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I Blew Out the Birthday Candles
Art by Ana Prundaru
by Madison Ellingsworth
I wear a baggy shirt and baggy jeans to Sophie’s housewarming party because that’s what I saw all the attractive Korean and Japanese tourists wearing while working at Gilbert’s Chowder House this week, and now that I’m off the clock I can wear whatever clothes I want, which really means I can look bad in different clothes from the black leggings and black v-neck top I wore working at Gilbert’s, which now stink like scallops.
Everybody at the party is wearing trendy corset tops and Adam Sandler shorts and tennis skirts,
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“Sabbath” by Alfonsina Storni Translated from the Argentinian Spanish by Ulyses Razo
Art by Adelaide Snow
I rose early & walked barefoot
Through the halls. I stole to the gardens
And kissed the plants.
I soaked up the clean breath of the earth,
Thrown on the grass;
I bathed in the fountain that green achiras
Surround. Much later, wet with water,
I brushed my hair. I perfumed the hands
With scented serum of sampaguita. Squeamish,
Fine herons
Stole blonde shreds from my dress.
Then I put on my bugle suit, lighter
Than the very same gauze. -
Two from The Land of Missing Children by Carole Symer
Art by Monica Banks
Ars Poetica w/
Oxygen Tanka slow gesture at first I start w/my sad girl face Mama’s wan smile
that boys fall for the coldness of her waves the sheer drop
of my eight-year-old chilly prophecy not knowing better I jump into Sister’s burning lake
grabbing her wrists oxygen tank on my back exit plan in place every single time
it hurt to watch Sister surrender whatever loss of tongue in the shape of a gun
or was it a ballpoint swept from her hand & -
A Termination: an interview with TNS Creative Writing Professor Honor Moore about her newest memoir
by LIT Nonfiction Editors, Vicky Oliver and Sarah Persons
LIT nonfiction editors Vicky Oliver and Sarah Persons recently sat down with distinguished memoirist, playwright, and poet Honor Moore to discuss her new memoir, A Termination (August 2024, A Public Space). The memoir details the author’s reckoning with an abortion she had in 1969—four years before Roe v. Wade—and is told in a fragmented, poetic style. A Termination has drawn rave reviews from the New York Times and Kirkus Reviews, among others.
Vicky and Sarah first met in Honor’s “The Uses of Memory” class in the MFA program at the New School during 2022 when Honor was first drafting A Termination.
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Time Travel and Witches: an interview with TNS Creative Writing Professor Luis Jaramillo about his debut novel, “The Witches of El Paso”
by LIT Books Editor, Jonathan Kesh
Equal parts historical and fantastical, The Witches of El Paso is a spirited exploration of the many ways we try and often fail to control the world around us, and it’s the debut novel from New School professor (and former director of the Creative Writing Program) Luis Jaramillo.
The story begins as a classic family saga, but quickly grows stranger: in the present day, bustling lawyer Marta cares for her elderly great aunt Nena, all while the old woman insists both of them have La Vista,
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Poetry Rubric for Acceptance
image curtesy of the National Gallery of Art
by Laine Derr
Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Amistad, J Journal, Full Bleed + The Phillips Collection, ZYZZYVA, Portland Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.
