Online Issues
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A Review of Michael e. Casteels “Furthermore, the Lake”
by LIT Social Media Editor, Grace Dignazio
Michael e. Casteels’s Furthermore, the Lake is a stunning traversal of a haunted cityscape, narrated by a deeply disoriented, unnamed speaker. Straddling prose-poetry and surreal narrative, the text conjures a setting at once recognizable as New York City and then not—rippling like memory itself: unstable, refracted. The narrator wades through subway cars and foggy streets in a dreamlike state of liminality, his identity a muddled reflection.
The early vignettes usher us into his psyche as he moves through the banal rhythms of daily life—commuting,
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A Review of Tony Koji Wallin-Sato’s Poetry collection “Okaerinasai”
by LIT Managing and Poetry Editor, Richard Berwind
The cover of Tony Koji Wallin-Sato’s Okaerinasai depicts a black and white photo of an isolated farm recolored in an off-white ivory and surrounded by the encroaching black limbs of a tree. The square photo sits in a matte white frame with a larger blue border: a piece of art hung up on the wall of a gallery, or perhaps a home. The rest of the collection takes a reader on a journey of the singular, a journey of the collective, and the intricate relationship between both as Wallin-Sato asks us what even constitutes a home through the opening definition of his title.
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An interview with Alexa Yasemin Brahme (MFA ’22) on her debut novel “Good News”
by LIT Interviews and Books Editor Jonathan Kesh
Good News, the debut novel by Alexa Yasemin Brahme, weaves a web of many different topics from art to immigrant families to dissections of womanhood, but the title reflects the central focus of a young artist waiting for things to get better.
The novel follows a struggling painter named Maggie — although her family and a certain ex-boyfriend know her by her Turkish name, Müjde — as several points of stress in her life converge at once. Her studio art MFA is reaching its end,
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Searching Childhood: Driftwood Center at Night; Daughterland; Tongue-lied Girl; Lobotomy; Undaughter *
art by Jeff Hartnett
by Maggie Wolff
*We at LIT admire Maggie's bold and unflinching prose. But, we would be remiss without supplying readers with a trigger warning for strong content: trauma and emotional abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, behavioral health hospitalization and discussions of suicide.Searching Childhood: Driftwood Center at Night
This is where you remember the night memories: your sleeping mother, her sleeping daughters, a night so still someone should have heard the crunch of grass under the men’s shoes.
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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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LIT 41, Fall 2025
Dear Reader,
The skies are grey here in New York City and in the movement of the winds is the chill of the season that 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 and make the offerings; dare to touch the veil with a small hope that messages of love like smoke will drift through and over. These are our offerings to you dear reader. Peek under leaves to see what crawls.
