Issue 41
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Letter From the Editors
Dear Reader,
The skies are grey here in New York City and in the movement of the winds is the chill of the season which has us digging, unearthing, hoodies, capes, and vibey – vintage legacy sweaters just a few moth holes away from the inevitable. The skies darken earlier than our thoughts so they turn inward, can’t help it, thinking of those things in the dark, the dark things. Yes, it is time to greet the ancestors, make the offerings, dare to touch the veil with a small hope that messages of love like smoke will drift through and over.
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About the Artists in LIT 41
Allison Guan
(on the cover) Splice
Allison Guan is a poet and photographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. In her free time, she can be found falling down Wikipedia rabbit-holes and figuratively consuming textbook pages.
Stephanie Ann Farra of Philadelphia, is a photographer and writer whose work explores the subtle intersections of nature and human expression. With a deep appreciation for history and storytelling, she uses both imagery and language to capture moments that feel timeless.
Richard Hanus is an artist of few words whose work has previously appeared in LIT 36.
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The Outdoorsman
photo by Stephanie Ann Farra
by Lily Trotta
When you think of him, start with his hat. The latest in a series of nearly identical hats he started accumulating years, maybe decades, before you were born. The kind of hat Indiana Jones wears, brown felt with a strap around the circumference of the head, sometimes a feather on the side. You’ve always wondered if he started buying this particular style because of the movies.
He should also have his walking stick—a tall, hand-carved staff his buddy whittled out of a tree,
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The Deliverer
by Amelia Mitchell
Daniel didn’t feel like an angel.
He didn’t feel like it when his mother used to cup his face in her warm hands. “You’re my little angel,” she’d say, with a smile so big it closed her eyes. She’d say it on a wide array of occasions: when Daniel brought her crayon drawings, when she bandaged his scraped knees, when he burnt the pancakes he’d surprised her with. “You’re my little angel,” she’d say, even after a visit to the principal’s office, where they’d sat across the table from another boy and his angry parents.
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Shadows
photo by Sherry Shahan
by Duane M. Engelhardt
For a moment he lost track. It was a concern, an omnipresent fear, that was becoming an ever-increasing reality. Lapses in trains of thought. Things becoming muddled, remembered through the haze, and then forgotten again.
By no real authority, other than the respectful commandeering by an old man of a place to stop and rest, scrutinize, and ruminate, he had claimed this bench, this spot in the park. He joked with friends that it was widely known and respected by exactly no one other than himself and perhaps a handful of strangers,
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Rumors, Threats & Biased Scuttlebutt
image curtesy of The Public Domain Review
by Brandon Christopher
Wilbur didn’t act like a real monkey. A real monkey would never let himself be dragged down a dirty sidewalk on its back, or wear a leash of yellow satin ribbon around its neck without a fight. And a real monkey would never put up with a heart drawn in permanent ink across its own chest, bordered on each side by a W and an E. This was because Wilbur was not a real monkey—at least not a living, breathing, pink-assed kind of real monkey.
