ISSUE 1 // PROSE
visual art by Felicia Megginson & Jessica Maffia
"The Boys" by Jessica Maffia
SEEMA REZA // PLACES TEMPORARILY SUBMERGED
a prose poem
"And I hold my breath; brace myself to absorb the impact because the grief of my children will always be mine."
HAROLD TAW // THE MAKING OF A PILLOW TO AWAKEN THE SENSES
fiction
"The Reverend Father hadn’t slept for twenty-one days. And contrary to the advice of his peers, meditation was not an adequate substitute."
"Alice Wasn't Lost, She..." by Felicia Megginson
ANASTACIA TOLBERT // ALICE
hybrid prose
"alice has decided she doesn’t want to be a mother. she doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone else's crooked teeth or failures."
ROBIN KOMAN // THE SECRET LETTERS
fiction
"Marissa is the girl who holds up a sign instead of talking."
"A dormir" by Jessica Maffia
ANGELA VERONICA WONG // WENDY
hybrid prose
"I found Wendy sitting in a hole she dug up in the backyard. There were three child-sized holes and I had no idea how long they had been there."
CECILY SCHULER // PUSH UP
nonfiction
"I had my own room. This was convenient, as I had decided to hang myself that night."
JUSTIN TORRES // WHERE’S MY WILD HORSE, COME TO RESCUE ME?
flash fiction
"The miraculous thing involves sex and death. Sex in the face of death, sex as last defense against mortality. But the opposite can, does, happen."
ANNE LIU KELLOR // LEARNING TO SPEAK
lyric essay
"But silence can also suffocate, settling in my chest in layers like silt, a sign that I have waited too long."
"A Heavenly Gift" by Jessica Maffia
VISUAL ARTIST BIOS
Jessica Maffia: see bio on her VISUAL ART page
Felicia Megginson: Place as a metaphor for self--the idea that who we are is influenced by where we are--has long been a focal point of my photo-based work, and the photographic series “Alice Wasn’t Lost, She…” continues this exploration. Four suites of images (Communion, Permutation, Manifestation, and Transformation) represent a metaphorical return to childhood landscapes--places of memory and make-believe. They mark the passage from one phase of life into the next, and encapsulate youthful fantasies, adult fears, and the metaphysical space in between.
Felicia Megginson holds an M.A. from New York University. Exhibitions include those at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Rush Arts Gallery, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. A participant in the Bronx Museum of Arts' Artist in the Marketplace Program, she has been the recipient a Polaroid Corporation film grant and a New Works in Photography Award from En Foco, Inc. Felicia lives in Providence, RI.