Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 73, Prose, vagabond city

Strangers: Cricket and the Passage of Time by Zaq Baker

Ever since Hu and Javed and I started making music together, I’ve been trying to tease apart whether Noor’s sense of humor is obligatory-host-dad, ingratiated-Midwestern-sarcastic, or something else entirely. It can’t possibly be Pakistani, can it? Late yesterday afternoon he greeted me with a stonefaced stare:  “You are not welcome here.” He didn’t crack a […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 66

Dear Mummiji by Bhumika Muchhala

Dear Mummiji, Your ink black hair parted in the middle like an open book of mysteries. Your marble-sized red bindi resting above your third eye, giving way to your fading brows the same haphazard shape as mine. Your diamond nose ring, glinting mischievously in the dusty morning light of Mumbai. Your puckered lips, one darker […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 39

FEAR: A COLLAGE by RONNY FORD

If I could smoke fear away I’d roll that motherfucker up. -Kendrick Lamar More than a year and a half after my last sip of alcohol, I still get nightmares about drinking again. And they are nightmares, despite the scene being only in my little kitchen, me standing at the sink, swirling my icy glass […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 38, Prose

DREAMING MOTHER by ROBIN W.

where she sits on the front steps of the nyc townhouse i will own someday and spouts nonsense, says do your science homework, sweetie. says what matters more, what you say to yourself when you lose or what you say to yourself when you win? repeats c’est la vie. c’estlaviec’estlaviec’estlavie until my ears bleed so […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 34

TO SEE AND BE SEEN by EMILY YIN

How easy it is to forget. You’re in the therapist’s waiting room, the hospital, the throes of a panic attack—and then you’re not. The nurse calls you in and the doctor sees you out; the darkness lifts and the sun begins to shine. These are just things that happen in passing, and reality has no […]

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Art, Everything, interview, Issue 31

VAGABOND CITY interviews ADIRA BENNETT

  You work in so many different mediums. Do you have a favorite that you focus on more than others? Honestly, I can’t choose a favorite. I think different fragments — memories, emotions, ideas — demand different forms of representation. I enjoy allowing myself the freedom to play with as many different mediums as I […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, Issue 30

CALENDARS by ELIZABETH THERIOT

Time and its contradictions. Wasted time. Its dreaded passing. How can I use or save it more efficiently? Time preservationist. The soft rotted time of forest floors. Photographs and boxes of mementos. Everything is time-sensitive. I am time sensitive. One night during the first few weeks of my current relationship our watches sat side by […]

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Everything, interview

KATIE CLARK interviews SHEY RIVERA

I had the honor of sitting down with Shey Rivera at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island to discuss her work as a poet, artist, curator, and director. You can read or listen below!     Katie Clark: So I’m just going to start off by reading a few lines of your bio: Shey is the […]

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Art, Everything, issue 25

NICOLE LANE interviews MONICA ANDINO

Can you talk about your background? How did you first get into illustration?   I got into illustration as a kid, despite the fact that I went to an art school that was quite traditional and somehow uptight, I became interested thanks to the school library. I didn’t felt so interested in reproducing the great masters. […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 25, Prose

MESSIER 83 by CHRISTINE NO

My Own Private Idaho: Tuesday night at the New Beverly Cinema. Five-dollar double feature, don’t remember the second one. Gummy seats, sticky floor and nobody there but us (and the) creeps. You, in love with the girl who stood you up: The thrift shop dress and vintage nickname. Me, last minute sub, extra ticket— Footwork […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything, issue 25, Prose

CATHEDRAL by CHRISTINE NO

The West Oakland train stop; defunct and tagged standing sentry between a collapsed overpass and a neighborhood gone to shit. You hopped the chain-link easily and breezed across the hill and dale of broken concrete, the stubborn flora crowding up and in between; moving earth like tiny fault lines, smashing plates together, splicing ground to […]

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Art, Everything, interview

NICOLE LANE interviews KAILYN PERRY

When did you first begin painting? I first fell in love with painting after my parents took me to a van Gogh exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston when I was seven. Looking up at the thick colorful swirls of paint on his canvases—I was hooked. I wanted to make my own […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything

A LARAE SORT OF FALL by C.C. RUSSELL

The post-Halloween wind comes in, bearing its chill and a raspy cigarette-torn voice.  I feel its brush against the branches of our uselessly thin trees, hear its rough attempt at a tune.  It has been years now since your death and you have remained silent.  Only my own melodramatic mind can believe this voice is […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything

ACCRUAL by WREN PHELPS

Trigger warning: child sexual abuse, homophobia Age 12: Their parents give them a promise ring inscribed with “True Love Waits,” to be worn on the ring finger until replaced by a marriage band. They wear it daily for a couple of years before forgetting about it in the back of a drawer only to find it […]

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Art, Everything

NICOLE LANE interviews SIVAN KARIM

Can you talk about your interest in figures? Well, as most of my illustrations are about an experience I have had, I usually draw human forms to visualize an protagonist of the story I am trying to tell. My inspirations are sometimes friends, strangers or even figures from movies. I think in middle eastern countries […]

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Creative Nonfiction, Everything

IBNAT by NOOKS KRANNIE

The pink floor lamp was flickering behind my ear, the dirt was making terrains for summer ants on the plastic strips that we got from Ikea to cover the life-size window behind your couch, also from Ikea. There were stains of old, dried acrylics visible on various parts of your beat up couch from the […]

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Everything, interview, Poetry, Reviews + Interviews

KATIE CLARK interviews OLIVIA GATWOOD

  Olivia Gatwood has been calling bullshit and educating through poetry for years now. She is a touring poet and educator, offering workshops on Title IX compliance, community building, and creative writing. Her first collection, New American Best Friend, was released in March. The work explores girlhood and memory, class and sexuality, place-making within and […]

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Art, Everything

NICOLE LANE interviews TYLER SPANGLER

Where are you from? When did you begin making work? I used to live on the beach in Pacific Palisades, CA but will be relocating to Seattle in a month. Drastic change. I’ve been making art my whole life but I only started making it with serious intent in 2011. From that point, I only […]

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Everything

KATIE CLARK interviews EBONY PAYNE-ENGLISH

What makes you want to create? Many things inspire me. I am rather sensitive by nature. Breathing makes me want to create. Observing the world around me. I have a line in a poem that says “my reason for writing is that the universe is incessantly inspiring me.” It’s who I am. I’m a creator. […]

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