literary fiction

The February 2009 issue of The Battered Suitcase. Eric Bennett, Rachel Chew Blakley, Myra King, Geoffrey Craig, Jennifer Houston, Alex Myers, Rachel Kuhnle, Mallory Path, Kenna Barrett, John Grochalski, John Lind Whitby, John Paul Thornton, >PM Mooney, Ryan Cooper, Dasha Lilith Desir, D.C. Lynn, Aryan Kaganof, Joseph Reich, Rob Plath, Daniel Casebeer, Joseph Coelho, David E. Oprava, Claire Crowley, April Dressel, Diane Payne From broad slapstick to the driest of irony, it's always seemed to me that humor is a far under-used tool in the art of storytelling. Truth to be told, from my earliest days, my favorite writers, musicians and artists have been the ones that made me laugh out loud or chuckle quietly in the back of my mind. The ones that turned plots back on themselves to expose the underbellies of hypocrisy, the giddiness of man, to make us laugh (and to wonder) at our own preconceptions. There something enlightening about art that can somehow -- with great affection -- illuminate the foibles of humankind. Therein lies the magic of humor, it can correct and comfort at the same time. It binds us together by teaching us to laugh at all our little universal tragedies. For January, the rest of our editorial staff has been kind enough to humor me (as it were). They've given me permission to indulge myself and in this month's issue, you'll find sly bits of wit tucked into corners, ironic twists of fate, outright comedy, some sardonic satire and perhaps, some inexcusable silliness. Selecting pieces for our January 2009 issue has been a complete joy for me. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. "Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth." - Umberto Eco We'll drink a cup of kindness yet... A new year approaches -- a new beginning, a fresh start. Funny, how at the dead end of the year, in the deepest dark of winter, there's a sense of rebirth and renewal... the heady air of pure potential just waiting around the next bend in the calendar. During December, some of us celebrate Christmas -- the birth of the Saviour and the promise of a new life in the Kingdom of Heaven. Some celebrate Chanukah -- the promise of continuing light and blessings from the Lord of the Universe. Some celebrate the Winter Solstice -- the festival of the unconquered sun and the return to longer days and the promise of new life as the world turns again to face it's warmth. Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day, the anniversary of Prince Siddhartha's enlightenment and his new life as bringer of hope and compassion to those who suffer. Our Muslim brothers and sisters follow a lunar calendar, but this year in December, they will be celebrating Eid al-Adha, in honor of Abraham's obedience to Allah when he prepared to sacrifice his son and in honor of Allah's mercy when He replaced the boy with a lamb for sacrifice. A life spared -- and surely a whole new life for Abraham. Some of us celebrate Kwanzaa -- a rededication to the principals that emphasize unity and cooperation and foster stronger life bonds with family and friends. The pace of life slows and the nights grow longer -- and somewhere within this peace and dark we can find our true selves -- that seed of kindness, that kernel of generosity, that flicker of optimism that tells us that we truly can be better people. And what more is humanity than a complicated ape, fired by some divine spark, in the unending struggle to become more like an angel? The wrapped packages of new clothes and cosmetics and appliances under our holiday trees bring promise of becoming better people; better looking and certainly better-dressed people. The dollars we tuck into kettles and cans show our new-found generosity of spirit. The gift basket we send to our ex-mother-in-law proves our willingness to forgive and forget and forge stronger family bonds for the new year. We even make long and detailed lists of exactly how we plan to become better people; more forgiving, more ambitious, more tolerant, more pleasant, more present and, hopefully, somewhat thinner. And then at midnight, on December 31st, when the cork is popped -- it's a whole new world. Every year, a whole new world, sparkling with promise. If the darkness and bitter cold of December brings us anything, it's hope for yet another chance. Through the breadth of human history, we've practiced rituals of forgiveness and rededication to our God or gods, our families, our mates. The new year, perhaps, is the one day we take to forgive ourselves -- and to remake ourselves anew. In this issue of The Battered Suitcase, we celebrate that spirit of rebirth and renewal, as we celebrate all of life's rituals, through song and story. Novelist and long-time sufferer of Cat-Feeding-Disorder, E.J. Knapp gives us a glimpse of a new life when he unites two long-distance lovers for their first meeting. Writer and teacher Mimi Rosen explores a new twist in rebirth in Extra-ordinary Man. Ann Tinkham's circus aerialist defies gravity and authority when she finds her inner liberator and leads herself and a very special friend into a new life. Michelle Panik closes the door to the past and opens new doors in the heart in Slight Chance of Showers. Writer and HIV/AIDS activist Kerry Hudson honors the past by pledging courage in the name of love for the future. In Tracy Pitocchelli's Music Outside, a young girl discovers new feelings to explore and define as she becomes a young woman. In Claire Trevien's Chameleon, we see parted lovers reinvent themselves in order to face their new futures, but their story has yet not completely unfolded. Mystery writer Barbra Annino offers a new look at renewal as a dying woman gets her last wish and writer and playwright Joel Willans offers a glimpse at a working girl who is offered her chance at a whole new life. Santa Claus himself makes an appearance in Kathryn Magendie's Moonshine and Santy Clause and it's obvious he needs to mend his ways, as well. In Lost and Found, Karen Vanuska finds new life, new family, where she least expected. Poetry selections this month are kindly contributed by Miriam Nash, Davide Trame, Tera Wilson, Howie Good, Abigail Beaudelle, Ry Kincaid, and Emma Sovich, with haiku by Ron Hayes. Photographers Andrew To and Jason Ball grace our pages with their images of familiar scenes presented from new perspectives. And perhaps lyricist and poet Ingrid Andrew sums it up best in Five O'Clock; in the darkest of winter, new life is just a breath away. "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul." ~ G. K. Chesterton As the nights grow longer, sometimes we're left wondering if those summer days could have been better spent. In a last ditch, desperate effort, we even change our clocks and fool ourselves into eking out a few more hours of precious sunlight. In November comes an accounting of the harvest - time to tally up the gains and losses of our efforts and a time to face the mistakes of the past, before ushering in the new year. All the things we should have done, the things we shouldn't have said, the moments we never seized, the ones that lay abandoned, but still worrying, in the long grass of those distant summers. Every bad decision, every preventable accident, every injustice that can never be righted - we need to face them, if only so we can let them go. We need to forgive ourselves and we need to move on. Because sometimes tragedy needs to be embraced until we can allow ourselves to celebrate again. Sometimes we need to accept our mistakes and our faults before we can build a brighter future. This month's issue of The Battered Suitcase examines those moments of regret, those lingering memories of lost opportunity, lost love and lost hope. It is populated with stark, but not ungentle portraits of people facing uncertain futures and unchangeable fates -- all of them teetering on that shaky ledge between hope and despair. And only they can choose which way to fall. Here's to a brighter future. We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else. -- Elie Wiesel. Here's to falling on the side of hope. For more information, please go to: http://www.vagabondagepress.com Per Ardua Ad Astra Greetings from the UK side of our battered but well-travelled suitcase. It's been a strange old month, my friends. Personal difficulty and technical disaster have stalked the corridors of Vagabondage Towers testing all and sundry. But as the old saying goes, when the going gets tough... Indeed, one could ask what is creativity but mankind's response to disaster? A sweet balm for the ongoing wound of not knowing why we are here or what lies ahead. It's our imagining of other worlds that gifts us comfort in troubled times. And future reality is born consensual from our common dreams and the imagery we create. We come to you in a slimmer, streamlined suitcase this time around, but there are many great gifts inside. Townsend Walker weaves a soaring tale around one man's struggle with the shattered fragments of the past, Laury A. Egan holds a failing relationship up to the harsh light of analysis and finds freedom there, while Tom Underhill effortlessly skips through time to face the Void and jump. Brandon K Brock's meditation on past friendship comes with a painful twist in the tail, Aaron Polson sensitively examines the inherent difficulty of being a different kind of normal yet finds redemption and self-confessed 'writing degree junkie' Ash Hibbert makes the very salient point that, "Japanese is best spoken when it isn't". The power of what's not said also fascinates our musical guest Paul Jarvis of cult underground UK band Slab! He brings the strictures of Carver-esque storytelling to the art of lyric writing, a match struck to fire the imagination of the listener. Meanwhile, waiting for you in Poet's Corner, you'll find high school senior Jennifer Viets, new voice Jason Jones and London performance poet Josh Seigal rubbing shoulders with published veterans Darryl Salach, Nick Masseso, Kristin Ong Muslim and Marc Alan di Martino. This issue, visual riches have been generously provided by Roger Hutchison who finds inspiration in life and movement, and mountain-dwelling butterfly wine drinker Bruce New. But what's a journey without a little laughter along the way? The vagaries of life are best faced with a smile. This issue, John Carroll provides the chuckles with a tale that will resonate with anyone who's ever stared at a blank page or canvas for longer than is medically advisable. There are so many stories out there waiting to be told -- as many as there are stars in the sky but to quote from Ash Hibbert's contribution again, "Every good story needs someone to tell it". And we are all tall tale tellers, fellow travellers stumbling along the same ancient, well-trodden path. From hardship by endeavour to the stars. For more info, please go to http://www.vagabondagepress.com Theatre of the Dreaming The Battered Suitcase represents the baggage that we carry around with us through our many voyages and adventures here on Earth. Writers and artists tend to wander, gathering up bits and bobs of truth that they can manipulate, enunciate and paint into something of their own. The road stretches out at their feet, the twists and turns rarely averted, and the images encountered catalogued away with a scrawl of ink on paper, the shutter click of a camera, the broad stroke of a brush, or even in the simple flutter of eyelashes collapsing into a blink. But, what is the source then of the other-worldly illusions? Where do the poets and painters find the fantastical and the surreal images and tales of myths and magic? Are not dreams just another rite of creative passage? Do we carry a different set of baggage when we travel to the realms of unadulterated imagination? The art of whimsy, enchantment, supernatural, wonder and dreamscapes are well-worth celebrating, and visiting now and again. Inside the virtual pages of the third issue of The Battered Suitcase, Louise McGinnis loses herself in the lyrical daydream of escaping a very mortal predicament. M.E Carter leads us into a world where emotion and intellect are split in two, and where a suit of armor may disguise both. Sandra Maddux-Creech weaves a tale of sensual fixation on grown-up storybook characters who come of age in alleyways. James Shackell shares the tale of the defender of the rats, the sacrificial martyr to the so-called vermin in the basement. Johnette Napolitano, of Concrete Blonde musical fame, grants us a feral version of the reality-television obsession, turning the absurd mirrored-reflection of superficiality on itself, and having a laugh at it in the process. Lyrical contributors this month are Vanilla Swingers who capture in song a love story that defies time travel, physics and separation. They are joined by the stylistic refrains of Phil Cooper and the Haiku, who, like the poetic reference, delve into depths and meanings in a minimalist construct of sound. Poetry selections for August include novelist and ex-burger-slinger Barbra Annino, the prolific poet William Doreski and fairy tale spinner Katie Graham. Mother and poet Carol Lynn Grellas links arms with Alan King, Corey Mesler and award winning Laura LeHew. Radio show host Kenneth Pobo waxes poetic with the likes of Sergio Ortiz, Joseph D. Di Lella, and award-winning playwright Natalie Meisner. Art graciously provided by acuPUNKture designs' Sarah Hutchinson Burke, painter and beauty-collector Deb Thompson, professor and visual artist Ernest Williamson III, and form and detail stylist Stephen Milazzo. All of the contributors featured in the August issue gift us with a glimpse into the unknown, sharing their own journey of the imagination. Within the fanciful and mystical, the human spirit prevails, flourishes, and seeks to devour our senses in the best of ways. "When we were children, clouds became animals. Now that we are adults, the vast, blue sky is a metaphor for the infinite, upward potential of the human spirit." ~ Laura Teresa Marquez For more, please go to http://www.vagabondagepress.com The Battered Suitcase focuses on literature, poetry, and art that explores the human experience - for it is our stories that make us human. From the earliest moments of our history, human beings have been sharing stories - defining in each moment of time who we are, what we are and what we're capable of. In a world filled with danger, our ability to share knowledge and wisdom through narrative may perhaps have been the only survival edge we ever had. Humanity is not defined by its shape, the number of its legs or the color of its fur. It is defined by those thing that are only recognizable to other humans; the ideal of compassion, the practice of tolerance, the monster of rage, the paralysis of fear and the necessity of love. And it is our stories that teach us how to recognize them. In the second issue of The Battered Suitcase, performer and poet Lucie Barât serves up a breakfast of eggs and angst in Joe, Ham and Eggs. E.S. Parkinson paints a stark portrait of birth and death in The Red Shoes while Eric McKinley reminds us that in love, like comedy, timing is everything. Award-winning author Melanie Haney portrays a grief-stricken mother and her ritual for redemption in Milk. Michael Mirolla's Triptych silver-plates the clouds of madness and Malachey's humorous Perceptive Norm offers a new perspective on the old tag line "A world turned upside down". Stephanie Davies reminisces on adolescent regrets and Sarah MacManus draws a fine line between lust and passion in a tale of art and angst in the Midwest. Lyrical contributors this month are Adam Franklin-Williams and Moist Bamboo of Welsh acoustical pop group Toy Horses whose refrains run the emotional scale of heart-breaking pathos to whimsical self-satire. Poetry selections for July include the editor of Tiger's Eye poetry journal, Colette Jonopulos. as well as novelist David LaBounty, philosopher Duane Locke, Colin James, Joseph Goosey, Kat Lillian Steiger, Richard Fein and the Senryu-like gems from poet and composer Suchoon Mo. Each contributor featured in the July issue takes a turn at giving the reader a glimpse into the human condition. Different voices, different viewpoints, all a part of the story that is the human experience. "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." ~ Hannah Arendt For more, go to http://www.vagabondagepress.com Our name, "Vagabondage Press", hopes to evoke the freedom and cheery aimlessness of the seanachies and story-tellers of bygone eras. "The Battered Suitcase", a literary magazine with an independent, DIY ethos, holds everything we take on the journey and all the trinkets and trifles, anecdotes and wisdoms, we collect along the way. In this age of the collective narrative, where everyone seeks a voice for their vision, and creativity and talent are the coins of the realm, the traditional publishing industry is still trying to put writers and artists into the same old narrow and sharp-cornered boxes. Art has become a commodity, like so many pork bellies, and the results have been depressing. Writers seeking new high ground and artists seeking to share their vision find themselves turned away at the doorstep simply because their creations are not just like that which sold a million copies last year. It's become an industry of copycats, based on what's marketable, rather on what's good storytelling. We hope to offer an alternative. In our premiere issue, columnist Louise Beech serves a slice of life with no side-orders of redemption and Leslie Braley reveals that there really are just no good men of any shade to be found in the city. Chris Miller flirts with the compelling allure of self-annihilation, and J.P. Devlin examines the unique power of human connection to change the course of a shattered life. No stranger to the DIY ethos himself, musician Adam Ficek offers lyrical poetry from his own DIY project�Roses Kings Castles, an acoustic, folksy alternative to his usual role as drummer for the UK indie band Babyshambles. In keeping with the spirit of enriching the collective narrative through verse, contributors include artist and poet Peter Schwartz, whose work tickles a sly, knowing chuckle at the human condition. Other contributing poets include Stefanie Maclin, David MacLean and the 2005 winner of Radio-Canada�s "Young Artists" award, Lucinda Tang. Art contributions include the vivid marine abstracts of Jim Fuess, the sweet and sinister portraits of Kelly Haigh, outsider art by Dario Molinaro and the digital stylings of new artist Jenn Anderson. Welcome to the premiere issue of The Battered Suitcase....open it up... see what's inside. For more information, visit http://www.vagabondagepress.com 78p full issue of The Battered Suitcase, October 2008 Whether you prefer to call it Samhain, Night of the Dead, Mischief Night or All-Saint's Even - the death of summer is upon us and Halloween approaches. Ancient tradition celebrated Halloween as the night when the dead walked the earth and the misty veil between the real world and the afterworld became tenuous. Halloween is the night we reach to the other side and take a short, frightened peek at the inevitable. We surround ourselves with gruesome images; monsters, predators, scenes of horror and death. Sometimes we make cartoon caricatures out of these grim visions - dancing skeletons, "friendly" ghosts - laughing at our fears or making light of the tragic. We tell horror stories to each other and play rude pranks on strangers. We encourage our children take candy from strangers. Perhaps it's our way of dancing with death, a formalized reel. A flirtation. It could be our ritual introduction to the inevitable. A way of removing the terror and a means of accepting the natural end of things. Like all human rituals that we use to express our hopes and fears, Halloween provides a wealth of inspiration for art and storytelling. It is our hope in this issue to provide a taste of the bizarre, the frightening and of course, the humorous. Whether you spend the holiday in a sacred grove, spend it dragging a second grader from house to house, or even spend it hiding behind the couch with all lights out until the kids stop ringing the damned doorbell - we hope you find a few Halloween thrills in these pages. For more info visit: http://www.vagabondagepress.com
Syndicate content