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Founded in 1948 P U B L I S H E D AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N O RT H C A R O L I N A – C H A P E L H I L L
Summer 2014 V O L U M E 6 4 .1
E D I TO R- I N - C H I E F
Lindsay Starck M A N AG I N G E D I TO R
Ma!hew Hotham F I C T I O N E DI TO R
Moira Jean Bradford P O E T RY E DI TO R
Lee Norton N O N - F I C T I O N E D ITO R S
Andrew Aghapour Nick Anderman Sam Bednarchik A RT E DI TO R
Chloey Accardi C OV E R DE SI G N
Philip McFee
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ON THE COVER
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INDEXING The Carolina Quarterly is indexed in the Book Review Index, Poem Finder, Index to Periodical Fiction, American Humanities Index, and the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. Member Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. ISSN 0008-6797. Library of Congress catalogue card number 52019435.
Contents
SUMMER 2014 | VOLUME 64 .1
FICTION DAN MOREAU The Line 9 AARON SANDERS Upon the Ground 23 LYNNE STOECKLEIN Ashes, Ashes 63 KEN HUGGINS All Who Answer Are Chosen 92 ANNE KORKEAKIVI WildLife 107
POETRY P.J. WILLIAMS Black Snake Moan 14
Dyin’ Bird Blues 15 MICHAEL LAVERS Night Feeding 16
Briseis to Achilles 22 MAT THEW HARRISON
Asifipede 18
J. CAMP BROWN Mandolin in White Wood 32 AUTUMN McCLINTOCK Cable Car / Clouds 33 JOHN BLAIR The Thing Itself Speaks 41 MAT T MORTON
Anachronistic Elegy 57 Lullaby 58
FARAH MARKLEVITS
Branch Season 60 Dust Season 62
KATE PARTRIDGE #14 Visits the Gallery
76
BOB WAT TS An Act Considered As Itself and Trope
78
JORY MICKELSON Self-Portrait as Phantom Spaceman
88
ALICIA REBECCA MYERS Canary Be Attendant 90
15 Weeks 91 GEORGE BISHOP From the Book of What I Never Read 105
Waking Up Asleep 106 VIRGIL RENFROE No Moving a Chair
115
JOSEPH MULHOLLAND Calle Mariana Bracetti 116
Zhuchka’s Love Letter to the End 117
NONFICTION JASON SHULTS Finer Than Prayer 34 NATHAN SCOT T McNAMARA Parole 44
REVIEW AISHA ANWAR Darkness With Consolation 119 Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden
ART NOA SNIR
Scheherazade 49
PHI LLI PS SAYLO R W IS O R
“We will rob the rich and discomfort the devil. Thereby perhaps, finding favor in the sight of the Lord.” Jack Black, 1926 80 Ruffians
81
Husband 82 Wife
83
Spies 84 Sophia 85 “We’re not big thinkers, none of us are. Who wan’s to be?” 86 “I behave like what I am. Like a proper Gypsy.” Federico Garcia Lorca 87
P. J . W I L L I A M S
Black Snake Moan a!er Blind Lemon Jefferson The evening train will carry coal across the bo!om of the Appalachian chain, its whistle ji!ering the sky alight with blackbirds flashing silver—throats like smoke unraveled, ta!ered, coarse along the waves of ore that cool to black about the moon. When storms spool up in tumid threads & pit the sky against the ground, I set the ferns upon the porch & hide, a radio & flashlight on my lap. In time I fall asleep inside the closet. Morning comes. Spilled out around the ferns like unstrung pearls a clutch of eggs slides whole into its unhinged jaw. The momma bird goes mad with song.
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AARON SANDERS
Upon the Ground The rusted blue pickup skidded to a stop on the dirt road, a dust cloud like the finger of God trailing behind. The temperature was already ninety in the Southern Utah desert and would stretch into the hundreds by mid-a$ernoon. A faint breeze brushed the desert floor but offered no relief from the scorching heat. In the cab, Bishop Young placed his sweaty hand on Jonah Solomon’s wrist. The bishop meant well, Jonah knew, but given that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks, hadn’t been able to keep food down for days, and his nerves were fried, the bishop’s gesture only made things worse—Jonah’s stomach retched, and he threw up out the window. “Take a deep breath,” the bishop said. “We’ll get through this.” The driver, Brother Wendell, cut the engine. He was a thick man who, when he wasn’t dressed in a ta!ered three-piece suit on Sundays, wore denim overalls and a hunting knife. He didn’t speak o$en, but when he did it was important, his voice deep and deliberate like the leaders of the church. He turned to the two men in the cab with him, started to speak, then stopped. He was crying. Jonah had worked with these men for five years as first counselor in the bishopric. In that time they had watched their membership go through a variety of challenges. Cancer. Infidelity. Apostasy. Their weekly meetings had o$en been heated, emotional exchanges on how best to help their members, and in working through these challenges the men came to believe what those who had gone before had preached: adversity really was an opportunity for growth. Until Jonah’s confession. The fact that one of their own had sinned in such a public way sha!ered the collective trust the congregation had in its leaders. Their inability to lead trickled through the community like an illness, and that, according to the bishop, necessitated the tribunal and subsequent execution of its sentence. AARON SANDERS
23
Jonah wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his blue-checkered button-up. The truck cab was like an oven now, and the sweat gathered in the trace of his spine. Outside, the sky was pure blue and smooth, and the air was silent. Several minutes passed before the bishop finally said: “Brother Solomon, I think it’s time.” ———— A few hours earlier, Jonah had smiled when his eight-year-old son appeared in the kitchen doorway. Peter’s favorite blue pajamas barely reached his calves anymore, and the shirt with the embroidered soccer ball was tight around his chest. He and Mary had tried to replace the old pajamas at Christmas, but when this devastated Peter they relented. He could wear them as long as he liked. Peter grinned when he saw his father, his two front teeth perfectly straight. Everyone said Peter looked just like him, something Jonah took great pride in. Peter shuffled to the table. “Cereal?” His son nodded, rubbed his eyes. Jonah found two bowls in the cupboard. He filled both with Frosted Flakes, poured the milk, and sat next to his son. Peter took a bite, and Jonah tapped him on the arm. “The blessing?” “Oh, sorry.” Peter let the cereal fall from his mouth back into the bowl. He smiled, and Jonah nearly lost it. His son was his best accomplishment, and the idea of being away from him for so long turned his stomach. Sure Peter would miss him at first, but he’d get used to Jonah not being there—and to Jonah, this was worse than death. Jonah took a deep breath. “Will you say it?” Peter recited his standard blessing on the food. Thank you for this beautiful day, thank you for my family, thank you for the gospel. Then: Bless the missionaries, bless the food, bless the church leaders— especially the bishop.
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Jonah knew this was coming but the mention of the bishop turned him inside out, and he couldn’t hold back. Tears formed just enough for Peter to notice. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” He looked his son in the eye and lied. “I’m just happy, I guess.” “Happy?” “You know, Mommy happy.” Peter understood this. Everyone knew that Mary cried at the drop of a hat, good news or bad. “It’s okay, Daddy.” Peter handed him a napkin from the holder he made in Cub Scouts, his message to them wood-burned into the side: Merry Christmas! Love, Peter. While the two of them crunched through their Frosted Flakes, Jonah tried to capture every moment. He noted the features he and Peter shared—noses that tilted upward, curly brown hair cut short, the shape of their hands, their veins that popped out like IV tubes. Without thinking he reached for his son and pulled him tight. Peter seemed to sense the urgency. He leaned into his father, and the two of them just sat there—Jonah focused on the warmth between them, enough warmth, he hoped, to last for eternity. ———— The three men hiked ten minutes to the spot where Jonah himself had performed the ritual a year earlier. Brother Downs’ headstone stuck out of the ground like a ro!en tooth. Up until the moment he had lost consciousness, Terry Downs had praised God for the opportunity to atone for his sins. He had asked the bishopric to take care of his wife and four daughters, and then Jonah slit his throat. For weeks a$er he had not been able to sleep, and when he saw Sister Downs around town he couldn’t look at her. Nobody much talked about the ritual—either in church or at home—but everybody knew about it. Blood atonement inflected every u!erance, every testimonial, every prayer, every private conversation. AARON SANDERS
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N AT H A N S C OT T M c N A M A R A
Parole I hadn’t seen Travis since he was pulled over with a pound and a half of weed in his trunk and charged with a felony. We went to the diner on State Street. Our buddy Brian met us there. It was close to midnight. We had to tweak on something, so we drank coffee like we would have drunk beer. We couldn’t go near any alcohol. Travis had a device on his ankle that could sense it in the air. His parole officer would have questions. By the fi$h cup my wrists were ra!ling on the table. I knew that whatever happened, I wouldn’t miss it. I looked over at Lee Hughes, turning eggs behind the counter. I hadn’t seen him since we graduated from high school—it’d been six years. I leaned across our table, got his a!ention, and asked him how he was doing. He said, “Oh, you know. Staying out of trouble.” Travis told him that was easier said than done. Travis had to a!end twelve meetings a week with washed up crack addicts who knew bo!om be!er than they knew their children. Travis even sponsored some of them. But Travis didn’t have a substance problem. He had a selling weed for money problem. It didn’t ma!er. He had to go to those meetings and confess his addiction to alcohol and drugs. He had to turn to his higher power for the strength to prevail. We tipped a few dollars and walked out onto the street. Caffeine sparked through my veins. I felt lit up like a pinball machine. I ushered Travis and Brian into my car and we drove. We went back to Travis’s place, a duplex where he lived with his grandma. I parallel parked on the street, hi!ing the curb and hi!ing the curb until I had it about good. My hands shook and I could feel everything. The screen door shrieked. The doorframe groaned. The tiles squeaked beneath our feet. It was pitch black, and I was surrounded by the unknown. Every step of darkness might have been filled with furniture and glassware. I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was afraid of what I might do—energy spilled from my skin.
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“Travis,” a voice moaned from beside me as we turned toward the stairs. A clock glowed in the darkness. I could make out the faintest silhoue!e of a doorframe. “Yeah, gramma,” Travis said. “Is that you?” I didn’t know whether or not she could see me. “It’s just me and a few buds,” Travis said. “Who?” she asked. “Just Nate and Brian. Buds from high school.” “OK,” she said. “Goodnight.” It felt like she was right beside me, talking in my ear. We climbed the stairs and pushed aside a bed sheet. We walked into Travis’s room, where he was to be quarantined for another ten months. He had go!en permission to go out with us for coffee. Normally he had a nine o’clock curfew. There was a double bed in the middle of the room. There was a glowing tank on the floor containing a small lizard. There was a set of free weights. There were the first two Hunger Games novels and a copy of Ishmael, a book we had read in high school about a philosopher gorilla. There was a TV/VCR combo perpendicular to the bed. Travis took out and inspected his harmonica collection. Brian tuned his acoustic guitar. I inspected the piles of VHS tapes—Total Recall, Se7en, the second tape of the third season of Frasier, Boondock Saints, Aladdin. I didn’t want to again disturb Travis’s grandmother, but I had to pee. I tried to ignore it. “Have you been watching all of these?” I asked Travis. Travis hooted quietly into one of his harmonicas and then looked up. He had a serious expression on his face. “Which ones?” he asked. “I guess, like, Aladdin,” I said. “Yeah,” he said. “Aladdin’s baller.” I felt everything so much that it couldn’t be real. I depended on my body to mediate my sensations. But the off-key notes sliding from that guitar, and the bluesy snarl from the harmonica slid across my bare nerve endings. N AT H A N S C OT T M c N A M A R A
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Introduction to the Artwork Scheherazade is an illustrated series of images based on the Arabian Nights tales. It is a visual journey through the eyes of Scheherazade, the storyteller. The original literary piece is full of passion, violence, wi!y humor, and lustful poetry. It is a lively, rich, and colorful piece of writing, which manages to be traditional and innovative at the same time. The imagery in this series is meant to do the same—provide a fresh interpretation to the experiences of the female protagonist in this tale. A young girl arrives at the king’s palace with her sister. She knows countless virgins have been killed before her, having failed to satisfy the heartbroken, rage-possessed king. She is allowed access to all the decadent luxuries the place has to offer during the day. But as soon as night sets in, it is up to Scheherazade and the stories she tells to keep herself and her sister alive to see another sunrise. - Noa Snir
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C A R O L I N A Q U A R T E R LY
Acrylic on paper, 2012 NOA SNIR
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M AT T M O RTO N
Lullaby The night is cold and delicate and full of angels Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up, The chime goes unheard. We are together at last, though far apart. —John Ashbery
A streetlamp stu!ers, the whole thing comes unhinged. One minor change in the furniture’s arrangement— suddenly routine no longer governs one’s next move toward the refrigerator, found surprisingly bare, and it is no longer clear where to turn. Here? Or was it there? One never learns, straining always beneath the weight of night’s shadow to carve into the sidewalk a persona, the shivering imagined ideal self of the future, which never arrives. Because the scale of memory never levels. A page of pressed petals won’t suffice, nor will an anvil do. So at night one writes against the window unit’s hum as the lover’s indentations finally begin to recede, like so many waves, into the bed. One tends to forget the way a certain shade casts the winter oaks in the yard as forks in fists. But darkness ignored looms no less. Remember this: The time you’ve waited for is truly nowhere
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more than here, yes, even in our delusions that masquerade as epiphanies. A$er all, it was only when you remembered you existed that you recoiled from the commuters’ gaze, so why complain? Forever caught up in selfcongratulation at having reached yet another engagement just in time, nevertheless, you may hear, years later, laughter from a passing car, in that voice‌ No ma!er. It is ge!ing late. Let us lie down for a while and imagine a well-lit hallway connecting concurrent dreams, where the one you le$ on a staircase somewhere in your past will be waiting, having returned to greet you a$er all this time, wearing a yellow dress, holding a le!er, preserved in the false equanimity of sleep.
M AT T M O R TO N
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Introduction to the Artwork As a visual artist, I am a refugee of the Cheap Art Movement. It is vital that my depictions of the proletariate are created with the materials of the proletariate. This means borrowed/found pens and, for canvasses, the backs of processed food boxes (cereal, mac’n’cheese, pizza, etc.). By not investing in materials to create “art,” I am liberated from the pressure to make “art.” Mistakes are not mistakes and each portrait is an improvisation. - Phillips Saylor Wisor
P H I L L I P S S AY L O R W I S O R
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“We will rob the rich and discomfort the devil. Thereby perhaps, finding favor in the sight of the Lord.� Jack Black, 1926 Pen on cardboard, 2014
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REVIEW
Darkness With Consolation Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden In his recently published fourth novel, The Blind Man’s Garden, Nadeem Aslam depicts a Pakistani family struggling to negotiate their historical circumstances in the wake of 9/11. In Urdu—Aslam’s native language—the word kal signifies both ‘today’ and ‘yesterday.’ It is what follows the term that fixes it to a point in time. Drawing on Urdu as a source of imagery and structure, Aslam cra$s his tale in the present, but one entangled in a wheel of history that weaves todays out of yesterdays and tomorrows. Set in Pakistan and Afghanistan shortly a$er the September 11 a!acks, the narrative captures the tumult of war as it snakes between the lives of its many characters: Mikal and Jeo, brothers who leave Pakistan for Afghanistan to provide medical aid to wounded Afghanis; Rohan, their father and the title’s blind man, a retired teacher residing in the former building of the Islamic school he founded; Naheed, Jeo’s Vintage PA P E R , wife, whose own tangled affections surface 3 8 4 PA G E S over the course of the novel; and a host of other minor characters. Betrayed in Afghanistan, Jeo is killed and Mikal is taken captive by a warlord. Rohan and Naheed await their return as Rohan’s home is commandeered by the Taliban as a jihadist training facility. Alternating between these multiple perspectives, the story follows Mikal as he is sold to American soldiers and tries desperately to return to Naheed and Jeo, unaware of his brother’s death. Freedom’s tenuous and arbitrary nature sits at the heart of the novel. Captives like Mikal have a $5,000 reward on their heads. They are bought by warlords and sold to Americans who release the prisoners
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from manacles only to place them in straightjackets. Thus, freedom becomes a commodity. The haunting, and o$en ironic, nature of freedom is echoed throughout the novel in its use of evolving symbols: schools that cultivate leaders become the nursery of cowards; a bird pardoner captures birds so that they may be freed by villagers seeking penance for their sins. (“The freed bird says a prayer on behalf of the one who has bought its freedom,” explains the pardoner, ignorant to the logical flaw.) These contradictions ultimately anchor Aslam’s prose, and his narrative follows the clashing perspectives of 9/11’s a$ermath as if tracing refracted light though sha!ered glass. “Are the white and red stripes rivers of milk and wine flowing under a sky bursting with the splendor of stars? Or are they paths soaked with blood, alternating with paths strewn with bleached white bones, leading out of a sea full of explosions?” wonders a Pakistani woman as she sews American flags—another of Aslam’s complicated symbols—challenging the assumption of a unified history. 9/11 means betrayal for Mikal, opportunity for warlords, death for Jeo, torture for CIA agent David, regression for Rohan, and waiting for Naheed. For everyone it calls a!ention to the instability of freedom in an ever-changing and reconfiguring world. In the novel’s opening, Rohan gazes at his house lit by candles and thinks, “wounds are said to emit light…touch them and the brightness will stay on the hand.” The Blind Man’s Garden is the wound that stays with the reader, leaving traces that, like history, are complex, multiple, and inescapable. Aisha Anwar
AISHA ANWAR
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Contributors
Summer 2014 V O L U M E 6 4 .1
G E O R G E B I S H O P ’s work has appeared in New Plains Review and Flare. Forth-
coming work will be featured at Toadlilly Press, to include his latest chapbook, Short Lives & Solitudes. Bishop won the 2013 Peter Meinke Prize at YellowJacket Press for his sixth chapbook “Following Myself Home.” He a!ended Rutgers University and lives and writes in Saint Cloud, Florida. J O H N B L A I R ’s short story collection, American Standard, was winner of the 2002
Drue Heinz Literature prize and was published by the University of Pi!sburgh Press. He has also published two books of poetry, The Occasions of Paradise (U. Tampa Press, 2012) and The Green Girls (LSU Press/Pleiades Press 2003). He has two novels from Ballantine/Del Rey & poems & stories in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, The Sewanee Review, The Antioch Review, New Le#ers, and elsewhere. He is a professor in the English Department at Texas State University, where he directs the undergraduate creative writing program. J . C A M P B R O W N was the George Benne! Writer-in-Residence at Phillips Ex-
eter Academy. He has received fellowships from the Arkansas Arts Council and from the University of Arkansas, where he took his MFA. His poems can be found in RHINO, Tar River Poetry, Memorious, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. He plays bluegrass mandolin and sings tenor. M A T T H E W B . H A R R I S O N lives in Minneapolis. His fiction and poetry have ap-
peared or will soon appear in Sixth Finch, The Cincinnati Review, Gargoyle, The Saint Ann’s Review, At Length, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and others. K E N H U G G I N S lives and writes in the Shenandoah Valley. A N N E K O R K E A K I V I is the author of a novel, An Unexpected Guest (Li!le, Brown),
and short fiction that has been published by, among others, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, and Consequence Magazine. Her nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications in the US and UK and online. Born in New York City, she currently lives in Switzerland with her husband and daughters, and is working on a new novel. M I C H A E L L A V E R S ’ poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Arts & Le#ers, West
Branch, 32 Poems, Queen’s Quarterly and elsewhere. He completed an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Utah.
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F A R A H M A R K L E V I T S ’s poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Octopus, Fourteen
Hills, Salt Hill, and other journals. She lives in Davenport, Iowa and teaches at Augustana College. A U T U M N M C C L I N T O C K lives in Philadelphia, works at the public library, and
recently has had the good fortune of having poems appear in Redivider, The Collagist, Leveler, and anderbo; additional pieces are forthcoming in THRUSH, Drunken Boat, Pembroke Magazine, and RHINO. Her essay, “Responsible for Death” appears in the anthology The Poet’s Sourcebook, published by Autumn House Press (no relation) last year. She is a member of the poetry reading staff for Ploughshares. N A T H A N S C O T T M C N A M A R A received his MFA in Fiction from Johns Hopkins
University. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot and The Hopkins Review, and he has published book reviews with Ploughshares. J O R Y M I C K E L S O N ’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Superstition Review,
Sundog Lit, Weave Magazine, The Collagist, The Los Angeles Review, The Adirondack Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, and other journals. He received an Academy of American Poet’s Prize in 2011 and was a 2013 Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry. He is currently the 2014 Guest Poetry Editor for Codex Journal. D A N M O R E A U has fiction appearing or forthcoming in Chicago Quarterly, The
Journal, and Potomac Review. He lives in Northern California with his wife. M A T T M O R T O N was a 2013 Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a Finalist in
Narrative’s 30 Below Contest. His poetry appears in West Branch, Colorado Review, Cincinnati Review, and 32 Poems, among others. Originally from Rockwall, Texas, he lives in Baltimore, where he teaches literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University. J O S E P H M U L H O L L A N D ’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The
Journal, Bayou, BODY, Beecher’s Magazine, Whisky Island and elsewhere. He lives in San Juan and is a graduate student at the University of Puerto Rico. A L I C I A R E B E C C A M Y E R S is the author of the chapbook Greener (Finishing Line
Press, 2009). Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Gulf Coast, jubilat, Cream City Review, Fairy Tale Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Georgia (Texas A&M). In February, she was awarded a poetry residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City. She holds an MFA from NYU and now lives in upstate NY, where she’s at work on a first full length manuscript. She and her husband welcomed a son in August. CONTRIBUTORS
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K A T E P A R T R I D G E ’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Colorado
Review, RHINO, Better, The Fourth River, and Verse Daily. She lives in Anchorage, where she teaches at the University of Alaska, coordinates the Crosscurrents Reading Series, and serves as a Count Coordinator for VIDA. V I R G I L R E N F R O E is a father, poet, and songwriter. His poems have appeared in
Forkli! Ohio, Hiram Poetry Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, storySouth, Sixth Finch, The Greensboro Review, The Rialto, and elsewhere. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A A R O N S A N D E R S ’ work has been published in Gulf Coast, Beloit Fiction
Journal, Quarterly Westand others. He just finished a novel, Whispers of Heavenly Death, and a script, Bad Elders. J A S O N S H U L T S ’s work has appeared or is upcoming in Birkensnake, Columbia:
A Journal of Literature and Art, Cu#hroat, and SmokeLong Quarterly. N O A S N I R was born in Jerusalem, where she graduated with honors from the
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. She is currently residing in Berlin, where she works as a freelance illustrator. She has worked with magazines worldwide and exhibited her work in Israel, Germany, the US, and Portugal. Noa’s work is frequently inspired, both thematically and visually, by the old world. She is interested in naive and folk art, religious art and art brut—art created by people who did not perceive of themselves as artists. L Y N N E S T O E C K L E I N has worked as a writer and editor in fields that range
from promotion and marketing to medicine. She has won several awards for her promotional work in film and television and has been a Colorado Voices columnist for the Denver Post. Her story, “Stone Lake,” received an Honorable Mention in New Millenium Writings’ fiction contest. She is currently working on a collection of linked stories, which includes “Stone Lake.” B O B W A T T S , a native of Taylorsville, North Carolina, teaches creative writing at
Lehigh University. His first collection, Past Providence (David Robert Books, February 2005), won the 2004 Stanzas Prize from David Robert Books, and his poems have been published in Poetry, The Paris Review, and reDivider, among other journals.
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P. J . W I L L I A M S is a candidate in the MFA program at the University of Alabama.
A North Carolina native, his work has appeared in PANK, Salamander, DIAGRAM, Crab Creek Review, Nashville Review, Ostrich Review, and others. New work is set to be published in Weave Magazine, Puerto del Sol, The Midwest Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, and Ninth Le#er. He is the lead editor of U#er—an online journal of writing and visual art—and co-editor of the forthcoming anthology It Was Wri#en: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop (Minor Arcana Press). P H I L L I P S S A Y L O R W I S O R is a musician and artist living in Washington, DC.
His portrait sketches are drawn on cardboard food boxes from black and white photographs. He is currently se!ing the poetry of Carl Sandburg to music under his moniker, Stripmall Ballads.
CONTRIBUTORS
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T H E C A R O L I N A Q U A R T E R L Y thrives thanks to the institutional support of
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and our generous individual donors. Beyond the printing of each issue, monetary and in-kind donations help to fund opportunities for our undergraduate interns, university, and community outreach programs, as well as improvements to our equipment and office space. If you would like more information about donating to the Quarterly, please contact us at carolina.quarterly@gmail.com or call (919) 408-7786.
GUARANTORS
FRIENDS
Howard Holsenbeck
George Lensing
Tessa Joseh-Nicholas
Michael McFee
Grady Ormsby Our sincere thanks go also to the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Carolina Leadership Development, the Bull’s Head Bookshop, the UNC-Chapel Hill Creative Writing Program, and the UNC-Chapel Hill English Department. This publication is funded in part by student fees, which were appropriated and dispersed by the Student Government at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Founded in 1948 P U B L I S H E D AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N O R T H C A R O L I N A – C H A P E L H I L L
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