Full House Tarot issue 3 by Full House Literary

F U L L H O U S E TAROT ISSUE 3 AUGUST 2022

Thank you so much for reading this issue and coming along on this journey with us.

A NOTE FROM THE

EDITORS

Welcome to Issue Three of our Tarot deck. This issue is full of vibrant work and we were so impressed with the boldness and creativity present within each submission. For this issue we were lucky enough to work with Dua. Dua was brilliant to work with and approached submissions with such careful and considerate insight. You can read some of Dua's work within the issue as well. The artwork in this issue is themed around letters, numbers, and punctuation, and plays around with how these elements are present in the world. We really hope you enjoy reading this issue, and don’t forget to check out the audio version available on the website. Be sure to also check out the featured creator section of our website, where we feature the work of lots more brilliant creators.

Leia and JP Head Editors of FH With big thanks to our talented and dedicated volunteer team who helped make this issue possible: Jack, Kinneson, Kathryn, Beth, Teo, Christopher, Michael, Ed, Alice, Amarys, Natalie, George, Bethany, Christina, Bareerah, Bianca and Claire! 1

GUEST EDITOR FEATURE Love was once a raindrop Dua Al Bostani Al Fattohi This can't be about you this unrhymed distant poem as harsh as a desert dwelled by temporary tents of 'I love you ' haunted by the mirage of 'you've ruined my life I'm thirsty again'. Sarāb / باﺮﺳ is Arabic for 'Mirage' Sharāb / باﺮﺷ is another for 'Drink' Love was once airaindropnaheavy rain so lost that no one could tell where it fell on a child's tongue on a windowpane on a black eyelash on our shoulders that no one dared to lean on. Sharaf / فﺮﺷ is Arabic for 'Honour' Shaghaf / ﻒﻐﺷ is another for 'Passion' 2

THE CARDS TO COME syzygy / pareidolia by Jane Ayres p.6 In ataraxia by Marcello Giovanelli the distance by Joan García Viltró p.7 p.8 Out with the Ebb Tide by Sam Horton p.10 SCORES. by Gspere Closures by Roger Bloor Wearing Your Absence by Gabby Gilliam p.14 p.15 p.16 Café by the Quays by B. E. Nugent p.18 In Search of a Ladder by Katharine Cristiani Awam Express by Zainab Imran p.20 p.22 4 Hours, Between by Kexin Huang National Holiday by Slawka G. Scarso Maybe: emily by Cynthia Elder p.23 p.24 p.27 3 Content note: loss/violence

Wisterical by Morgan Alice Evans p.28 for someone who never learned how to read. by Tan Arsa Sagara p.30 A Winter Poem That Wants to Be a Summer Poem by Jacqueline Knirnschild p.31 I Hear Her Screams by Renee C. Winter p.33 A morning by Purbasha Roy p.36 About the contributors p.38 IT'S TIME TO ENTER... 4 Content note: loss/death by fire

THE INBETWEEN

syzygy / pareidolia Jane Ayres everything you held dear you held the stars aligning swimming in words gathering the bones / the beans gouge / gorge jostle melt the creeping narrative playing with monsters in the fruit cupboard mining the bitter seams creamy relentless (oh! the birds!) a bitter wound unwinding (not yet) but if you married yourself would you be happy together? let word become story that’s when it ends (but) would you rather? never forget the deceptive lens livid each time emerging with a new bruise/souvenir (see how dangerous we are) be/witch (becoming the other thing) the toxic wormstorm wombstorming i’m a very plain eater (so different rules apply) writing a wreath of wednesday words i made a poem for you to lick 6

In ataraxia Marcello Giovanelli The evening rain falls like playing cards slipping from careless fingers along the thin pencil horizon.

And I see flowers now growing, their roots trail like clouds as a sudden movement in the fabric of the world undresses the burning orange sky, and the impatient sea throat rises, engineer of angry words penned in the thick late night air, its pages unfold and howl into the dark.

And, of course, the storm will storm and now we are suddenly very small; but like the stars we’ll flicker, turn on and off, slowly, until there is no sound.

the distance Joan García Viltró from this place from this place i can’t you can’t have my voice touch me heard nor can can’t you do anything about do anything about the memory others my memory keep or not keep of you of me or that elusive from this place scent i can’t I never got to reach to you ask you about or make you understand or that slant my feel sadness of you in you nothing 8

THE CLIFF TOP

Out with the Ebb Tide

Sam Horton Whatever swims in the water does so hungrily. I can feel it yearning for me even here. I have read the books. The poems, epic as they are. I know the dangers. And yet, I am not so far gone that I’m unmoved by the thought of it. Being wanted. It stirs me still. It does not break the surface. I have watched it, swimming, for hours each day. At night, too, when the tide is right. Sunlight or moon it shares nothing with me but the ripples that swirl above it. Not the gentle eddies that form with the current and toy with ducks’ feathers and twigs. Her whorls are differentThey spin the wrong way. Her. As though the swimmer could be tethered so simply to a word, yet it comes so easily to my lips. It is silly. I have no way of knowing who or what roils under the water. She has given me no clue to her identity. Her desires. I hear her song, though. That she shares. Bursting in fizzy bubbles on the surface. The sound of fireworks blazing, the sound of breaking glass. It pulls at me. I would be pulled in.

Did they know about her? When they moved me here, was I placed here so I could hear her, long for her, wish - above all else - that I could be her? At night I dream of water weeds and when I wake, I think of 10

nothing but the sweet thrill it must be to move and hunt freely. To eat food seasoned by the water that I swam in. To taste the salt in the blood. That is the beauty of estuarine water. This liminal flood. That rises and sinks at the whim of two tides. When the water is low, I do not know if she moves upriver or further out to sea. I would like to know. I asked my nurse for a pen and, when she brought it, I smiled and thanked her and asked if I could move closer to the water. She said no, but I’ll ask again and when she leaves, I spend the day drawing scales in ink on my arms. Across my chest and stomach. Shrugging off my paper gown so I can feel the breeze on my shoulders. Across my chest. Watch my skin pucker into gooseflesh. It is a different Nurse by evening, and they tut, and fret when they see me but more fool them as the pen, like my love, is waterproof. They will not scrape these scales from me. Though they do cover me back up. Lay a heavy blanket across me so I cannot struggle free. The kind nurse returns with the sunrise and pulls off my restraint. They smile at my scales and, understanding, move me down towards the water. To where she waits. To where she will be, at least, the tide is out. To a sunbed at the edge of the pontoon. They fuss for a while. Make a show of staying close but they have things to do. I am not the only patient here, after all. And they leave. Cautiously. I know, as do they, that it is a risk to leave me here. But that is the one benefit of this state I’m in. Underestimation. What trouble can she get herself into? The nurse thinks. She cannot move far without me. But I can move. 11

Enough, at least to tip. I have strength enough to fall. The tide is returning. I can see the silt shake as the water hits it. Soon she will be rolling in this river sea besides me. Singing. Today I will answer the call. Perhaps, if I slip from this bed, she will save me. Perhaps I will drown. Perhaps there’s not a drop of water separating the two. Perhaps I cannot lose.

SLIPPING THROUGH

SCORES. Gspere

So many things become dead before they die in my country. first, it was the moon then the stars sinking into the clouds. then a promise and a pledge buried in the crest of a howling heart. then a hope tinier than a mustard seed not ready to grow because the soil has been polluted with blood. then a father writing his will, the aubade afterward & a brother acquainting his little brother with the logic of survival. In a trance I caught myself woven into the world of gnashing & funerals. I sight read the kaleidoscope images of a mother and her children whose breath was scooped up by obedient bullets bones upheaving their skins like unleavened flesh. Everything was a trance my country burning & still never lacking the smiles & brightness that forsakes a bereaved. We think about grief as unmerited pains: not the one that swallowed our loved ones but the ones that spilled us out after the siege & we remember that being unlucky to die in peace is a hoax. My country taught me that death should be sacred & life be held more than an egg. The next minutes, hours, days, months, & year is a man his hand holding a pocket knife as expression; as a shearer offering the lamb a passage to rest through blades.

Roger Bloor

My mother kept two boxes in her bedside drawer the first contained my baby teeth collected in those post war days when even the tooth fairy was strapped for cash twenty gumless bits of gravel rattling with pearlescent rage against the folly of planned obsolescence.

Closures

The other box had all the amber scars of half imagined hurts and injuries I used to wear threaded on a string around my neck until she stole them while I slept and left a sixpence wrapped in cotton wool beneath my pillow with a note to say that now I would not need them anymore.

In the thin gray light of early morning I fail to notice the silvery threads until my face severs them, sticky strings cling to my cheeks. I clutch at web with frenzied fingers, but like your death, no matter how I pick I feel their trespass crawling with the potential threat of piercing fangs defending a sundered home and my terror keeps me trapped and smothered, pinned by panic, limbs twitching to set me free.

Wearing Your Absence Gabby Gilliam 16

IN 5 MINUTES

Limerick is my city.

All the while, the city passes me by in bursts. Children in uniformity clutter the walkways. Suits press forward, destination Café by the Quays B. E. Nugent

I am not native to these parts. An erratic deposit, like a granite boulder left adrift in a land of limestone, the ice floe that carried me here is long dissolved, absorbed into the earth and burnt into the sky. I have a borrowed space in a place where the aged city lives. A bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom deemed adequate for my needs. It is more than enough and I have more than I need, though it is a pleasure to walk from the room in which I live to the room in which I sleep. I have adopted a corner in a café by the quays where I find my morning nourishment. Sometimes, the full breakfast. Other occasions, a scone with fresh cream and preserve. I take a book from the shelf over an Americano without sugar or milk. The canopy protects from inclement weather and the salty air is fresh from the river. Tidal at this point in its journey, it flows both ways. I breathe it deep into my body.

And yet, when I think about it, when I balance the accounts that determine proprietorship, I find that I belong to it more than it belongs to me.

Distant voices speak to me. They question my choices. They berate my manner of living. They plead and goad. There’s more to life, they say. They point to where I might find it. I don’t know. They may be right. I blow the candles with an unspoken wish on my I just want the cake.

Sometimes,

Mabel sits nearby, her walking frame parked to the side. Ancient beyond measure, she is bent in two, as though her body is drawn to the earth that will soon take her whole. Solitary, she reads the newspaper aloud, a reminder that that which is not used is lost. I place her bag on her walking frame and help steady her grip when she is ready to leave. She is still talking but not to me. The waitress, Ava, is wiping down tables and smiles as I escort Mabel to the street.

Slips.ometimes,

Others, more suited to the task, will cure cancer or fly to the moon. Others, with the gift, will gild these leaves with beautiful words. Still others will acquire and amass, harbour a fortune on a street that bears their name. I wish them well as I smile back at Ava and offer a gentle arm to set Mabel on her path for home.

known and a hurry to get there. Hard hats and gypsum encrusted overalls munch on full length breakfast rolls with much less hurry and much more laughter.

My hands are full of groceries bills and the regular things a young child, a sixty hour job a cat that pees where she wishes. My hands are full of Alzheimer’s Disease, decisions delusions power of attorney seventeen pages of times new roman font a manilla envelope full of manuals origami creases in translucent paper tiny translations in so many languages I cannot find my own how to build the dresser that is already built install a car seat outgrown, register the new now-old blender the warranty for the roof that long slid down a hill. I am trying. I glance at my father’s practical eyes behind glass a rectangle to the garage a slow baseball game on the radio the ladder stored on its side sturdy. I am trying. Search of a Ladder Katharine Cristiani

IT COMES IN WAVES

Arrives before second cups of chai and first calls to prayer, as God’s words soar outside amongst the shrieking parakeets. The verses beat down on drying dupattas at the kitchen window, absorbing the stench of ginger paste waiting at the bottom of cooking pots. My aunt collects a dune of chilli powder in her hand, letting it stain like henna. The housemaids soak up my attempt at a language I had left there to become a bourgeoning orchard of lost words. I had forgotten to return for the harvest. Their corkscrew Punjabi whirls me around and shakes off the village dust that built this home, older than the land it burdens, the land crossed between being unborn and consumed by itself. My great uncle hands me the fruit that cursed goddesses to hell and uncaringly kisses my palms with its blood. A pomegranate encasing the treasures of an empire. Cut and hold capsules of curved, yellow flesh, like the valves of a heart, or the stolen gem on top of a crown.

Awam Express Zainab Imran 22

4 a.m. in Beijing time is 4 hours after everyone else's sleep at home whilst 4 hours before closing your dreams in yHollowayourhollow eyes half open to behold the gap 4 a.m. in countdown of Instagram days is receiving ripening messages ripening red fruits of notifications like WeChat at yhomeoucall it wēixìn the small messages while losing an ocean of friends 4 a.m. in a foreign language is to read the heck out of whatever the sound might linger moulding your touch on the screen like a dress trying bloody hard to fit into an abyss of clothing which is not yours 4 a.m. in a soul-sucking dissertation is white your text became translucent and disappeared into msculptureaybethe one you saw in Walker's Art Gallery is 4alivea.m. in nowhere is somewhere between Tetley ateabagsndyour daily hot water named báikāishuǐ first Tetley second white boiled water third a splash of perplexity 4 Hours, Between Kexin Huang 23

You picked the blanket, and unfolded it swish. The air filled it like the sails on a pirates' ship before it settled on the ground. You placed the picnic basket on top of it, and then you sat: I remember watching your legs. Unlike the other mothers I saw at school, you never seemed to wear a skirt.

As we sipped the lemonade, munched our sandwiches, you invited us to look around, to enjoy the view. You pointed at things: the cows, white and brown, grazing the thick grass; the National Holiday Slawka G. Scarso 24

'A real feast,' you said, 'just like it should be.'

You pulled out of the basket the picnic set I loved so much, with orange cups and plates, and orange cutlery too. You said it was only meant for special occasions, just like today.

'It's a holiday, after all,' you said. You invited Judy and I to sit as well, patted the blanket to make it more inviting. I was holding my backpack: I had put inside all I'd need for an outing a book, crayons, sunglasses. I decided to wear them. Judy teased me, said too much is too much. I looked at you, unsure of how to react, and you told her off. You started to pull the food out of the picnic basket: a bottle of lemonade, with beads of condensation gently forming on its sides, and a bowl of potato salad. There were garlicky sausages, and sliced cheese. And bread rolls too and peaches, though you said those were meant for later.

'Isn't it beautiful?' you asked. I nodded. It was.

trees that in the winter would be covered in so much snow only the tip would be visible; the mountains in the distance; the stark white clouds against the cobalt sky. I could almost hear the cowbells, smell the grass.

The chairs. The crowded kitchen counter. The pile of pots looming in the sink. And the breakfast plates still on the table. And all my paintings stuck with blue tack to the walls: the mountains, the cows, the forests I read about in books, and illustrated for you to see.

As I hang those same paintings in your new room at the care home who would have thought that Judy of all people would have kept them, all these years, I wonder if you'll recognize them, if you'll remember that day: most people had gone out of town for the national holiday, unlike us, but you had brought the holiday to our home.

'We're having a picnic,' you said, pronouncing each word like it was round and serious. 'But, mum, we have chairs,' she insisted. That's when I noticed them.

And then Judy complained that she was uncomfortable, and couldn't we sit normally? Not on the floor? But you said that no, it wouldn't do.

GET CLOSER

Maybe: emily Cynthia Elder 27

When your van gets stuck in the mud on the way to nowhere (GPS drops a pin south of the Russian border), you jack it up with rocks and birch trees. In your tent at night, you dream vividly: of what, you don’t say. You ask about politics.

In Mongolia, along the Eg, your sat phone sends misordered texts at odd hours. You eat eggs and unnamed meat, fried dough and buckwheat porridge, talk Buddhism, feminism, identify plants, interview herders.

“How are things in America? At home? I feel very out of touch.”

Twenty nine dead in El Paso and Dayton, white supremacy waves its filthy flag, Dad and I are fine.

“Lower camp overlooks a river, pastures as far as the eye can see,” you text, in short bursts of chatter that find the unplucked string whenever my phone promises: Maybe: emily.

spotify tells me in soft blues and pink that I spent the year inside my house feeling Wistful and Yearning. Sounds about right. I Yearned. I what is the action equivalent of Wistful? did I Wish? did I Wis*? was I chock full of Wist? consider the word, daydream of daydreams, pensive sigh. I amble the word path to Wisteria** planted purple, the climbing colour lovechild of soft blues and pink. botanical representative of a long and patient and enduring life. immortality and Wisdom, like the long, patient, enduring, lonely year inside my house, learning to Want and be Wise. *verb, archaic: to know, with certainty ** named for a scientist, not a feeling at all.

Wisterical Morgan Alice Evans 28

ALL THIS SPACE

my eyes force themselves open and it is a synonym for misery. to let the sunlight in is to surrender to torment. i tie my hands behind my back and force silk over my lips with my teeth. i walk to my campus. people smile at invisible things. i overhear someone say to their phone, “bye dad, i love you,” and the waves pull me in. i dreamt about falling in love with the world. how does it feel, i wonder, to pick up a rose and have it mean something other than bringing the petals to their death. how does it feel to give the colour pink a meaning not rooted in “your hair shouldn’t be that short.” it is around this time my chest begins to ache. i calculate the possibility of a letter leading to a revolution. i tip my head back and finish my half empty glass. for someone who never learned how to read. Tan Arsa Sagara

A Winter Poem That Wants to Be a Summer Poem Jacqueline Knirnschild

What happened to the days when my mother’s echinacea flowers twirled like the skirts of ballerinas, like jellyfish strolling behind glass. The days that burst with poetry the filigrees of a single leaf, the swish of the trees, the SPF slick on my cheeks, the fuzzy striped towel beneath.

The summers when a book yawned on my chest as I dozed, the breeze rustling my baby hairs, and my little brother grinning, looking up, and saying, a hummingbird! or a bee!

Now, it’s winter and those whimsical days have sunk into the wet grass beneath the gray piles of soot-filled snow, and I’m slipping, tripping on the invisible icy glaze.

Inside the library, knuckles dry and red, I tutor a sixth grade girl who stares down and says, it’s beautiful but I can’t read it they don’t teach us cursive anymore.

What happened to the days when I used to scribble in my journal, pink inky cursive rolling over the pages like swirls of cotton candy.

I Hear Her Screams

Renee C. Winter 33

She was on fire. Her clothes. Her hair. Ablaze. The basement furnace had exploded and my grandmother ran screaming into the living room, waking my grandfather from his nap. All reported in the 1944 news article headlined “Dies of Burns; Dress Ignited.” The story doubled as her obituary. She was 52 years old. I’m named after my Grandmother Rose in accordance with the Jewish tradition of honoring a deceased loved one, but I was never told the horrific details of her death. I didn’t even know the details of her life. Her name was all I knew about my father’s mother, for I grew up without them. My grandmother was dead. But my father? He was living with his second wife and two stepdaughters just a few miles away from me. Very much alive. Very much gone. As a kid, I sometimes pretended he was dead too. Why else would a father abandon his six-year old daughter? More often I spent my time wondering what terrible thing I had done to make him leave. And cause his entire family to follow. Decades after my father’s actual death, I search Ancestry.com to find these paternal relatives. I want to complete my own lopsided tree, claim my entitlement to a branch on theirs. Find answers. Ancestry fills in some blanks. My grandfather, a baker, never remarried. A first cousin Rosalee, about my age, is also named after our shared grandmother. I study my father’s yearbook portrait, examine his expression.

Had our lives overlapped, I’d have called my Grandmother Rose, “Baba.” That’s what I called my maternal grandmother Ida, the one we lived with for most of my childhood. Watching Baba Ida hem my dresses, cook kasha varnishkas, or bless the Shabbat candles, I learned her story.

But to know Rose I must peer at ship logs, census data, and marriage certificates in tiny script on my computer screen. She was born in Romanov, Russia in 1891. Romanov! The name conjures up Imperialist Russia, royalty, tsars and tsarinas. I fantasize I’m part of this three-century old majesty, imagine visiting this ancestral city. Most likely, the Communists eradicated its name. Wiped the city off the map. Their armies scorching the town, so that my grandmother’s birthplace, like her, met a blazing end. Rose left Russia in 1913, arriving in America after a lengthy ocean voyage. Ancestry cannot tell me what she was dreaming as she stood on that ship’s deck, watching the waves pull her from homeland toward unfamiliar shore. In her new country, Rose married, had three children, and knew early tragedy. A death certificate documents the loss of her toddler daughter 34

I see his draft card, notice how the letters of his signature slant. But I find no clues as to why he failed me. But I discover Rose. A black and white photo captures her as a young woman with wavy dark hair and oval eyes. I strain to find physical traits we share, but see none. The article revealing the shocking circumstances of her death stuns me. I envision the grandmother I never met engulfed in orange and yellow flames. I shudder at her pain. Hear her screams.

Surely my Baba Rose, who had buried her own young daughter, wouldn’t have let my father turn his back on me after the divorce. Baba Rose would have begged him to take me to the playground, push me on the swings, catch me on the slide. She would have urged him to walk me to school, and later down the aisle. Reminded my father of my birthday. Pleaded with him to bring me presents. To at least send a card.

from diphtheria. How had she coped? I imagine she had little time to grieve, having to care for a three year old son and newborn. Having to squeeze wet laundry through a wringer washer, scrub linoleum floors. Cook every meal. Tend the

Ifurnace.fthatfurnace had not exploded, what would my life have been like? Surely Baba Rose would have braided my hair, baked my favorite cookies, lit Chanukah candles with me. She’d have set a place for me at her dining room table when the family gathered. Invited Rosalee and me to spend the night; reminded our grandfather to bring us donuts.

Surely my Baba Rose wouldn’t have tolerated her son’s abandonment of her granddaughter. She would have screamed at him to keep being my father. As loudly as she had screamed when she was on fire.

A morning Purbasha Roy

Whole night water dripped from faucet like emptiness is the sin it yearned to commit and still stand proud as if picking innocence from childhood crumbs trials to mend it were pragmatic version of words 'vain' and 'hopelessness' all that happened was my gown soaked water as if it were river carcass injected second life by rain water shots dining table clock eating time burped to announce my lagged office preparations what would be the best word to lament your absence with water wrinkles grown on fingers like old age dragged from nest of future time and placed like faded Easter eggs on my hands only thing i could do was force stop with cloth litters jammings like envy in my mind. You on office trip jettisoned this situation two days ago cold reaches my bones and i stand oriented in dreams of snowfilm draping me like my shadow robed in cold honey crystals urgency to call the plumber made me drown my imagination in a bottle. Till then i will carry this rush inside my oblivion

FLOATING FEELING

Joan García Viltró

CONTRIBUTORS

Marcello Giovanelli Marcello Giovanelli is a writer and academic from Leicestershire, UK. He has had work published recently in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Green Ink Poetry, The Poetry Village and Poetry Plus. He tweets @mmgiovanelli

Sam Horton Sam is an author living in Cornwall, above the moors, and he works in a library by the sea. His work explores themes of folklore, the natural world, myths and fables. He was shortlisted for the Birdport Flash Fiction Prize in 2020, Highly Commended in the 2021 Hammond House short story competition and Longlisted for the 2021 Black Spring Press Bottom Drawer Prize. He is represented by John Baker at Bell, Lomax Moreton. 38

Joan García Viltró is a poet based in Cambrils, on the south Catalan coast. His poems often reflect Mediterranean mythologies and his concern with Nature struggling under human pressure. Published or forthcoming in The London Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, Punk Noir Magazine, etc. Longlisted for the 2022 erbacce-prize for poetry.

Jane Ayres

UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize. In 2021, she was nominated for Best of the Net, shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Her first collection 'edible' was published by Beir Bua Press in July 2022. Website: janeayreswriter.wordpress.com Twitter:@workingwords50

Gspere Gideon Emmanuel (he/him) is a young poet and teacher from Lagos, Nigeria, who adores nature and children. His poems have appeared in Eboquills, U Rights Magazine, Arthut Anthology, Boardspeck, Street Child Anthology, Terror House, Agape Review, Poemify Publisher, Fiery Scribe Review, Brittle Papers & Flat Ink Journal, Stripes Magazine, Nigerian NewsDirect, International Human Rights Arts Festival(IHRAF), Adoptee Reclaimed & Luminiere. For leisure, you’ll find him teaching, reading, writing, meditating, and cooking. Find him on Facebook at Ubaha Gideon Emmanuel. Twitter: @GideonE52756732 Instagram: gideon emmaunel 890 Roger Bloor Roger Bloor runs Clayhanger Press which publishes poetry related to Staffordshire and is co editor of The Alchemy Spoon poetry magazine. He has been widely published in magazines, twice shortlisted for the Arnold Bennett Book Prize, won the 2019 Poetry London Clore Prize and was awarded joint second prize in The Hippocrates Competition 2021. His collection ‘Stacking Winter Wood’ was published in 2021 by Dempsey and Windle under their Vole imprint. His pamphlet ‘Dream Sequences’ was published by Dreamwell in 2022. Gabby Gilliam Gabby Gilliam lives in the DC metro area. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Tofu Ink, The Ekphrastic Review, Cauldron Anthology, Instant Noodles, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Equinox. You can find her online at gabbygilliam squarespace com B. E. Nugent B.E. Nugent is Irish, writing creatively through lockdowns and has two stories published in 2021, with another scheduled for publication later this year.

Zainab Imran Zainab Imran is a British Pakistani poet who has a fascination with ethnic diaspora, poetic anxieties and Britain's colonial history and its effect on women in the Indian Subcontinent. Her work discusses personal challenges with faith and sexuality, as well as the societal confines of racism, poverty and misogyny within and outside of the South Asian community

Katharine Cristiani is a mother, union organizer and poet who calls Philadelphia home. She is an emerging writer with work appearing in San Pedro Review, Willows Wept Review, South Shore Review and forthcoming in Literary Mama. She builds campfires in any weather with love and prowess.

Having been published in multiple poetry magazines, including Zindabad Zine and Poetry Underdressed, they are currently doing an undergraduate in English Literature and Classical Literature and is working on a collective poetry project based upon the 1947 Partition of India. Kexin Huang Kexin Huang is an award winning trilingual poet and a 23 year old student at University College London. She came second in the 3rd International Festival of Poetry & Liquor "Poetic Flavor" Composition Competition (over 1000 GBP). She is the 3rd prize winner of the People of 1381 Protest Poetry Challenge on Young Poets Network. Her poems appeared in Particle Literary Magazine, The Writers' Block, Blue Daisies Journal, Wingless Dreamer and others.

Katharine Cristiani

Slawka G. Scarso Slawka G. Scarso has published several books on wine in Italy and works as a copywriter and translator. Her words have appeared/are forthcoming in Mslexia, Ellipsis Zine, Fractured Lit, Scrawl Place and FlashBack Fiction among others. She was recently shortlisted in the NFFD Microfiction Competition. Her novella in flash "All their 40

Morgan Evans is a confident writer of prose, a cautious writer of poetry and a curious writer of everything in between. Though she admittedly has a fondness for the cheesiest fantasy, dystopia and romance novels, she’s more invested in writing about character and emotion than in any particular genre. Writing is her primary interest, and her ultimate goal in life is to write someone’s favourite book. Her secondary interests include playing obscure board games and spending time with loved ones. Tan Arsa Sagara Tan Arsa Sagara is an Indonesian first, and a writer and poet second. Sometimes, they think of themself as a university student. Other times, they enjoy oversharing with uncertain language They currently live in Melbourne, and can be found on Twitter if you get lucky.

Cynthia Elder’s poems have appeared in Blood & Bourbon, The Allegheny Review, Outrider Press, Blue Heron Review, and other publications. She lives on the edge of Hundred Acre Cove in Barrington, Rhode Island, USA.

Jacqueline Knirnschild holds a B.A. in English from the University of Mississippi, and her writing has been published in, or is forthcoming from, Poetry South, Ninth Letter, Hakai Magazine, Product Magazine, Full Stop, and others. When she’s not reading or writing, Jacqueline can

Jacqueline Knirnschild

Morgan Alice Evans

Cynthia Elder

Favourite Stories" was commended in the 2022 Bath Novella in Flash Award and is available from Ad Hoc Fiction. She lives in Italy. You can find her on Twitter as @nanopausa and onwww.nanopausa.com

Renee C. Winter

be found substitute teaching. You can find her on Twitter @JacqKnirn.

Renee C. Winter is a retired attorney who traded billable hours for more writing time. Her personal essays have appeared in such literary journals as Exposition Review, Catamaran, Qu, London Reader, Memoir Magazine, Herstry and more. She lives in Santa Cruz California with her husband and curly white rescue poodle mix. Purbasha Roy Purbasha is a writer from Jharkhand India. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in SIAMB Bluestem DASH View magazine Bayou Review Long Con magazine Hive avenue Metaphysical-Times and elsewhere. 42 Dua Al Bosatni Al Fattohi Dua Al Bosatni Al Fattohi (Twitter @duaalfattouhi) is a poet and English language teacher from Hama, Syria. She holds a BA in English literature. Her work in English has appeared in harana poetry, Ice Floe Press, Pamenar Online Magazine, Bad Lilies, and Monologging. Her poems in Arabic have appeared in BAHR // ﺮﺤﺑ and RIVISTA (translated into both English & Italian). She has been nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. Her forthcoming poem will appear in the upcoming issue of Under the Radar Magazine.

FEATURING: DUA AL BOSTANI AL FATTOHI JANE AYRES MARCELLO GIOVANELLI JOAN GARCÍA VILTRÓ SAM HORTON GSPERE ROGER BLOOR GABBY GILLIAM B. E. NUGENT KATHARINE CRISTIANI ZAINAB IMRAN KEXIN HUANG SLAWKA G. SCARSO CYNTHIA ELDER MORGAN ALICE EVANS TAN ARSA SAGARA JACQUELINE KNIRNSCHILD RENEE C. WINTER PURBASHA ROY