesn’t do that for no good reason. Are you sure you’re telling the whole story? Sometimes we forget the part we played in a grievance.”

What he means is, what did you do to make your mother do this? A question I’ve asked myself my whole life. I’m afraid of this question. I tell him, “For years, she didn’t want me to date, or move out. Any independence seeking was a threat. I had a habit of giving in. So I was still at home in my twenties.”

“Sounds to me like your mother had some issues.”

“An abusive alcoholic father.” She might have endured other abuse, too, even worse, from someone else. She didn’t tell me that. Dad did. Not long before I fled. When he saw my fear of her, of what she might do next, taking hold, rising, and he tried, once again, to stir in me that potent adhesive of love and pity mixed with duty that kept him there.

“Ah, I see.” My therapist collects himself, gathers and organizes the pages of his script. The script is titled: Your Mother Was Traumatized.

He says: Have you tried seeing things from her point of view?

He says: Have you forgiven her?

He says: Have you made a sincere effort to reach out, make amends?

He says: Won’t you regret it, if she dies?

I say: “I don’t want to return to a****.”

The taste in my mouth.

The sour bitter blend of that word.

The packages.

Pink tissue paper. Lavender. A baby book, swaddled in cloth.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

All the good things. Her gardens. The pies. Shopping trips with our arms hooked, leaning into each other, giggling, and badminton games, the times she made me stop, right in the middle of a serve, look, she said, taking my shoulders, turning me. Look at the light, the clouds. The angels, she said. Do you see them?

How could you. How could you. Wild-eyed, she stares me down. Saliva froths at the corners of her mouth. I trusted you! She beats the space between her breasts. Terrible, desperate, sickening thuds.

My first therapist stares, aghast, like he can see her, too.

“She’s your mother!” He says it with fury, with protectiveness, smacking his hand down on his knee. His bottom lip trembles.

He is tall and swarthy, built like a football player.

Yet at this moment he looks and sounds – just like my Dad.

II.

“My mother is sending my room back.”

My second therapist pauses while writing, tilts his head, face bemused. He is an older man, elegant but weary. I think he might be burnt out, the way he teeters between seriousness and sarcasm. In our first few minutes, he offers a stream of withering commentary on the town, the university, slyly informing me about the “craziness levels” of the various departments. Guess who takes the lead? He winks. Creative Writing, twirling a finger beside his ear.

I’m afraid now, I am about to contribute to the legacy.

I tell him the fractured way I left home, fifteen years before.

“This past April, I found out my father was dying. I didn’t go back. My sister did. But I didn’t. After he died, I didn’t even go back for his funeral. My mom tried to call. I wouldn’t pick up. She wrote me letters. She insisted I drive to Missouri, come pack up the room I left behind when she – “

Scared the shit out of me, I’m about to say.

But he holds up a hand. “You didn’t go to your father’s funeral?”

“No.”

Maybe he tries not to. Maybe he can’t help it.

That really? wow head-shake.

He doesn’t ask for explanations – but there is a void, and when a void opens, I jump in. “My father didn’t want to see me when he was alive. And he didn’t ask to see me when he was dying.” I wish he would have. I wish he would have rebelled against my mother just once. I wish we could have met in secret, at a lake, in some pretty backroad town between Missouri and Texas. One last fishing trip, one last sunset, one last talk. “I understood that my presence would upset my mother, and cause him more distress.”

“Okay then. So your mom is – ?” He tries to get us back on track.

“She’s been boxing up everything in my old room, and sending it to me, in parts.”

Every week, since I started grad school, there’s a new package waiting for me on the welcome mat. There, as I step out the door to go catch the bus, trying hard to carve out a new life. My old room, everything I tore away from, a brutal rupture, the threads still hanging. My old room showing up, like a haunting.

“Have you spoken to your sister about this? Can she get your things, bring them to you, or meet you somewhere?”

“My sister and I don’t speak.”

This time, I don’t think he even tries.

His jaw drops. “You and your sister are estranged, too?”

My eyes well up.

“But that’s so sad!”

And then: “Have you tried reaching out? Writing her a letter?”

I say nothing. Don’t move.

“Don’t give up.”

“Keep trying.”

It is better to go still and silent, when the stones pelt.

“In order to heal, repairs must be made.”

“With your mom, too.”

“Someone has to be the bigger person!”

III.

“My mother is sending my room back.”

My third therapist is an older woman. She asks me about grad school and tells me that she, too, was the oldest woman in her Master’s cohort. Then she brings me a square of paper held in place by a clipboard. She calls it the ACES, or Adverse Childhood Experiences quiz. I have never heard of it before. I think it’s funny, laboring over these few questions like it’s a midterm. And then – it’s not funny.

What about a mother you love who –

Swears, insults, puts you down, humiliates, acts in a way that makes you afraid…

I am numb with both wonder, and horror, to see it there.

Emotional A****.

My pencil hovers, and hovers.

I sweat. My stomach churns. What is the answer?

No midterm was ever this hard.

Afterward, my therapist says, “Tell me about your room coming back.”

The fifth package: My baby book. Photo albums. My writing. All the notebooks from childhood I’d filled with stories. All the sloppy, stapled together pages, drawings of cats and pumpkins and trees, some of them, inscribed. Dear mommy, this story is for you, I hope it makes you smile. My mother has highlighted some of these childhood love notes, as if to show, prove, emphasize, make me remember that – I love her.

I always have, even when she was hurting me.

The sixth package: My most prized mementos. Favorite childhood books, old flowers I’d gathered from long ago lawns and fields, pressed inside, crumbling, falling out onto my floor, my knees, like time. My collection of Belleek Irish cups and saucers, the daintiest, most fragile things, broken by the too swift movement of a pinkie finger. My mother has wrapped and wrapped them in bubble wrap, showing them the most exquisite care.

How I wish she’d wrapped my heart, our connection, in bubble wrap.

The seventh package: Earrings, bracelets, necklaces, I remember buying at Claire’s, my girlhood, braces, the sound of crinkly little bags. The jewelry tarnished now with time and age. The clothes I left behind, a young woman’s clothes I’ll never fit again, washed, pressed, folded by my mother’s hands, with little silk sachets of lavender from her garden tucked inside.

How well and how gently she takes care of – things.

“Did you ask your mother to send your belongings?”

“No.” Goosebumps river down my arms.

“Do you want her to send your belongings?”

The chills give way to a nightmarish swampy sweat.

My mouth is parched, metal, like I’ve been sucking on pennies.

My old room – is killing my heart.

“You don’t get it!” I cry with such force, I almost stand. “If I tell her to stop, she’ll get mad. That will be it. I’ll never hear from her again!”

Ahhh, I hug myself. Ahhh, the rib-cracking weight of anguish. Another goodbye! More ripping and tearing of threads! I didn’t know I felt this. I had kept it from myself. The inner war I thought I had escaped, so long ago, between having my mother and having peace – reignited and flaming inside me. Far more painful than the room, is this!

My old hope coming back.

My therapist asks, softly, “Has she offered an apology? Tried to have an honest talk about what happened in the past?”

I shake my head, taste the warm, wet shock of grief on my lips.

My therapist takes a minute, rolling her pen between her fingers. Then, she stands. She heads to her desk, opens a drawer. When she comes back, she places something small and cool and shiny in my hand.

It’s a charm.

A golden fence.

Two solid posts, and three sturdy, gleaming rails.

I rotate it in my palm, trying to make sense.

It’s not forgiveness. Or amends. Or what we wish for – redemption.

My third therapist says, “Honey. What do you need to do, to protect your heart?”

She looks me in the eye.

Direct, kind, and not ashamed –

of my answer.


Summer Hammond grew up in ruraI Iowa and Missouri. She earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Texas Review, Sonora Review, StoryQuarterly, and Moon City Review.

Sarah Johnnes

Alchemy by Sarah Johnnes


Standing at the kitchen sink washing sweet potatoes,

I look out the window past the old scratched soda bottles 

rescued from the wusband. They say “Dream. A little bit of 

sunshine in every sip.” Dream. Dream of suprificious 

relationships that you want to peel. Peel away sadness. 

Peel away distress. Just peel away like the fasted car at late 

night street races. My skin is rubbed raw. My knuckles

punched through limitations as if they were jets breaking 

sound barriers. I will eat these barriers, barf them up, and 

bury them, I will grow sweet beets beneath. I will use beetroot 

juice to conjure love spells. Do you understand? Do you 

see the nature beneath? Do you want to join me? We can 

fly out the kitchen window over the gingko tree and 

perch on the sick cedar dripping sap from broken 

pine cones. Will you have a sip with me? An afternoon 

aperitif of sorrow. - in grandma’s chipped crystal


Sarah Johnnes was raised near NYC and currently resides in Eugene, OR. She applies her photographic eye bringing visual sensibilities to her poetry. She captures what is not typically seen, finds connection, beauty, and humor in everyday moments and captures what isn’t always seen. Her work has appeared in Cathexis Northwest.

Robb Kunz

Ascension (Cayde-6) by Robb Kunz


“Ascension (Cayde-6)” began as a color study using differing shades of red. After several of the shapes began to take form, a good friend of mine died. From there, the painting became less an intellectual and creative exercise and more a memorial. The shades of red were paired with black and gray while the overall tone for the painting seemed more erratic, mirroring the shock I was experiencing. Cayde-6 is a character from Destiny 2, the video game I was playing in concert with painting. Cayde-6 also dies suddenly. The painting marks an important confluence of experience in my life.”


Robb Kunz hails from Teton Valley, Idaho. After receiving his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho, Robb returned to his parent’s farm to cut grain and hay, fix fence, and hone his skills as a small-town barista. He currently teaches writing at Utah State University. Robb enjoys, books, seltzer water, cross-stitch, and painting. His work has is forthcoming in Equinox and was given Special Recognition in the 13th Annual “Landscapes” Art Exhibition from Light, Space, Time.

Oanh Nguyen

December 4, 1972 by Oanh Nguyen


SAIGON, South Vietnam, (Reuters)—

Wartime curfew hours issued

for all servicemen and local citizenry

are 1 AM to 5:30 AM

I break curfew at 4 AM

I know nothing.

I fear nothing.

I enter the world feet first.

My father turns off the headlights

He follows darkened curves by memory

Beside him my mother labors

Sometimes in silence

Sometimes in a volley of accusations

Something is wrong

The baby is coming too quickly

My father presses on the gas

as much as he dares

Too fast you draw attention

Too slow you are a target

Snipers shoot twice

The first shot - the kill

The second shot - the warning

whether American or Viet Cong

In the darkness no one cares

I am at one with the shadowy light

I am neither Viet nor American

I revel in my own skin

All my senses heightened

in this civil twilight hour

of my birth.


Oanh Nguyen is a part-time student at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on Creative Writing. Her work appears in Poet’s Choice, Sad Girl’s Literary blog, and Moving Force Journal.

Naomi Oppenheim

Sisters, Daughters of this Cruel World by Naomi Oppenheim


Let’s imagine, for a moment, that after months/years/seconds of deliberation, I finally decide to pick up the phone and give you a call.

And you answer. Maybe I would say, Hi, Hello, It’s been a while, how are you?

And you would say nothing.

And after an awkward silence I might say, I bet you are wondering why I called.

And then I would say, I miss you. And then I would say, my life doesn’t feel complete without you, even though it actually is. But anyway, maybe I’ve stitched myself up enough for us to hold each other without our wounds bleeding together and getting all infected and full of puss.

When I look in the mirror, I see you, I would say, and I don’t turn my head away. And I feel you when your favorite band comes on the radio and I don’t change the station, or at least not as quickly as I used to, and sometimes it makes me feel better to realize I could pick up the phone at any moment, and start a whole new future, and fill you in on the parts of the past you missed, or at least the important ones.

Anyway, how have you been?

And you would say nothing.

And after another awkward silence, I would say, I’ve been good! Kind of. I just got home from a trip to some beautiful places with some wonderful people you have never met before - except maybe one of them once. And we sat in parks and drew each other and wrote poems together and we drank lots of wine and ate lots of bread. And now I’m sitting in this weird space where a lot of things are not really over, but they almost are, and other things have not started yet (but they are going to, maybe, soon). And it’s an uncomfortable feeling, like dying, or knowing you’re going to die, but knowing after the dying you will keep on living. And you’ll be different, but not as much as you hoped. 



You know?

And you wouldn’t answer, but I wouldn’t expect you to, so I’d keep talking.

I’m learning to read playing cards like tarot, I’d say, and also a bit about astrology. I’ve been considering looking at your chart, but I thought it would be weird to just reach out out of the blue asking what time you were born after we haven’t spoken in so many years. Though I guess we’re on the phone now so it’s not as weird to ask. Anyway, I’ve never even stopped to consider whether I believe the things I’m learning - it never occurred to me that it might not be absolutely and unquestionably reliable. I guess some of us are so desperate to believe in something bigger than ourselves that we don’t stop to ask questions. That’s probably why so many of us end up in cults.

Or organized religion.

Or both.

Anyway, I pulled some cards about making this phone call, and they said, Wait. Not yet, but soon, and it will hurt.

A pause, silence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you, which you may have guessed, since people don’t just call out of nowhere. Someone told me recently - our mothers aren’t our mothers, they’re our sisters, and our mothers are this cruel world. Well, I have to be honest. That comes as quite the relief. You wouldn’t be my first choice. And while sometimes my mother is you, and sometimes it’s this cruel world, sometimes it’s this kind world, which has led me into loving arms and taken me further along the path of healing than I knew existed, and never knew to imagine myself traversing.

And haven’t I carried you, haven’t you been with me the whole time, healing?

And weren’t you my first choice?

Wouldn’t you still be?

Sister, sister, it is lovely to see you here.

I’ve been dancing, as much as I can, and Thank the Goddesses because I do believe that the body is the site of the best parts of healing. And when I dance, I feel at home, and I feel strong, and I feel the vice grip of the guilt you’ve given me loosen a little bit, and I think, maybe I could choreograph a dance for us that untangles the web of pain we’ve inflicted upon each other (and subsequently others).

And I personally am very open to the idea as long as it never happens, or at least not until we are both a little more healed. But I wouldn’t say this part out loud. And you wouldn’t say anything.

I would fill the silence, telling you about what I’m studying in school, telling you that I want to work in the mental health field, that I want to be someone who helps people who are hurting and who are healing - having always been someone who is hurting and healing, and all.

And not just because of you, I’d say.

Remember, I chose you, and we’re sisters, daughters of this cruel world.

But it would still hurt to tell you this, just like the cards said it would; would still hurt to hear you saying nothing, and hearing myself still so uncomfortable with silence, pouring my presence into the empty spaces, a cushion to soften your sharp edges.

And I would say, I saw you blocked me on Facebook.

And I would say, you’re kind of mean.

And I would say, you are my child. I gave you life. I gave birth to you. And I gave you my childhood as a gift, but not wrapped in ribbon, no bow, not ceremoniously given, just left on a counter with a note attached that said For You, and you took it. And are you sorry?

I went blind for you, I’d blurt out. Then I would laugh a bit, and say,

I don’t know why I said that.

And you would say nothing.

And now I’d be getting a little bit angry.

So I’d ask again:

Are you sorry?

Are you sorry?


 Are you sorry?

And you wouldn’t answer, because you aren’t there and never were - I didn’t call and never would have. I freeze with fingers on the keys remembering the cards.

Not yet, sister. Wait.

But soon, and it will hurt.


Naomi Oppenheim (they/them) is an artist, survivor, and recovering perfectionist. They live in Southern California (land of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples), where they can be found working in the performing arts, hanging out with their dog and partner, and singing karaoke.

Malik Thompson

He Calls Me Intense... by Malik Thompson


What litters the ashen cage

of what he calls me: limp

asters, lion’s mane, gold hoops

glinting in the diminished light

of dusk. I am unfamiliar

with the calmer face

of water, my temperament

more akin to steam—I boil,



a wildfire tearing across

the ocean floor. He tells me:

there’s a kindness to rats

dying in plain sight, much better

for us that they’re seen.

He wrote me a poem once,

a bone-flower sonnet,

how it overflowed

with the presence of beasts.

Our neighbor plays organ music

in the alleyway—kneels bare-legged

in fields of broken glass.

Recently, blankets of gray snow,

flecked with petals

of deep crimson, have begun

to overtake my dreams.

Today, I woke up with sweat

rolling off me in icy beads,

the small of my back burning

in the place he placed his hand.

I pushed it off, & felt my skin

drop to a lower temperature,

a degree less smoldering,

a degree less enraged—


Malik Thompson is a Black queer man from Washington, DC. His work is featured, or forthcoming, in Cobra Milk, Sundog Lit, Diode, MQR Mixtape, Oroboro, Poet Lore, etc. He has received support from Lambda Literary, Obsidian Foundation, Brooklyn Poets, Cave Canem, etc.

Lila Byrne

Universe of Thought by Lila Byrne


Lila Byrne’s passion for art began as early as she could hold a pencil. She has since taken as many art classes, including programs at RISD, Pratt College and Stamps at University of Michigan. She has designed logos for various businesses in the area and has been an assistant teacher for an art school. She is always looking for ways to learn more about the art world and is excited about this opportunity. She creates her pieces using as many mediums as possible to help her learn exponentially.

Josh Price

The Problem with Betting Odds by Josh Price


I swear, with the girl, the gun goes off accidentally. I snatch up the cash and bolt for the door, shoot at the dude outside the gas station when I think he has a taser in his hand. He’s got a deck of cards. Too late, but I’m not worried I killed him or nothin.’ I brought the .22 with me because I’m scaring people, not killing them.

All I want is money and now I have some. Life is simple when you think like that. You do everything you can to survive and sometimes people get caught in the middle. It’s no different than anything else.

I hop in my buddy Kevin’s car. He’s in the driver’s seat, already slamming it in gear. He thinks he’s a smart guy. Now we’re back on the road, and things are easy. I’m counting my money, when he asks what his cut is. I laugh, and chuck my half-empty pack of smokes at him.

I tell him to stop by my house. I hand him twenty bucks as I’m getting out of the car, and he looks at me like I’m crazy.

I’m up the walk, pounding on the door until she answers; her phone got shut off again. I can hear her bratty kid screaming inside the house somewhere. She looks like shit when she opens the door, so I toss a hundred bucks at her and watch ten years come off her face.

I’m already low on cash by the time I’m back in the car, and that’s always the problem with money, isn’t it? I tell Kevin I want to go somewhere else real quick, and then I can give him the rest of what I owe him. I tell him chill out, because he’s one of those antsy fuckers even without drugs in his system. He says fuck off Rick.

He thinks I’m gonna cheat him outta some coin and I am, but he doesn’t know I get the discount rates, so Kevin’s gonna wind up happy later—he just doesn’t know it yet. I treat friends the ways they deserve.

We get to my dealers house and I’m already to the door when I hear sirens at the end of the block. I’m back down the stairs, walking the other direction; and not glancing back as the cops roll up.

Kevin drives away and I’m waving later bro like it’s no big deal, but now I’m pissed because unless these cops are going to Mike’s house, I might be in big trouble.

I get a block away and I’m feeling like I’m in the clear when a giant in sunglasses tackles me from behind, yelling my rights in my ear; he’s amped up and winded, cuffing me while I’m yelling at him—pretending I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think I have a shot of getting out of this, but it never stops me from trying.

I’m not even thinking about the empty baggie in my pocket until he’s copping a feel, putting his hands in my pants. I tell him that’s illegal search and seizure, but he’s got my wallet out, and he drops the baggie next to my face where I can see it. He’s addressing me by my full name, and we both know I’m screwed.

I’m trying to think. Who the hell am I gonna call.

2

The creepy manager keeps staring at me and calling me Meredith, but my name is Rain. It’s my first day, I’ve been here two hours, my boyfriend has messaged me fifty times and I just can’t even right now.

The man with the gun pointed at my face has crystal blue eyes with tears in them, but he’s grinning. I know I should be afraid but I’m just angry; I’ve lived my whole life in fear of getting shot: I’m American.

I stare at the man, not believing he’ll do it but he does. He looks surprised, and I feel hot pain sprint across the top of my head.

There are people gathered around me, people in the lobby filming me with their phones. All I smell is that nasty-ass taco meat they use here, and fryer grease. I hear the manager yell for someone to call 911.

The top of my head hurts and I don’t want to talk when the E.M.T.’s are asking me questions. I’m lifted onto a stretcher and rolled outside into an ambulance. I see bright lights above me, then clear-blue sky, then more bright lights. They stick a needle in my arm.

I center myself, like I learned in my Wicca books, asking the Universe for acceptance. I barely know what that means, but I don’t want to be as terrified as I am.

I start to cry, hear an EMT tell me I’ll be okay; she’s saying the bullet just grazed the top of my head. I see more blue sky when they take me out of the ambulance, more bright lights as they wheel me through the emergency room.

I wait for what feels like hours. I’m focusing on opening my chakras, practicing emptying my mind of all thought; especially thoughts that make me feel scared. I don’t want to die.

I hope I don’t have any missing hair when the scar heals. I would hate having to wear hats all the time.

I get my head stitched. They keep me for most of the day. I get discharged, go outside, and see the guy from work sitting on a metal bench smoking. His face is bandaged, and his left eye’s covered.

I ask if he’s okay. He says sure. He has a deck of cards in his hands, wants to show me a magic trick. I tell him smoking is bad for him and he rolls his eyes.

“So is getting shot.” He shuffles his cards.

My parents show up and offer to take him home, I don’t want them to but they always do what I don’t want them to do—it’s like they know. We drop the magician off and go home.

I’m mad at my parents for making me work, and I can tell they feel bad. I will definitely use it against them later when they try to make me get another job. I don’t appreciate them not taking me seriously.

I get why the guy took that money. The stuff they make us do for money is horrible. Nobody wants to work at a gas station they just have to.

One day I’ll travel the world until I meet the woman of my dreams, and we’ll work together healing people, focusing their energy towards the divine.

3

My name is Matthew, but I never go by that. I like my middle name better. I like magic tricks, too, especially with playing cards. It’s a hobby.

I’m going to deal you out some cards, face down, and I want you to pick one.

Got it? Okay. Don’t show me your card; just mix it back in with the deck while I tell you about what happened.

I work early mornings at a delivery company, unloading 40-foot trailers quickly as I can (which isn’t very), tossing packages onto a floating conveyer belt that follows me into the long tunnel of stacked packages—like an annoying sibling—whenever I pull the lever on the side.

I’m mostly crippled from a car accident. My right knee isn’t right at all, probably never will be unless I can afford a replacement. I couldn’t even afford to replace the gas in my car this morning.

I finish unloading, and on my way out my foot goes in between the dock and the trailer. My right knee buckles and I scream, folding up like some rubbery human suit that didn’t work that great to begin with.

The guy in the trailer next to me runs over and helps. The paramedics come, throw me on a stretcher, and when no one is looking, I climb off, hobble out to my car, and leave.

At home, I don’t have anything except Tylenol and Ibuprofen. I have to go work the second job—at the gas station. I’d be standing for eight more hours later. There is no way out from under toil unless you want to kill yourself and I don’t, I just want a raise.

I take the pills and walk the four miles to my next job. I always bring a pack of cards with me, practice cutting my red deck with one hand while I walk to keep my mind off my body. I have to stop twice because the pain is so bad.

Do you remember your card? Okay. Don’t tell me. I’m going to shuffle, and then I want you to cut the deck.

So I get to work, watching through the window while a man in a black ski-mask is holding the new cashier up at gun point. I’m clutching my blue deck of cards in one hand. I realize I’d forgotten my phone at home as the gun goes off; I’m frozen in time, people screaming inside as the man snatches the bills, stuffing them in his pocket and running out the door.

I think I hear the gun go off again, and when I wake up in the hospital they tell me I’m right. The triage nurse tells me I had a bullet lodged in me, but they got it out. I can’t see out of my right eye anymore, because some nerve got severed.

The girl from work is at the hospital too. They said she’d be okay when I asked about her. Pain is all I feel, even with the morphine. They keep me for most of the day, and all I can think is: how much is this going to cost? I have school loans I can’t afford, and two jobs I can’t afford either. There is always a reckoning, no matter what you do.

I get discharged. The girl from work comes out the two doors, and I ask to show her a card trick. She says she’s a spiritual healer, whatever the hell that means. She gives me shade about smoking and I roll my eyes.

At least her parents are nice enough to drop me off at my apartment. I go inside, staring at an old poster on the wall (with my newly changed depth perception), and I realize what I want is a way out from under the weight of struggle. You, I, and the guy that shot me aren’t any different. Then again, you and I didn’t shoot anyone… so that’s something. I know you think there should be more to it, but there isn’t.

Oh. Cut the deck again. I’m going to pull out a card.

My other decks of cards are scattered on the floor. I look down; pick up a King of Hearts, then a Queen of Spades. I don’t want to go back to the gas station job. I hope I don’t lose my other job just because I can’t keep up with those other guys unloading their trailers so fast.

The problem with structure is that it’s always waiting to come down on your head. Maybe someday I could grab a Jack of all trades apartment job, show everyone my new tricks.

Did I ever tell you my middle name? The one I go by? Ah, well, it doesn’t really matter. Hey, is this your card?

Neat trick right? Want to see another one?


Josh Price loves gardening. He lives in Northern California with his patient wife and terrible dog. Scribble Magazine has published his short fiction, and his flash has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Prose Online, F3LL Magazine, and others. Visit him at josh-price.com, Twitter and Instagram @timepinto, and www.facebook.com/sjprice1213/.


James Callan

Over the Moon by James Callan


Her costume was convincing, well put together. From pink scepter to five foot pigtails, the props were solid, the wig, spot on. From head to toe, she embodied her avatar. She looked like the real deal.

Dressed up as Sailor Moon, she stood out, she sparkled, she outshone our planet’s bright, lone satellite. She walked among the lesser mortals with their acne and muffin tops, their bald spots and shoddy, homemade guises. Among the rabble, she seemed like royalty—more than that—a deity. If she set the bar, the rest of us were looking up at the moon. We were craning our necks to the sky. In her wake, we parted, not wishing to sully her grace, not daring to spoil her perfection.

My own outfit was second rate, a mess. Homemade, of course, which in retrospect was a terrible idea. I was supposed to be Wolverine. You know, from X-Men. Big and burly. Savage and mean. In the mirror, at home, I flexed and nodded. I posed and growled and thought, not bad. But I knew when people had to ask me who I was, what I was supposed to be, that I had failed the attempt to mimic my favorite comic book character. I thought it might be my glasses, but I’m afraid it was worse than that. My tights revealed the nuance of my physique, my every lack of contoured muscle. My cardboard claws were wobbly, like flaccid dicks, which was funny, really, considering I had a hard-on for all the anime girls and squishy, sci-fi nerds.

Darth Vader struggled with some chips and dip at a table laden with snacks. There was a smear of beetroot hummus on his visor, but I don’t think he noticed. He turned when I approached, gave me the evil eye. Actually, from behind the mask, I wasn’t certain. But I knew he was looking at me, talking to me, when he approached and gestured with his red, plastic lightsaber, indicating my own mask, my tights, my fucking Crocs, which were yellow like the rest of me but otherwise stood out like a sore thumb --worse-- like a severed thumb in a mound of beetroot humus.

“So, like, are you supposed to be Pikachu?” The Sith Lord asked me.

“No,” I told him, unamused.

“Sponge Bob?” He poked at me with his lightsaber.

“I’ll give you a clue,” I told him. “I have retractable claws and an adamantium skeleton. I am unbreakable. If you hurt me, I heal instantaneously. In fact, my injuries mend so quickly that if you want to kill me you better have an atomic bomb at your disposal.”

“Or a lightsaber,” he whooshed the battery-powered toy. It lit up and made noises, hitting me on the ear.

I flinched. “Ouch.”

“Oh, you’ll heal quickly,” Vader mocked me.

“You’ve got humus on your visor,” I said as I shouldered passed the cloaked bastard. I went for the chips but someone had left their retainer by the guacamole and I lost my appetite.

Suddenly, I was aware of all the close-pressed bodies, the heat that radiated from them, the claggy air, the B.O. that pervaded the convention center. My tights were probably a size too small, or maybe I’d gained about ten or fifteen pounds since last year’s Comic-Con. Either way, I was feeling stifled, overwhelmed, and constricted. I felt like a boa was wrapped around my middle, squeezing the life out of me. Just then, Indiana Jones walked by. “Snakes,” he blurted. “Why’d it have to be snakes?”

“Go ask Medusa,” I suggested, pointing to a Gorgon with serpents among her dreads.

Star Trek crew members brushed into me. A lower deck officer spilled her latte on my Crocs, then pointed at them, laughed, and leaned into an overweight Vulcan. They kissed like no one was in the room. It was kind of hot, but I didn’t need more heat. I needed cool, fresh air. I needed a smoke.

When I got to the lobby, the doors, the chilled evening air beyond, I witnessed Thor vaping. As if some fire breathing dragon, like Smaug, like Godzilla, a trail of steam slithered out from his lips as he exhaled into the night. I could smell the peppermint flavor of Gaea and Odin’s offspring, the minty breath of a Norse god. To my left, the Joker was nursing a beer. In a moment of truce, he drank with an unlikely companion, Batman, who was visibly drunk. On the outskirts, a hobo was sound asleep. If it weren’t for Thor, I swear, it could have been Gotham. Beyond it all, pure as cold rock in vacuum, the moon, crescent and bright among the stars.

I smoked my cigarette and felt regret when it whittled down to a stub. I lit another just to stay outside, away from the horde of fellow geeks that I knew amassed beyond the doors at my back. I could not stomach the crowds, the costumes, the questions of who and what I was meant to be, the tables of trading cards, DVDs, and long queues to meet so-and-so, the voice actor of whosiewhatsit. In all my many years attending the event, this was the worst Comic-Con experience I had known, the only one I had not enjoyed.

Maybe it was my tights, their straight-jacket vice around my thighs and ribcage. Maybe it was Darth Vader and his condescending remarks. Or maybe it was just me, a little off-kilter after a rough week at work, after the Taco Bell and Starbucks that I had on the way to Comic-Con. Maybe I was outgrowing this shit. Or maybe this was the opening act of my midlife crisis. The beginning of niggling doubts, searching questions, efforts to unfold who I am and what I am meant to be.

My second cigarette eroded between my fingers. I let it drop and crushed it with the heel of my Crocs.

“Bum a ciggie?” The voice of an angel sang out, crystalline and pure.

I turned to look at what could be anyone, anything, from Princess Peach to Wonder Woman, from a stormtrooper to Storm, a fellow X-men. I had one cigarette left and I really didn’t want to part with it, but when I saw her smiling at me, hand extended, I offered it up freely, hurriedly, and with pride. Sailor Moon stood at my side, more luminous than the pale rock in the sky that was her namesake. She inhaled, sighed, and blew smoke rings to halo the sliver of our planet’s bright, lone satellite.

She turned my way, face glitter catching silver moonbeams. She shone all the brighter when she smiled, no retainer to speak of, no tortilla shrapnel in her teeth. Her lips were magenta, the color of beetroot hummus, but free from snacks and spreads. I stared at her, even as I labored to look away. Unperturbed, she took in my tights, my wobbly claws, my Crocs and budding acne. She beamed, bright as the moon, and gestured with her pink scepter.

“Good choice,” she said, blowing a smoke ring to expand and settle like a lion’s mane around the fringes of my head. “I love X-Men,” she admitted. “Wolverine is the best, my absolute favorite.”

Lost for words, I nodded, following her gaze as we both looked up to the starry sky, the sliver of moon that shone brightest of all. It was a moment to define perfection. From then on, the bar had been set. I looked upward, smiling. It was the best Comic-Con experience I had ever known.


James Callan grew up in Minnesota and currently lives on the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand. His writing has appeared in Carte Blanche, Bridge Eight, White Wall Review, Maudlin House, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. He is the author of A Transcendental Habit (Queer Space, 2023).

Harley Chapman

conversations with god in the birthing canal, his placenta down my throat

by Harley Chapman


The low hum of disease knit itself into my shoulders

before my tongue could form the word foreign

or understand a baseline separable from pain.

god is not sympathetic to a broken body,

rinses his hands of their redness

& reminds that this, too, is perfection.

He sends me visions of The Worst Which May Come,

accepts payment for his gift

in the form of preemptive suffering.

Working-class sensibility equates the nervous ache

with moral incompetence, a familiar guilt

indefatigable in my breed.

I will work harder we both decide,

to the satisfaction of Disease.

Sweating in the back of a rented SUV,

too young to be sick like this, eyes caked

in glitter & Vaseline, Aunt Lynne says angel

& I hear anger, a clotting of the ears

that Tio Javier calls selective hearing.

I die off in bits as a man with no body

tells of a forest of poets, arms linked & set ablaze

like a chain of paper dolls.

I imagine their ties as black snakes,

promise not to lose myself amongst all this maleness,

these multitudes of god wanting me to do the dishes,

wanting me to brush my hair.

The men burn & leave behind the poems;

only the poems are divine.

god says this isn’t real

& yes, it is

in contradiction of himself.

Strapped to the bed, I am both a witch

& the daughter possessed no longer,

burning under the glare of a dozen bulbless faces.

They shake their heads, tired of my bullshit.

Why did you let yourself become a victim? Why

did you ask for this?


Harley Anastasia Chapman holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago & a BA in English Studies from Illinois State University. Her poems have been published in Nimrod International Journal, Atlanta Review, Fatal Flaw Literary Journal, Superstition Review, Bridge Eight Press, & Columbia Poetry Review, among others. Harley’s first chapbook, Smiling with Teeth, was released in 2020.

Eve Hoffman

The State Fair by Eve Hoffman


I choose my painted carousel horse, impatient for the calliope to signal we’re

about to move. On the summer breeze French fries, corn dogs and the cattle 

barns where 4-H kids parade their hoped-for-prize-winning calves. Carnival 

barkers hawk Jonestown Kool Aid, give away tickets to the Kiss-the Dear 

Leader’s Ring booth. Funnel cakes compete with Marie-Antoinette pastries 

fortified with Machiavellian, yeast laced with champagne conspiracies. In 

the Scientific Method tent tidy rows of glass boxes display a two headed calf,  

a “genuine” mermaid, testicles & vertebrae of elected officials.  Pre-teen boys

& girls sneak first kisses behind booths  along the Midway.  I catch up with 

my brothers spinning  red lunch counter stools, ordering  grilled cheese 

sandwiches and chocolate shakes. We watch little girls become  princesses 

after their turn in the face-painting booth.  “Fixing” the Ring Toss and Three 

Card Monte, governing  principles on the Midway but, hey, it’s the State 

Fair. OK? I take my chances knocking down  a row of moving ducks with 

a small rubber ball. I  win a key chain with a tiny yellow fuzzy duck.  Cotton 

candy machines spin pink & blue lies. Neon orange arrows direct fairgoers 

into a Congress of concave mirrors where a Texas Senator inveighs in Joseph 

McCarthy cadence.  Blue ribbons are hung beside o 4-H pigs & sheep to be sold 

for breeding or butchering. Fireworks signal the fair is shutting down for the night.  

Lights blink off  on the Ferris Wheel, in the poultry barn, in buildings of jams, 

jellies & flower arrangements, over the bedded goats &  shoats. In carnie 

caravans “social contracts” for liquor & cards & whores are satisfied. The bottom 

of my new red Keds, gummy with bubble gum, popcorn  & cotton candy, pick-up  

parking lot gravel.   In my pocket a keychain with a tiny yellow fuzzy duck. 

I plead with my brothers Do we really have to listen to the Atlanta Crackers

baseball game  all the whole  hour- long ride home?


Eve Hoffman lives on a remnant of the Georgia dairy farm where she grew up. Still follows dirt roads and Guernsey cream. She’s been honored as a Remarkable Woman by her alma mater Smith College. Published: Celebration of Healing stories of twenty models impacted by breast cancer to accompany Sal Brownfield’s paintings. Chapbooks Red Clay and SHE. Full-length Memory & Complicity, Mercer University Press, nominated for Georgia poetry book of the year. evehoffmanpoet.com evehoffman@bellsouth.net

Cynthia van Golen

Solar system within by Cynthia van Golen


This process

of self-knowing

self-healing

self-discovery

Feels like the universe inside

shattering my being

fragmenting

the opposite of a black hole

BIG BANG

Sun pulling me out

Make friends

Be social

Create art, create music

Moon dragging me in

Softly crying

Whispers

Head under pillows, comfort

The planets

All off orbit

Retrograde what??

Crashing

Learn more says Mercury

Love more says Venus

Run more says Mars

Explore more says Jupiter

Work harder says Saturn

A cacophony

Splitting m/e apart

I can’t

I can’t

I’ve lost myself


The author, Dr. Cynthia van Golen, is a neuroscientist, educator, and advisor. She has written poetry on and off her entire life, but has recently been writing more frequently after beginning a research project investigating the use of poetry therapy in neurological disorders. She also is an amateur photographer and frequently uses her photographs as writing prompts for her poems.

Barry Casey

Evensong by Barry Casey


That which is beyond our reach

remains with us. And do we hold

enough memories to feed ourselves

after we are alone, 

so alone?

I do not see the world as the crow flies, 

but as the dog sniffs: 

first here, then there, and after, 

over there. 

Suffering takes the shape of the vessel,

forms itself to fill the constant spaces

to the edges,

each breath delivered up the line,

like coal cars rocking slowly 

to the surface. 

Your wasted body, slumped

and folded against itself,

will rise — I know it — above this,

and the you, which suffered for no reason,

we will draw around us

as the light fades.

Tonight, once more I send a prayer out

upon the water 

like a folded paper boat

and wonder how long 

it can remain afloat.


Barry Casey is the author of Wandering, Not Lost, a collection of essays published by Wipf and Stock (2019). His recent work has appeared in Brevity, Faculty Focus, Detroit Lit Mag, Humans of the World, Lighthouse Weekly, Mountain Views, Patheos, Pensive Journal, Rockvale Review, Spectrum Magazine, The Dewdrop, and The Purpled Nail. He writes from Burtonsville, Maryland.

Ann Levin

The Denim Cutoffs That Made Me Cry by Ann Levin


After the lobsters and corn on the cob were cleared away, we got to talking about cars. Stan and I had just bought a new one, and Susan wanted us to see a picture of her and Ron in front of his all-time favorite ride. When she set it down on the table, I was transfixed. Not by their angelic youth or his lace-up Frye boots or the heart-stopping lines of his 280Z. But by what they had on—ragged jeans scissored off just below the crotch.

“You cut them yourself!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t you remember?” she said. “That’s what you had to do.”

Of course I remembered. When we were young, you couldn’t buy a pair of denim cutoffs in the store. You made them yourself when your regular jeans started to fall apart. But since denim is almost indestructible, that took a long time. Unless you were willing to help it along. 

The mystery of junior high was, how did the jock girls on the cheerleading squad get theirs frayed to perfection, with long white threads dangling down the front of their muscular thighs? Rumors abounded. By soaking them in a tub with bleach? Leaving them out in the sun to bake? Adding stones to their mothers’ wash or running over them with a car? Unthinkable! But then again, they were ruthless enough to do whatever it took to get the look we all wanted. I hated my boring Wranglers because the stiff, sturdy fabric was forever indigo blue.

In high school, a hippie girl nicknamed Stinky wore her button-fly 501’s so baggy they practically slid off her butt. She paired them with flip-flops and a man’s button-down shirt three sizes too big, her long, tousled hair cascading down her back. Those cutoffs, circa 1969, packed a political message too—we were anti-war, anti-waste, anti-establishment. 

I could scarcely believe it when less than a decade later, designer jeans were the rage, and a 15-year-old Brooke Shields was saying, “Do you want to know what comes between me and my Calvin’s? Nothing!” By 1980, when Reagan was elected president, you could buy your denim already ripped and shredded, adorned with sequins and jewels, acid- or stone-washed. 

It didn’t help my state of mind when later that evening, on our way home, Stan and I tuned in to ’60s Gold on Sirius XM in the brand-new Toyota that I didn’t want to buy—I thought we should aim for 300,000 miles, not 100,000, before we traded in our trusty old Subaru—and the first song that came on was the Youngbloods’ “Get Together,” which always made me think of Woodstock. Not the event. I wasn’t there. But the movie, where half a million hippies happily huddled under blankets in the driving rain singing, “Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”

Back at home, long after Stan fell asleep, I went online to see what the internet had to say about cutoff jeans. Up came an image of Beyoncé at Coachella, looking like a goddess. She had on a pair of destroyed denim shorts just like Susan and Ron’s circa 1975. 

All of a sudden, I realized I was crying. I couldn’t stop thinking about that faded snapshot of my old friends, both of them in their DIY cutoffs, just counting the minutes until they could jump into bed. I blinked away the tears and looked back at the screen, where I discovered that after the concert, you could buy ragged blue shorts like Beyoncé’s from the vintage brand Coal N Terry for just $90.

Things change, then change again. There was a revolution, then a counter-revolution, and capitalism won. It won because it figured out how to turn that feeling of brotherly love into a product. And it won because it recognized a fundamental truth—even if you’re not Beyoncé, denim cutoffs make you look hot.


Ann Levin is a writer whose work has or will appear in Sensitive Skin, Southeast Review, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Potato Soup Journal, Main Street Rag, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Porridge, Hunger Mountain, Uppagus, and Bloom. On Twitter: @annlevinnyc.

Andrew Sarewitz

City of Chappaquiddick by Andrew Sarewitz


Memories can be vivid and clear. Whether they’re accurate or not is another story. Especially if reflecting on childhood times where you tend to unconsciously rewrite the history. Altered or in truth, I remember my summer days, young and carefree, on the island of Chappaquiddick, at the far edge of Martha’s Vineyard. I’m conveniently forgetting the multiple times I had contagious, itchy rashes from poison ivy and the August I came down with chicken pox.  

* * *

Where to some, Nantucket Island may have been considered elite, Martha’s Vineyard was an interesting sociological piece of Americana. In the mid 1800s, a large part of Cape Cod and the islands of Massachusetts were populated by immigrant Portuguese whalers and fishermen. Strangers to these foreign shores who became first generation American.  

By the 20th century, as summer migrations added to the shore-town economies, Jews and people of color were accepted in certain parts... sometimes. On Martha’s Vineyard there is a town called Oak Bluffs, that was populated by African Americans. Though segregated, it was elegant and animated, known for a great many carved gingerbread houses painted in bright, fantastical colors, reminiscent of Creole New Orleans. Oak Bluffs, as with Sag Harbor on Long Island in New York, was a safe vacation and year round haven for the black population in white America.  

* * *

Our family rented one of two single floor apartments built deep into a rocky cliff on Chappaquiddick, mirror imaged and side by side. The other apartment was reserved for the same weeks by longtime friends. Both of the families were Jewish. When at our full capacity, we were four adults, nine kids, two dogs, a cat, three boats (if you include the dinghy) and a babysitter, often in tears. I was the youngest of our family’s four, the second to the youngest of all nine children. The Olingers, who took the neighboring apartment, were a five sibling crew.  

Perpendicular and screened in, shading the front entrances of the rentals, was a porch that ran the full width of the building — and a significant reason someone would choose this lodging. It bragged an unmatched panorama. The full view veranda was raised high above the waterline and trees, facing east. The sunrise over the salt water pond was nature’s brilliance displayed like hushed morning fireworks. The property behind and well beyond the house traveled over to the sand and stone floor beaches of Katama Bay, across from Edgartown Harbor. Facing toward the west, those sunsets were filled with just as much magic as the morning light show, spectacular, before vanishing beneath the tides surrounding Martha’s Vineyard Island.

This was the 1960s. Before Ted Kennedy put Chappaquiddick on the national map by driving the family Buick into the salty river at the lip of the wooden Dyke Bridge that crossed from the dirt road over to the white sand on the far side. The Buick rested ghost-like on its side under the water, where Mary Jo Kopechne was later found in the back seat of the car, drowned. 

If you were to cross the bridge on foot (or by a vehicle able to traverse deep sand), you’d eventually arrive at the ocean and dunes of Chappy’s aptly named East Beach. We summer residents and permanent citizens of Chappaquiddick know that Kennedy lied about his actions leading up to and after the crash. Whatever theories the locals formed and discussed, no one believed it was intentional.  

Someone — I presume a teenager — splashed red paint all over the wooden bridge, resembling (not really) blood.  Americans lined their automobiles down the dirt road leading to the arched plank crossing. People cut little chunks out of the bridge to take as souvenirs. While fishing, my brother was forced off the bridge by the gawking tourists in cars with license plates ranging from Alabama to Wyoming. If that sounds rather harmless, if not morbid and stupid, so much of the bridge was excisioned, it had to be rebuilt.  

* * *

The glorious gem where we and the Olingers stayed was advertised as the “Caleb’s Pond Apartments,” which my sister, Ellen, reminded me was also referred to (by us) as the Slums of Chappaquiddick. Antiquated bread-burning toaster and Depression Era glass dishes included. We rented the house from Tony Bettencourt. The properties he owned on the Vineyard would be worth millions by now. Without debate, Tony was land poor. Little cash in hand, but wealthy in real estate.  

Armed only with circumstantial evidence, Tony was a witness for the prosecution against Ted Kennedy. Knowing the landscape of the island and her roads, Bettencourt testified that the events mapped out by Ted Kennedy could not possibly be accurate. Beginning with Kennedy claiming he accidentally took the wrong fork in the road while driving to the ferry slip. There is no fork. You either turn left and stay on a paved road, or you turn to the right and enter the dirt road that takes you to the Dyke Bridge and East Beach. Though Tony spoke the truth, he was metaphorically laughed out of court.  

* * *

Sometime in the 1930s, Tony built the first open air ferry that traveled from the edge of Edgartown to the western tip of Chappaquiddick. It could carry two cars. During the summers I was there, the motorized barge was called “The On Time.” An irony not lost on anyone, since the crossing only took a few minutes. The very first propelled ferry invented by Bettencourt was named “The City of Chappaquiddick.” By the 1960s, that ferry was permanently moored, dormant and abandoned, in Katama Bay. There had been a fire on Chappaquiddick. A fire truck drove onto the little ferry on the Edgartown side and subsequently the flatboat heeled and sank. The ferry was recovered, but I presume the truck was either rescued after the fact or remains at the bottom of the harbor. Needless to say, after that, the island of Martha’s Vineyard built a fire station on Chappaquiddick.

One summer, while Tony was clearing out his garage beneath the Caleb’s Pond apartments, he came across the sign for the original ferry, “The City of Chappaquiddick.” My brother Dan, who was “helping” Tony, asked if he could have the hand painted sign. Instead of discarding it with the trash, Tony gave the sign to my brother. From the time we returned home, the stenciled plaque lived on a wall in Dan’s bedroom in New Jersey.

What was formed decades ago between the Olingers and us was a bond that still holds. They are family to me…without the intra-intimate drama. In winter, we would take ski trips together. Warming by a fire place after an exhausting day and terrorizing wait-staff when we went out for dinners. Come summer, when we all went for our annual lobster meal at a Vineyard restaurant called The Homeport, I think I remember us all behaving well.  

* * *

In 1971, my parents bought property and built a house in Southern Vermont. Our time on Chappaquiddick came to an end. I tend to blame Kennedy’s sensationalism and the masses it attracted for why we abandoned Chappaquiddick. The truth is that our getting to Chappy by car from New Jersey would be near to impossible during the cold months. Vermont was much more convenient. Accessible and vibrant year round, I admit it made much more sense. But I am an ocean and island boy. The mountains of Vermont did not call to me.

* * *

In 1997, Mom and Dad sold the home in which I grew up and moved to a condominium in a neighboring New Jersey town. When the house was being emptied, I asked Dan if I could take the black lettered sign that hung unappreciated in his childhood bedroom. He agreed to let me have it on a permanent loan. Though it’s just an old piece of painted, decaying wood that was attached to the first ferry that ran between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick, it is a marker that reminds me of a time rare and gone from my childhood. I accept that I can’t go back, but I can remember.  


Andrew has published a number of short stories (website: www.andrewsarewitz.com) as well as having penned scripts for various media. He is a recipient of the 2021 City Artists Corp Grant. His play, Madame Andrèe (about WWII resistance fighter, Nancy Wake) garnered First Prize from Stage to Screen New Playwrights in San Jose, CA.. Member: Dramatists Guild of America. Twitter — @asarewitz Insta — @andrewsarewitz