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You Lament The Lack Of Asian Actors In American Cinema
Fiction by Eliot Li In your shopping cart at Safeway: a 10-pack of Top Ramen; jumbo box of Depends Undergarments that Grandma asked you to buy; AA batteries for your malfunctioning answering machine; this week’s SF Bay Guardian with Bruce Lee on the cover; and a pleasure pack of Trojans, because even though you’re single…
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Magic, Madness, Meaning
A Review of Jen Knox’ We Arrive Uninvited By Ashley Holloway What is the definition of a “strong female character”? A character who is physically strong and effective at wielding a multitude of weapons as she gracefully takes down the evil villain? Or is she more of a subtle badass like Elle Woods in Legally…
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The Nitty Gritty: Home is a Made-Up Place by Ronit Plank, An Interview
By Charlotte Hamrick I met Ronit Plank when we both signed on as Co-editors in Creative Nonfiction for The Citron Review two years ago. Right from the start we worked well together and found we have pretty much the same aesthetic in our reading preferences. I read her highly acclaimed memoir, When She Comes Back,…
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Boys on the Bridge
Fiction by Jon Sokol Sebastian’s phone buzzed in his pocket at 4:20. He glanced over at his grandmother who sat on the crippled couch. Her hands were buried in the pockets of her threadbare house coat and she seemed completely engrossed in the slap fight taking place on Springer. Carly was lying on the floor…
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Trusting Them, Trusting Ourselves
A Review of Tommi Parrish’s Men I Trust By Helena Pantsis Opening up on a support meeting for alcoholics and people impacted by alcohol, the graphic novel Men I Trust by Tommi Parrish immediately draws you in with its vivid and emotionally cogent watercolour art style. Tackling themes of recovery, gratitude, and queer relationships, Parrish…
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Along the Wires
Fiction by Amelia Franz On one side of the register stood miniature bottles of Fireball and Jack Daniels, on the other a stack of fundraising flyers for the family of a man killed out on 182, rear-ended by an over weight cane truck bound for the Raceland mill. Greer refilled the scratch-off dispenser case, then…
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The Fractured Mirror: Tell Me the Biggest One You Know
By Edward Karshner My day job is researching the intersection of time and folklore. I study how stories reveal an understanding of ourselves in time. Do we flounder in, what David Southwell calls, “the warped gravity” of nostalgia? Or do we founder under the crushing weight of fatalism? In folktales, I’m always looking for a…
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The Mayor of Leicester
Fiction by Julia Watson The mayor had gone missing. Nobody had seen him in over a week. In a town as far-reaching as Leicester, it was custom to spot one’s neighbor only at the Ingles. The land was large, well-soiled. Horses and goats and chickens mingled and mozied across fenced hillocks, while their keepers kept…
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Yesterday is Today
A Review of Leah Angstman’s Shoot the Horses First By Alex Carrigan In her new short story collection Shoot the Horses First, Leah Angstman compiles sixteen stories set across America’s past, primarily by exploring the lives of putatively unexceptional figures in the 19th century. Angstman’s tales transcend time and place to present stories to which…