Spring 2010
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CONTENTS
Horseshoes by Lindsay Sproul 5
Twenty-Seven by Caitlin Lilly 7
Photography by Chuck Taylor 9
Three Easy Pieces: A Triptych on Time by J.J. McKenna 11
Hiss Bubbles by Eric Arnold 15
Here… by John-Patrick Ayson 18
Buck Cole’s Story by Nels Hanson 21
Pieta by Claire Rudy Foster 30
Swinging Arms by Brian Anthony Hardie 32
Inside the Canine Head by Mike Finley 33
Crying Wolf by Alysse Hotz 35
Photography by Russell Bittner 36
Cover Photo by Chuck Taylor
CONTRIBUTORS
Lindsay Sproul, originally from Massachusetts, is currently an MFA candidate at Columbia University. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of literary journals, including The Beloit Fiction Journal, upstreet, cream city review, American Short Fiction, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2008 and 2009.
Caitlin Lilly is a writer living and working in Portland, Oregon. A former roller-derby girl, she is always on the lookout for new and better experiences. She dreams of someday having a burrito tree in her backyard.
Chuck Taylor teaches creative writing at Texas A&M University. His photography has been featured in Sunset Palms Hotel and Unlikely Stories. His two most recent books of poetry are Li Po Laughing at the Lonely Moon (Pecan Grove) and Heterosexual: a Love Song (Panther Creek).
J.J. McKenna is a professor of contemporary literature and creative nonfiction at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in more than 30 literary journals and mainstream magazines including Ideals Magazine, Hawaii Review, Louisville Review, and ELM.
Eric Arnold lives in Dallas, Texas, the land where he was raised. He studies medicine and plans to become a psychiatrist. He attended college at Brown and lived in London for several years before coming back to Texas. Two of his poems recently appeared in The Labletter and others are pending publication at New York Quarterly. His short fiction has appeared in Elimae, Pindeldyboz, and Monkey Bicycle.
John-Patrick Ayson resides near a rusty, latticed fence in Imperial Beach, San Diego, just north of Mexico. He holds an MFA in writing and has been published in numerous journals and magazines, both online & print, including past, recent, and upcoming issues of new aesthetic, ditch, Paraphilia Magazine, Armageddon Buffet, Moronic OX, poetic diversity, Fiction International, LITnIMAGE, Antique Children, streetcake magazine and Maintenant 4: A Contemporary Journal of Dada Poetry. His book, 25 days until antiquity; 33 nights before infamy—a disparate amalgam of poetry, prose, non-fictive, performance & liminally concrete texts—is anticipating publication during the winter of 2010.
Nels Hanson has worked as farmer, teacher, and writer/editor. He holds degrees from UC Santa Cruz and the U of Montana and received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and a citation in its Joseph Henry Jackson competition. His stories have appeared in Antioch Review, Texas Review, Black Warrior Review, Southeast Review, Long Story, Short Story, South Dakota Review, Starry Night Review, The Offcourse Journal, Atomjack, Zahir, Word Riot, Ruminate Magazine, The Write Place at the Write Time, Caveat Lector, The Dead Mule, Genre Fixation, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Emprise Review, Connotation Press, The Iconoclast, Splash of Red, Prick of the Spindle, Xenith, Danse Macabre, Sixers Review, The 3rd of November Club, and other journals. His stories are currently in press at Monongahela Review, Avatar Review, River Poets Journal, and the Overtime Chapbook Series at Blue Cubicle Press.
Claire Rudy Foster prefers the company of alcoholics, angels, dreamers, and freaks. Recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her work has also been recognized by Best of the Web. She operates the weekly online publication WORK Literary Magazine, and is also pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction at Pacific University. She lives next to a cemetery in Portland, Oregon with her husband and young son.
Brian Anthony Hardie lives where he was born, in Portland, Oregon. He has been published in numerous small press journals and e-zines including The Pebble Lake Review, Conceit Magazine, AMULET, Hudson View, Decanto, Ditchpoetry.com, SALiT Magazine, DaveJarecki.com, WordSlaw.com, CynicMagazineOnline.com, Down In The Dirt Magazine, Expressions Online Literary Journal, Theinquisitionpoetry.com, Lone Stars Magazine, Pure Francis, BLAZE VOX, and Angel Exhaust, among others. He is currently at work on a book of prose and poetry.
Mike Finley is a Pushcart awardee who lives and writes in St. Paul, Minnesota. His most recent project is ZOMBIE GIRL, a graphic novella, proceeds of which go to anti-suicide work in the Twin Cities.
Alysse Hotz lives and teaches in Kansas City, Missouri. Her poems have appeared in Origami Condom, Shadows, and are forthcoming in Rougarou.
Russell Bittner lives and writes on a small island off the East Coast. The island is called ‘Long’ and his borough is called ‘Brooklyn.’ Like Hobbes, he believes that “life is short, brutish and nasty.” He also believes that—like this tiny clod of an island—art is long; and, with Donne, that no man is one, entire of itself—either an island or a work of art. Russell’s photography, poetry and prose can be found both on the web and in print.
Porchlight: A Literary Magazine 