Fine flu journal 1 by FINE FLU JOURNAL

FINE FLU JOURNAL

No 1

A few words about Fine Flu Journal

*We are a new online journal aspiring to publish good literature, photography and articles. We are interested in people who have a real passion for the creative process. We want to focus on works that respect the fundamental rule of art, that is to say, they have a unique look at the world around them and they are able to reconstruct it in a way that excites both them and the audience as well. Our first issue is small as we wanted to keep the high quality of the works we chose to publish. Thank you to all the talented contributors of this first issue! *You can send your work to http://fineflu.weebly.com/ and your mails to fineflu@gmail.com *Our editorial team consists of three people: Fineas Poper, Const Saitas, and Portia Eglin. We are based on Worcester, MA, USA

Our editors:

Constan Saitas: Born in Alexandria. He studied political science in Athens, Greece and Economics in Surrey, England (Postgraduate). He lived in France for three years and in Australia for six years. Now he lives in Belgium. He worked as an official translator of the European Union in Brussels from 1981 to 2008. He speaks four languages.

Portia Eglin: She studied English Literature and has an MA in Education and civilisation. She is of Greek origin, and has written a novel that is under publication in Australia. Her short stories have appeared in American in British and in Greek magazines. She also works as a book reviewer. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Fineas Poper: Fineas is a person with no face. He loves literature and art and he has just decided that running Fine Flu Journal is his call of fate. Don't try to google him. Fineas Poper is a pseudonym. The person behind this name wishes to remain well hidden in his secret cave. The darkness adds to a well-framed mystery. His cave is in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Contents:

Love is Sour__page 4 The jeep that kept rising from the dead___page 5-6 The Swipe___page 7-10 Horse-ography__page 11-15 Intimacy___page 16-22 Disquiet___page 23 Writers’ collage___page 24 Cereal Punishments___page 25-26 Send in the clouds__page 27 Bios of this issue’s writers__page 28 Bios of this issue’s poets___page 29 Bios of this issues photographers___page 30

Love is Sour

Sir Dilworthy Muttonchops stared at the stairs waiting for Jane, his wife who assuaged his cares.

He asked himself, “Where she’s been all of this time? It cannot take so long to procure a lime”.

Did she stop by to see her friend, Sally Bude or find a man with whom to do something lewd?

His fears of her cheating began to retreat when a wagon from Harrod’s stopped in the street.

Leaving the vehicle, he is shocked to see his wife and two men unload a potted tree.

Deeply ashamed he believed his wife would lust, Dilworthy vowed that in their love he would trust.

Unlimited supplies of green citrus fruits strengthened the Muttonchops’ love, limes, limbs, and roots

Jay Immel August 2012

The Jeep That Kept Rising From the Dead

Lazarus had nothing on this battered motor vehicle. A red Jeep with a broken headlight a dent in the driver’s side door a transmission that sucks down fluid and leaks it out at the same time.

It guzzles gasoline like an alcoholic during Happy Hour.

This Jeep has a muffler with a hole and it wakes up the neighbors (when it actually runs). It’s a sorry excuse for a car and it hasn’t passed inspection since 2009 Its roadworthiness is questionable at best.

Nothing can kill it.

It rises from the dead every time just like Lazarus. Except Jesus isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t around to perform miracles anymore. My son and his friends keep it on life support. But for how long?

Katley Demetria Brown 2014

The Swipe (Harry Leeds)

This must have been more than five years ago because it was after my sister finished graduate school but before she moved down to Virginia. I was living with her for the time being and rekindling old friendships. This was when we had no money but still didn’t care. We thought there were jobs out there and it was only a matter of time before we stumbled into a profession and job security. One acquaintance my sister and I both kind of knew fascinated us all. He would get books, but only those without pictures on the cover, and purposely go out to not-brand name cafes to read them, holding them high enough to make the titles visible, in French, with salient accent marks, and sometimes the author’s name. He had us over to his house often, he had a fairly large place and his roommate was always out of town, and he was really good at throwing together something at the last minute. He knew where to go just to get sliced meats (I especially remember he always had sopressata) and cheeses, crudites, could put together a playlist and we loved making assumptions about his books. It seemed like everyone had seen him or someone like him occupying a chair in a coffee place for more than his share of the day, and here we were in his apartment, glimpsing through the window of his books and into the other side of his secret life. His books were all in French, and many of us had gotten the impression that he didn’t speak French well enough to converse, but, we supposed, well enough to read it. We’d talk about this, his supposedly poor French, even at the parties he was holding. I think most of us were embarrassed we couldn’t even understand these works in translation so we never asked about it. We didn’t know much about Igor, that’s what I’ll call him, and he always had a nonplussed attitude and an air of bonhomie about him except when he took talked about film which was often. He loved Goddard and always said the name with a pretentious pronunciation

none of us had ever heard before which therefore struck us as accurate. We were an eruditeenough group, a couple of us had dabbled in film classes and would try to conduct a two-way conversation on the subject. At least once at each one of his parties someone would bring up Goddard and he’d just go into a tirade of the great genius of this man. Igor would pick his books off the shelf, toppling them over, throwing them in the sink, and saying, this, this is all toilet paper compared to what Goddard did. Sometimes he’d get a lighter and light them on fire, the books in the sink, but at worst he only got to singe the edges and besides we could just turn on the faucet to put it out. He was honest, even generous about his love of Goddard, like he knew something about life he could share with us only through these movies. We all promised we’d watch them, but I never did myself. A girl named Elle who must have been one of my sister’s grad school friend’s friend’s started coming to these things at Igor’s, she was pretty and friendly, you know, she had a split chin that was about a third the length of her entire face and she always put on too much contour makeup, but she was agreeable, not the kind of person you’d whine about to your significant other the next morning nor the kind of person you’d want to see outside of the setting of a wellattended party, but of course her one thing is that she thought Goddard was the biggest fraud in Western Art. The first couple of times she was in Igor’s apartment and he brought up the director, Elle opened her mouth to speak out against Goddard and me or one of our friends saw, lopped it closed. Well after about the third time this happened she couldn’t help herself and started to say Goddard was a fraud. Igor stole into his bedroom. It was one of those apartments with no grates on the radiators or lights, everything was just out there and stark and exposed. He came back with a two-foot metal pipe and lighter fluid. He banged on the radiator with the pipe. We sat

around watching and with two hands, pipe and lighter fluid under his armpits, he picked up and transferred a whole row of books into the sink all at once, and soaked them with the lighter fluid. He reached for a match and when someone moved forward to stop him, he brandished his pipe and back we went. He looked at Elle and told her to open all the windows. He repeated, louder, all of them! All the way! To let out the smoke. She was so frightened she did what he said. It seemed crazy, somehow sick, to let books burn. My sister and I are pretty much on the same wavelength, and I nodded my head to her, she shrugged, and I took control and went for the lunge, anyway, she followed, and we neutralized Igor, disarmed him. I got someone else to hold him down while I turned on the sink to put out the fire. The flames were a bit high by the time I got to it, and I tried taking off my sweater to extinguish them, you know, by taking away the oxygen. My sweater was ruined and I burned my forearms. But looking in the sink I found that his books were written half in English. They were dual language editions, that is, at the bottom of each page there were footnotes in English for the student of French. Igor finally relaxed from his frenzy, stood up wiped himself off, hopped right up to me in the face. But he was talking to everyone when he said, calmly considering everything, “Get out of here.” We knew immediately something was ruined right then. That was going to be the end of parties at Igor’s, but also a lot of our friendships. People had to get jobs, and without Igor’s place to bring us together we just stopped finding excuses to hang out. I think people mostly blamed me, since I had stopped his burning books, but it had to come to an end, just our friendships floating around like that. People backed away, and when they got outside decided to head to a bar nearby, but as I headed outside Igor pulled me back and asked me to wait a minute. He boiled tea.

“What do you have all French books for, anyway?” I asked. “My mother is French,” he said. “If I had only French books, I thought I’d learn French.” By now everyone had gone and he began to tear up. His hand trembled as he went to sip the tea. His parents, it turned out, were paying for everything: his apartment, his books, his coffee, the sliced meats and crudites. He didn’t have to work. His mother even told him he should never worry about getting a job, and just do what he wants. “So I figured I’d devote my time to study. At first, I wanted to read about philosophy. Then I decided to learn French,” he told me looking in the direction of the burned books. “But after all this time, a French mother, I still don’t read like a native. There are six-year-olds who read French better than me.” I told him it wasn’t the same, thanked him for the tea, and caught up with everyone downstairs. I didn’t tell them about Igor’s little confession there. I wanted to feel proud in this, that the mystery of the pretentious francophile had been solved, but it seemed easy and simple and unsatisfying. The lurking figure showing off the title of his book in the cafe turned out to be as painfully common as anyone else. I had the sense I wouldn’t be meeting with these friends consistently again, but then, this seemed common as well. Probably about three weeks after that I moved away from the city anyway.

Horse-ography , Karen Boissoneaut-Gauthier

Intimacy ( Desirée Jung )

Renan tries to close his eyes to escape the repetition. He’s an old man now, but still can’t control his impulse, his arms threatening his son after the argument. When that happens, he feels aimless. Meanings of an entire life return to his thoughts and he needs to account for them: his father’s funeral, his memories. The man had the habit of beating him when he arrived home after watching the fights in the arena, a kind of love. It’s not really an attack, but an explosion. Maura notices that her husband is nervous and looses his coordinates, accusing his grown son with rude words. He doesn’t want the boy to get a divorce. “But he’s a made man,” she tries to argue. Her father-in-law is dead now, but the scars remain in her husband’s body, who even to this day keeps the image of the man like a trophy. His wife doesn’t know how long this will last. She thinks that with time Renan will feel relieved. His father is old now, but shows imbalance. Marco wants his friendship but Renan doesn’t accept his way of being, or his choices. The picture of his grandfather is hanging behind the office’s door, so his father can recall the rules, the marriage, the work, the children and the career. Marco has tried it before. Got married, worked in a bank, and was obedient through the years. The truth, unavoidable, surfaces and his body betrays him with a forbidden desire for men. In that morning, in an obtuse manner, his father attacks him, saying that his decision to get a divorce is irrational, nostalgic words referring to the old man’s rules, “family, work and society,” all that inflated by his grandfather’s death. After the shouts, Renan appears emptied, as though the discussion no longer concerned him. In an effort to spend the weekend with his son, Renan loses his temper. Perhaps if he had left soon after the ceremony, the conflict would have been lessened. Each one knows what to do to with their own lives, Renan thinks, regretful of having yelled with his son. Maura spoils the boy, yet that doesn’t justify his late outbursts. Renan considers himself a respected man by the community, and his son’s modernity causes him repugnancy, no connections with anyone. He doesn’t know exactly what kind of life his son leads, but fears his lack of discipline. Maura protects the boy ever since his adolescence and Renan feels impotent. His father’s death 16

weakens him, perhaps for not being able to possess the same power over his son. In the meantime Maura is in the kitchen preparing dinner and Marco Antônio in the living room fidgeting with his phone. He can’t stay still, still looking like a boy, despite being a mature man now. Renan always had the impression that his son and wife shared a privileged safe space when together in the same ambient. Maura considers it difficult to participate in Renan’s intimacy, and Marco attaches himself to her. Maura and Marco spend a long time together when her husband is still active in the army, living great part of his time in headquarters, giving orders. At home, he shuts down in front of the television, a man with few words, who likes the privacy of his silent space. With his retirement, his authority changes focus, and reappears in unexpected moments, like when he chats with his son about his personal life and wants to control him. Moments later, as dinner is served, the strangeness of the family dissipates. Maura feels resigned beside her husband and son. She washes the dishes, and tries not to mention the divorce again. Her motions are slow, and her mind divagates. When she goes to bed, she dreams with a half happy family somewhere in the world, because perfection doesn’t exist. The following day, Bruno appears to visit them. His wife is very catholic and believes that Maura and her are friends. The Church needs donations. Bruno still smokes and drinks, and his wife is concerned, complaining. It is the only friend her husband still keeps from the army. His wife has her life, and many social events. Maura gets up and begins to walk in circles, a habit of hers. Her husband’s friend, always tense, smokes the same cigarette since adolescence, despite having had a heart attack. The sky is pink, and the end of the afternoon carries traces of lethargy. Marco explains he’s there because of his grandfather’s funeral. The lightness of her son protects him from the bitterness of the environment, people who seem to live other people’s lives. Bruno wants to show support, feels for Renan’s father death, but is not skillful with words. “It is tough to be a father nowadays,” he says. They wait dinner to be ready and discuss common subjects, their time in the army. Suddenly, they shift to Marco’s life, his marriage. “It didn’t work,” he explains. The other man nods with his head, as though already knowing the truth. The boy is gay, but nobody pronounces the words, despite the modernity of today’s world. 17

Things just didn’t work out, and desire can’t be translated by words only. The smell of chicken stock cooking in the fire is more real. The rest is destiny. Nobody can erase what the skin feels, just hide it behind ready phrases, Marco evaluates. After dinner, Marco dozes in the living room and wakes up in the middle of the night scared. He dreams with a man called Elis. Is it the name of a woman? He doesn’t know. Elis is Mexican, and Marco’s father has prejudice against latinos, despite being one of them. What would he do, then, if he discovered his son is gay? Elis’ black hair touches his skin in a dark room, a queen bed. He’s holding Marco’s feet under the blanket and saying “everything will be ok.” When Renan opens his eyes, the room is dark. He recalls his son in the living room, a habit developed in childhood. When Marco was small, he asked his father to hold his feet under the blanket in the chair, as Renan appeared in the middle of the night to take the kid back to his room. The boy would get so excited with his presence that he usually asked for things he didn’t desire. “I want a lemonade,” he said one time in a warm night. Renan went to the kitchen, squeezed two lemons, and brought it back in a cup with water and honey. The image returns to him. What does his son wants from life? He’s oppressive as a father, but deep down he feels love. Marco is a piece of himself, how could he wish him bad? During the day, he wants to impose discipline. Hypnotized by his presence in the house, he feels the stuffiness of the room, summer approaching. The sounds of a city in the interior are different. When he lived there, Marco was incapable of deciphering the silence. Now he feels his memories arrive scattered, like the ocean sounds. The steps of his grandfather in the stairs, when he came to visit, were a type of threat, his negativity, tiredness and constant suffering a type of model. He had died of a heart attack, almost standing, as though his life had no ending. It was the most difficult love Marco had bear, such toughness, his father’s mirage. Maura tries to guess what her husband feels when he wakes up in the middle of the night and remains watching his son in the living room. 18

Does old age bring a new type of reflection? They fight but are very much alike, with a reserved manner of loving. She learned how to live amongst men. Her father died very young, and she almost doesn’t recall him. In the following day, in better spirits, she invites her son to go for a walk on the beach. Outside, the sun is hidden. She walks slowly and takes off her shoes, her feet feeling the cold water. The ocean’s immensity is unbearable because insurmountable. Marco thinks about the breaking of the waves as an exercise of letting go. What returns not always goes forward, like happiness, so illusory. Marco thought that if he divorced his wife, he would be happier, freer. But he can’t find the feeling inside of himself. He has superficial relationships, without place, with unknown men. Still, he prefers the truth. In his return walk with his mother, he finds his father under the straw barrack on the beach. His blond hair, almost white, is blinding. He smiles when he sees him. It is very windy and stuffy, and Renan avoids exposing his skin to the sun. Men standing besides fishing boats, and strangers walking on the sand, give the place a placid rhythm. It is the first morning since the burial of his father, and that gives him a strange sensation of relief. He is also happy that his son is there. Renan is retired, and most of his fantasies are overtaken. What is left is the present, his life of father and husband. In this space, this opening, love is possible. Hope is necessary. Marco is very attached to his mother, but it is his father he misses the most. Besides him on the beach, his presence indicates a sense of direction. He wanted to be a father too, one day. Far away, he observes his mother inside the water and wants to dive in. Since doesn’t have a bathing suit he takes off his shirt and sits in the sand, on the shade side. Her body goes up and down in the waves, and besides her, a person, who he can’t identify. Slowly she exits the water accompanied by a middle age man, in better shape than his father. Unexpectedly, Marco feels alert, as though he wanted to protect her. He waits until they approach. The man has hairy legs and wears a red short. “Marco?” The man asks. “Your son is like you,” he tells his mother.

His father is not surprised, he knows the man, an old boyfriend of Maura’s. But Marco feels unattended; he had never seen his mother in the company of another man before except his father. He wants an explanation, and feels as authoritarian as his father. But Renan is relaxed, even laughs with the stranger. Maura caresses Marco’s hair, protecting him against the cold, as though he were still a child. Quickly, he moves away from her. “Aren’t you going to introduce him?” He says, observing the cannon tattooed in the man’s arms. His father explains that they met in the army, but he was the lucky one who ended up marrying Maura. They all laugh. His mother finds his jealousy funny. “Why don’t I know you?” Marco questions. “You were very little when I moved away,” the man explains. But nobody seems to worry about Marco’s tension, each one content with their stories. Not even his father, once interested in his future, seems to care. He wants to live his retirement in peace and even seem happy with his grandfather’s death. Maura keeps the wideness of the ocean and the brilliancy of the sun carefully inside. Despite her father-in-law’s death, life continues with docile pauses. The negativity of the man, unforgettable, still resonated in her ears. He abused his words, and liked to torment others with his negative predictions. There, on the beach, she tries to forget the past. Carlos is an unexpected surprise. Different from her husband, he is in good shape, and still maintains his body like in the army. Her son is jealous, wants to know about everything. He forgets she is a woman, already desired by other men. The stranger dries himself, puts a green shirt on and wraps a towel around his waist, as though he were still a soldier in his prime years, changing his bathing suit to underwear. “Years of practice in the army,” he justifies, before Maura’s gaze. “Why the visit?” Marco asks, trying to appear natural. “Don’t be indelicate,” Maura interrupts. 20

Carlos doesn’t seem offended, and says he came for Renan’s father burial. She seems truly surprised. “But you didn’t talk to us,” she still exclaims. He doesn’t add a word. Renan likes the man, he doesn’t feel jealous. Marco notices that his hair is trimmed close to his skull, as though he still belonged to the army. He doesn’t have a ring in his finger. “And you, are you married?” Marco asks. “No, I married the army,” he says, smiling. Carlos sits besides Marco, on the sand. There is an awkward silence. Mauro looks at Marco Antônio, who seems bothered. “Mom, I think it is better that I go,” Marco Antônio says, impatient, folding the towel. Renan notices that his son feels discomfort and walks alone to the house. Slowly, Maura, Renan and Carlos follow his steps, each one with their own history, and ghosts. “How long you and Maura have been married?” Carlos asks, before leaving. “I don’t know,” Maura replies, lost in the passage of the years. “Twenty?” On their way back home, they cross narrow streets, the neighbor’s radio filling the silence, keeping each one’s desire a mystery. Maura finds it unproductive to worry about her son, his loneliness or jealousy. He has always been like so, attached to her. Renan prefers to forget his son’s private life, happy in his ignorance. At a certain moment, he tries to hold his wife’s hands but her steps are hastened. During dinner, Marco lets them know that he will be leaving the next day, and his parents agree. Maura’s hands are cold when Marco says goodbye. “It is just me and myself now,” her son says, as though already missing her. His eyes are sad, very similar to his dad’s.

After he leaves, Maura begins to clean the kitchen, and the marble shines, illuminated by the phosphorescent light. At that evening, Renan holds Maura from her back, like they did when they were young. It is hot, and she leans against him, two adolescents, stooped against the sink. Eventually, the son visits. But they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t argue anymore.

Disquiet, Batsceba Hardy

Cereal Punishments (Paul Beckman)

Mirsky knew that Elaine was angry with him because she left Rice Krispies next to his cereal bowl and he never ate Rice Krispies. He was a Corn Flakes man. He wondered what he could have done to her this time. Of course she wouldn’t tell him but she would be F & F, friendly and frosty until he apologized for whatever heinous act he had committed this time. He switched cereals, ate his breakfast and then went and showered while Elaine slept.

I’m sorry Mirsky said when he came out of the shower and into the bedroom. Elaine had her running outfit on and was tying her sneaker. Whatever for, darling? What on earth would you be apologizing for so early in the day?

You know, he said and began dressing for work. Elaine kissed him lightly, slipped her hand in his shorts, smiled and said, silly goose and off she went.

This was going to be a tough one, Mirsky thought, and realized he was going to pay big time for whatever wrong or slight he’d caused, real or perceived.

Meanwhile on her run Elaine wondered how long she could make Mirsky squirm just by leaving out the Rice Krispies. She knew that she was wrong to pull this stunt again but she’d been doing this sort of thing her whole life; first with her father and later on with boyfriends and finally with

Mirsky. For fifteen years she’d pull her fake punishment routines on him and sometimes she’d

find out little secrets he’d been keeping or even things he would make up just to satisfy her passion for punishment.

Little could she know that he was at the end of his rope and while she thought of this as a wayof-life game, he never did?

Elaine fell asleep in her chair after midnight wondering where Mirsky was and why he hadn’t called her. He never did this before and she planned new punishments as he slept the sleep of the satisfied next to a woman he’d met on the internet who also was in a psychologically abusive marriage.

Send in the Clouds, Lauren Jonik

Bios of this issue’s writers

Paul Beckman has kids and grandkids. He’s been published in The Raleigh Review, Boston Literary Review, The Brooklyner, Web Del So, Pure Slush, Playboy, Soundzine, 5 Trope, Word Riot and other wonderful venues in print, on line & via audio and photography. Stories upcoming in Ascent Aspirations, Pure Slush, Full of Crow Quarterly, Metazen & The Boston Literary Magazine. Published story web site www.paulbeckmanstories.com Contact: Beckman.paul@gmail.com

Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer and translator. Her background is in creative writing, literary translation, film and comparative literature. She has received her M. F. A in Creative Writing and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has published translations and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, The Haro, The Literary Yard, Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, among others. She lives in Vancouver, Canada. Her website is www.desireejung.com

Harry Leeds lives in Russia and is a world expert on Tatar Food. He won the Black Warrior Review prize and writes about Russia for Americans in Lucky Peach and NYU's Jordan Center http://jordanrussiacenter.org/all-the-russias/ and about America for Russians.

Bios of this issue's poets:

Jay Immel was born in Alexandria, Virginia on June 14th 1967. He has a BA in History from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia and an MA in History from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He has had poetry published in five issues of "Lyrical Iowa", the journal of the Iowa Poetry Association. His most recently printed poem, "A Cut Below the Rest" is in the 2013 edition of that publication. He lives in Otley, Iowa on Lake Red Rock.

Carol Marrone, who publishes her work under the pen name Katley Demetria Brown was born in New York City and grew up in the South Bronx. She has traveled extensively in the eastern United States and Europe, and enjoys writing about people, places, nature, and everyday life, with a touch of humor. Her poetry has been published on the heliumnetwork. com website and also in the international anthologies The Art of Being Human, Volume 7, Sagittarius/Love Poems and The Art of Being Human, Volume 9. Both anthologies were edited by Daniela Voicu of Romania and Brian Wrixon of Canada. Her poetry has also been featured in avant-garde zines such as Every Reason andSunflower Gray Productions. She lives in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA with her husband and grown daughters.

Bios of this issue’s photographers:

Batsceba Hardy, artist of the Irreality, lives and will only live ‘in’ the net, where she leaves already evidence with her constant performance: writing stories in images and telling visions in words. What remains is superfluous, in Wittgenstein terms, including her secret background. Currently she resides in Berlin, whose skies she’s chasing among the clouds; but she could be anywhere. She likes leaving traces of her passage in the places where she finds inspiration. She likes detecting herself inside the windows of houses. She likes revealing herself at night, before nobody. www.batscebahardy.com

Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier, is a French Canadian Métis, with a desire to see the world in a way others may have missed. Her works have been published in national and regional papers, vocational journals and heritage museums. With degrees in Journalism and Mass Communications as well as Photography, she's written and photographed everything from news, fashion, lifestyle and business to sporting events. To see more of Karen's photography and writing, visit Zen Dixie Magazine, Dactyl, Cactus Heart Press, Synaesthesia Magazine, Vagabonds Anthology and Crack The Spine Literary Magazine to name but a few journals where her work is featured. Follow her on Twitter @KBG_Tweets.

Lauren Jonik, οriginally from Pennsylvania, but now based in Brooklyn, NY, is a freelance writer and photographer. She currently studies writing at The New School in NYC. Her photography work can be seen on: www.shootlikeagirlphotography.com Feel free to find her on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/shootlikeagirlphotography and Twitter: @shootlikeagirl1