*Aw/Al*Vol.II/Issue01*Nov2011* In This Issue... Editor’s Note Cover Artist
Lauren Tamraz Katie Grove
Words
Olivia Fantini, Edward Lee, Chloe Caldwell Matthew Cronin, Len Kuntz, Pamela Ugor Stephen Mannion, Brett Stout, Megan McDonald
Art
Todd Martin, Molly Rose Purcell, Marena Mitchell Kat Patterson, Rachel DiMicco, Andrew Keck, Jon Irving Clarissa Plank, John Chichester, Gale DellaRocco
Contributors Acknowledgments
Editor’s Note...
Lauren Tamraz
I do my best work in bed. All joking aside, that's where I write this from today. People swear by favorite chairs, celebrated coffee shops and magical elixirs. A little more than a year ago, besides sheer insanity, all I needed to create Awosting Alchemy was memory foam. Weary with cover letters and creativity sent out into the far reaches of the literary world, one weekend in early fall it occurred to me that I couldn't be the only one. I wondered if I could put a call out to the artistic minds of the area and actually get a response. I sent hundreds of emails to people I knew and others I had never met: professors, artists, students, book lovers, musicians, business owners. I had a feeling something could come of it all, something would stick. A few weeks later, I crossed my fingers again that anyone would share their art or read their work in a defunct running shoe store in downtown New Paltz. What has followed seems nothing short of a dream. Since then we have received submissions and published work from five continents and countless countries, from artists and writers who have all found us by today's great carrier pigeon, the Internet. Where a blog post might have received a few looks by the end of the week when this all began, it now receives ten-fold by the end of the hour. This continues to amaze and humble me, while the quality of submitted work only grows in its ability to excite and inspire. Another aspect of this process that has awed me is the amount of support we have received from the community, both as makers and consumers of art. From our early and steadfast sponsorship from Barner Books of New Paltz, to the hospitality of The Yoga House hosting our anniversary party this evening, the love for the arts in the Hudson Valley is palpable. Contributors have also spread the word with links, flyers, and friendships across the globe. The feeling that there is room for us in people's lives has been so gratifying, and I hope we continue to unite our readers with outstanding creativity offered from near and far. I'd like to leave you with some lines from Hafiz, the 14th century Persian poet and a particular favorite around my own house. His description of "The Vintage Man" describes so well the species of collaborator we have encountered, always ready to buoy others along with themselves. For that, I say thanks, and as always, to you, dear reader, for meeting me here. The Difference Between a good artist And a great one Is: The novice Will often lay down his tool Or brush
Thanks for the light,
XO, *L
Then pick up an invisible club On the mind's table And helplessly smash the easels and Jade. Whereas the vintage man No longer hurts himself or anyone And keeps on Sculpting Light.
Cover Artist: Katie Grove
Above: Bees 3.5”x9” etching
Cover: Hornets’ Nest 9”x9” etching
Katie Grove is currently completing her final year in SUNY New Paltz's BFA Printmaking program. With a background in printmaking and fibers techniques, Katie explores the ways that these two mediums can interact and often incorporates painting, drawing, and found objects into her pieces. The natural world and objects found within it, such as the hornet's nests provide inspiration for her etchings.
(Ed. Note: We are so excited to share a collective body of work this month from local artists of the SUNY New Paltz Printmaking Club. Please enjoy their work throughout the issue, and refer to their contributor’s bios for more information.)
SUNY New Paltz Printmaking Club: Manifesto SUNY New Paltz Printmaking Club is a student run organization that strives to create a community of artists interested in print media that goes beyond the classrooms. The Club is comprised of both students majoring in Printmaking and students involved in printmaking classes. The Club collaborates with other student and local organizations to give members the opportunity to exhibit work in a professional manner. It is the club’s mission to spread the knowledge of printmaking, and the ideas and purpose behind print media. Print club offers a local resource for hand pulled custom prints on a variety of medium to the local and campus communities. The club hosts visiting working artists, offers workshops that are open to the public and provides live printing for a variety of events and gatherings. Print club aspires to be an area resource by fostering a more personal and community-based option for individuals and organizations seeking printed goods.
This Winter this winter broke me to the bone like a farmwife’s callused fingers cracking chickens’ eggs, still warm from the roost, into a hot black pan. scrambled breakfast of unborn possibility. maybe I should have known when you told me your bedroom didn’t have any windows that I ought not sleep in your bed where the sun can’t see. where I couldn’t see and you couldn’t see me, and situated
right beside the bathroom so you could hear everything. we were playing scrabble on your stomach and then I’m never quite sure just how these things happen but suddenly there isn’t anything left – like some meticulous cleaning lady came and vacuumed up all the air, the scrabble tiles, your hands, everything that meant anything and replaced it with a winter of silence, the kind that takes fingers and toes. -Olivia Fantini
Image: Todd Martin
stone lithography 11.5” x 8.5”
Ratna
Image: Molly Rose Purcell
1945
Reaching You The horizon tilts as the plane turns, descends. My ears block, the chewing gum, useless as always, stretches between my frantic teeth. We land in the rain, bouncing, slowing,
stopping. Four hours later my ears pop, my headache recedes, but by then I am in bed beside you, your saliva still drying on my skin. -Edward Lee
Call Me Sometime -Chloe Caldwell My lover called today from a sunny field in Tennessee where he was smoking a cigar and drinking a bottle of absinthe, his typewriter and stationary bike in tow.
jelly sandwich on English muffin bread with a banana and kiwi and watch this British mini series called Red-Riding Trilogy about murders and rain.”
My lover called today and we repeated a conversation about teeth and dental insurance and getting older and then we repeated a conversation about how we repeat stuff.
My lover called tonight and left me a voicemail telling me that I fucked it up. That we had our great times but that I fucked it up. That I was looking for the prize that didn’t exist. I listened to the voicemail on speakerphone with my friends in a taxi on the way home and sobbed and held their hands.
My lover called today and we interrupted each other a lot and talked in circles and went off on tangents. My lover called today and I knew it was going to be him because my phone sounded abnormally eager when it rang. My lover called from the south today and I was sitting at an outdoor café on Bedford Avenue drinking mimosas in October and I didn’t let him get a word in edgewise because I was drunk on love and life and I had just bought a necklace that said Brooklyn. My lover called from New York today and I was outside my condominium in Seattle in the alley and it was pouring and I cried to him that I missed him and did not know what to do with my life and a few days later I got an email with some ideas of what to do with my life. My lover called today and I hit ignore, so he called again and I hit ignore and one more time and I hit ignore but I was in his bathroom and scared of him and didn’t want to hear him yell at me. My lover called today and said, “Waking up in the rain and drinking beer and playing drums makes me miss you. Now I’m going to eat my peanut butter and
My lover called today while I was driving a car through Hudson, New York, and I told him I was scared of being alone and he asked, “But when have you been?” My lover called tonight and read to me from a Herman Hesse book. My lover called tonight and read to me from For Whom The Bell Tolls. My lover called from upstate tonight and read to me from his journal with a sentence about me that read, “I love everything about you.” My lover called this morning to tell me he is back in therapy. My lover called me this evening when I got home from work and told me he went to bed thinking of me. My lover called today while I was getting lowlights in my hair at a place called Vain. My lover called from his East Village stairs this morning ignoring the threehour time difference and when I answered with a raspy hello he yelled
“Gooooood morning!” in my ear and it was a happy way for me to wake up.
invited me to his mom’s house for Christmas.
My lover called today and for the first time he said, “I love you so much,” instead of “I love you.”
My lover called from the east village tonight and I was in bed with my computer. I read to him a love letter I’d been working on to him called The Cat And The Stream.
My lover called this morning when I was in my Greenpoint apartment and told me he smashed into a taxi when he left my apartment the night before. My lover called today when I was in Hudson working at my dad’s store in the basement and my dad brought me the phone and I lied down on the cement and put my hand between my legs. My lover called today when I was in his apartment and he was at a rest stop on his motorcycle and told me he couldn’t take my ups and downs anymore. My lover called tonight and left me a voicemail, yelling, “Fuck me? Fuck you!” My lover called today and said he has a cold and is smoking the rest of his weed and watching NetFlix. My lover called today to tell me he is starting a story about his back hair but then he had to get off the phone because the cable guy got there. My lover called today from a motel in Winchester, Virginia because his motorcycle Night Wing broke down on his way to Tennessee. My lover called tonight, drunker than I had ever heard him and said things to me that matter and meant so much that I promptly forgot them. My lover called tonight from Youngsville, New York while I was outside in Seattle sitting on a stoop that was not mine, near a box of free eggplant and he
My lover called today after I told him I read all of his private journals and he told me he thought I should leave his apartment. My lover called from his stoop on East Ninth Street and told me about an orgy of a sort that he had with his Haitian weed dealer and his Haitian weed dealer’s girlfriend. My lover called to tell me the book The Ethical Slut hit a nerve in him. My lover called while I was locking up my bike and told me that I have no idea how good he can be to me. My lover called and told me he will hunt me down wherever I am. My lover called and asked me what he would do without me. My lover called today from the grocery store where he was buying a twelve pack of Blue Moon. My lover called today and I went to my dad’s concrete basement for some privacy and my lover said he was en route to Brooklyn and I said are you going to go see your other lover and he said yes and I hung up the phone. My lover called today and I was so distraught by his voice that I immediately afterwards rolled TOP tobacco and made a pot of tea and stared out the window.
My lover called today and sounded like he was crying but really he had just taken a huge rip from his bong. He said he’d been in bed all morning smoking
Marena Mitchell
15”x22”
weed and drinking cans of Budweiser. He has not called yet today. He doesn’t really call anymore.
plate/pronto litho
Batchellerville
Marena Mitchell Stone, photo, pronto plate litho with hand-stitched border. 8"x8" Control Collar
Weeding for Death Belladonna— Queen of the Rhododendron Honey
Crossing Crocus in The Lily of the Valley
Oleander is dead
Awaiting arsenic decay
I saw him and Daphne Playing the Angel’s Trumpet
-Matthew Cronin
The Hard Dance Before she leaves for the weekend, my daughter asks me if I’ll teach her how to slow dance.
She squeezes my hand. She leans in and tells me she loves him. She says he makes her happy.
When she was young she took hip hop classes, so chubby with all the other blades. The following year, chubby gave way to fat. She wore sweats and only continued for my wife’s sake, for mine. In those outfits the spandex looked like a mudslide and I found myself looking away at the other girls who were more fit and prettier, blonder, with clean teeth.
-Len Kuntz
When I put my hands on her hips now, she winces. I yell, “Damn it!” She says it’s okay, it’s just a few small bruises, it’s not what I think, Russell wasn’t even around when it happened, he was in Chicago, he was, he was. I pull her close. Her pulse throbs through her wrist. He’ll be holding her like this, I think. In the ceiling I see a new crack, a gray streak of crooked lightning from where the house has settled. Then I notice others a few feet away. Those’ll need to be fixed, I tell myself. When we put the sign in the yard my daughter went berserk, tossed the toaster through the kitchen window. “I know why you’re doing this!” she screamed. “You two can go ahead and move if you want, but I’m staying.” Now we sway, our shoe tips brushing. We cut odd concentric paths round and round right there in the living room where I watched her take her first step.
Kat Patterson 12”x25” Silkscreen La Muerta Mucha
Longing Tannins saturate her tongue Playing with earth's offering To ground what’s growing Without drowning the natural Those songs when the radio turns on Her eyes close and she has to touch Something to make everything else tangible again, To disarm her thirst Cold showers and a bite of whiskey Bleed beets and twist apples sweetly Bringing back a warm cafe, Watching rain pool and puddle It’s not the puddle she’s after It’s the walk there, the way the windshield Looks under water and darkness Restricting the way they go Stay, linger, lodge, suspend There’s too many ways to write it It’s not enough to make it go away So she tastes it over, again -Pamela Ugor
Rachel DiMicco
Silkscreen
30" x 42"
U. 4sT
A New Blender -Stephen Mannion At the counter a brown-haired girl scanned my items.
polo rose out of the bag as if from a tomb.
Is that all, ma'am? she asked.
Ma'am, he said gravely, I think you will need to come with me.
Yes, that will be it, I said politely. Are you sure? she said. Which was really very pushy.
I felt awful. I was so embarrassed. I began to cry, right there, in the mall.
Um, I said. Yes, I'm sure.
I was going to donate that, I said, which was true.
Alright, ma'am, she said. And she waited a moment.
Ma'am, said the security guard, it's not yours to donate.
Okay, I said. How much is it?
I thought that when Henry came he would look at me strangely, like I was a crazy person, but instead he looked bewildered, like he could not understand how it came to be that he would have to pick up his wife at the police station.
Your total for today will be $273.58, she said, and as I handed her my card she asked, Debit or credit? Credit, I said. She swiped it and I signed. Thank you, ma'am, said the girl. And let me know if there is anything else you would like to purchase today. She emphasized the word “purchase.� I looked at her in a way that let her know I thought she was being strange, the kind of look Henry can do so well, and I walked out of the store. Just outside the store a security guard stepped up and asked to look inside my shoulder-bag. I told him of course that I resented it and that I thought it unfair and insulting. He said he understood that but he looked anyway. Even though I didn't want him to. I did not consent to the search. He moved aside a few things and then grabbed hold of a hanger. And a child's
It was just one of those silly things you do, without quite knowing why you do them. I thought Henry would be able to keep it out of the blotters and dockets in the Enterprise but he could not. It was mortifying. When I was younger I would hide and play in the center of the circular clothing racks in department stores. My mother hated it, of course, said Stop it, Get out, but I loved it in there. I would clamber between the chrome supports and sit in the center. In the hub of a colorful wheel. When I asked Henry if he'd ever played in the center of circular racks at the department store he said no. He gave me a look that didn't just say No but also said Do people even do that, and What kind of strange person would?
Henry has mastered that look. It made me wonder for a moment if maybe it really was just me that did that. But I don't think so. Sometimes I worry that the distance between Henry and myself is growing. I had asked that, about playing in the clothing racks, because I had been in Macy's that morning. I had been looking through the children's department. And the children, the racks, department stores –that reminded me of it. Of playing in the racks. Henry was quiet for a while after he gave me the look for playing in the racks as a child. I let a few minutes pass and then I asked him if he ever thought about us having children. You're too old for children, he said. But that's not true and I told him so. I don't mean physically, to have them, he said. I mean you're too old, he said. He said, by the time they go to college you'd be sixty. It was a cold day and I didn't have anything to do because I haven't got a job, still, since the library had to let me go. Which was for budget reasons, not anything else. I worried Henry would be upset at the lost income, but he doesn't seem to mind. I turned the thermostat low to save money, then drove to the mall. At Crossgates Mall the department stores are anchor stores, they call them. That means they're big stores that stick out from the mall building and you can enter them directly from the outside. I like it that way, because I don't like malls. There is two much bustle and noise, and too many different stores.
I like Macy's because it is all there, in the one store. There is also carpet instead of linoleum, in some parts of it. I was still thinking about the night before as I walked into Macy's. About Henry's expression when he told me No, he'd never played in the clothing racks at department stores. Henry had no right to look at me like that. But marriage is difficult. I think if I had a baby I would want to name it after Henry, in spite of it all, if it were a boy. In Macy's the aisles separating the departments are linoleum. It's nicer linoleum than in the mall, though, and it shines more. When I was younger I imagined the linoleum paths as the only man-made part of the store. Like the carpeted departments were the natural ground of this place, like you could venture into them as into the wilderness. And the clothing racks would be the plants. I took the escalator to the second floor and looked around at the kitchen appliances. Henry had told me the day before to get a blender for myself. This was before the conversation about the clothing racks, when he had been trying to make a smoothie out of his fruits. Henry gardens. Maybe he would understand about the clothing racks if I explained that I imagined them as plants. There were a few different types of blenders. One caught my eye that was a nice red color, so I picked up the box and looked at it. It had buttons for high and low, plus one for ice and one that said pulse. I wondered what pulse was. The blender said Cuisinart on it in a little steel plaque and the box said that the color was a stunning retro red.
would be less of a man if his wife worked, or felt she had to work. At the time we were planning to have children, as well, and we both agreed it was better to have a mother who stayed at home. I thought it was important because my own mother was a stay-at-home mother, and my earliest memories are of being around the house with her, or out shopping with her. After two years of trying Henry told me he didn't want to any more, didn't need children. And I think I was worn out from hoping, so I agreed. Two or three years later, he told me that I might as well get a job, since I wasn't doing anything at home.
Andrew Keck Monotype on Reeve BFK Paper typ
Suddenly I started to feel a bit ill. I got a kind of claustrophobic sense over there by the blenders. I didn't understand why, entirely, but it was the kind of anxiety I often get in the mall, the kind of vague stress that comes from being somewhere you dislike in its essence. Not just bother, but discomfort. I didn't like the blenders. They wouldn't suit the kitchen. I didn't like the way my kitchen was beginning to look. Since the library I had been spending more time there, and I'd been gradually upgrading it with new appliances. It had been three weeks since I stopped working, and so a few things had changed. There was a new toaster and a new coffee machine, a Keurig, a really space-age looking thing. I had brought home a new mixer and a new crock-pot. And a new trash can and new dishtowels, though those are not really appliances. When we first married, Henry insisted I quit my job at the bank. He would get himself into a fury over it. He felt he
I don't mean to make Henry sound bad, talking about that right after the kids thing. But he did say that. Marriage is a difficult thing, but Henry and I make it work. At first I resented not staying at home, having to work, because it bothered me that Henry had changed how he felt about it. And after the library, when I was home again on weekdays for the first time in so many years, I loved the feeling. But after Henry told me I might as well get a job, I remembered that it was me who was a little reluctant to stay home in the first place. And remembered it again after the library, when I was standing in Macy's near all of those blenders. I was still holding the blender and standing near the escalator and for a moment I really wanted to throw it over the railing and down to the first floor, but I put it down gently on the table. I went down the escalator to the first floor and felt better. It was really Henry's fault that I felt so bad around the
Jon Irving Relief Print, India Ink, Acrylic Wash 18� x 18� You Know Those Wrinkles Don't Pay for Themselves
blenders. They made me feel like a stayat-home wife. It wasn't the store's fault at all, of course. I love Macy's. I stopped over at the jewelry section. I asked the girl behind the counter if the store was hiring.
I'm not sure, she said. But I think we're always taking applications. I felt a desire to be part of the store as well, and refer to it as We when I spoke of its status or actions.
That customer service desk right over there, pointed the girl, is where you can go and get an application.
hair may have been blond, I couldn't remember. Can I help you, she said.
Thank you so much, I said. I love Macy's. I lost my job at the library because of budget cuts.
Yes, I said. I like would like a Macy's job application.
I'm sorry to hear that, she said. About the library. It's alright, I said, this is a better place to work. I walked to the customer service counter and waited. Within a few minutes, a girl walked up behind the counter. She looked similar to the other girl. Though the other girl's
The girl looked up at me. Okay, sure thing, she said. And she blinked and looked at me again, and said Um. I looked back and realized she'd been there for that awful incident with the polo. Which had been really very silly of course. When Henry got home I was sitting in the family room watching television. He
Clarissa Plank 15� x 15� Reduction Woodcut
Gypsy Moth Gray
He called into the house as he walked through the door, asking where I was.
And he was giving me that look again, like I was so strange he just couldn't understand me.
I'm in the family room, I said. He walked in. What are you doing in the living room, he asked. Watching television, I said. I gestured towards the box. On the screen a man turned over a French press in his hands. The screen cut to a woman's hand pushing down the plunger, filtering the coffee. Maybe we should get a French press, I said. Henry didn't say anything for a moment. Is that the new blender in the kitchen, he asked without inflection. Yes, I said. I got it at Macy's today. He nodded. Cuisinart? Is that a good one? It's a good one, I said. I looked at the pixilated French press. Of course it is a good one. Okay, said Henry. I applied for a job at Macy's today, I told him. Henry didn't answer. I watched the man turn the French press over again and again. He said its parts were stainless steel. He said it would never grow old. Henry said nothing about my applying to Macy's, and I was worried for a moment that maybe he was reversing his position all over again, that he wanted me to be a stay-at-home wife after all. So I looked up.
John Chichester
Zinc Etching 11�x30�
Jockeying a Horse Named Loser I now wear the remnants of past foreign wars On the bottom of my shoe Flashing stars Fat man Little boy Sleek and round The tiger’s eye Gnawing teeth Camouflaged, Now you can’t see me White laces ride On wings of rusted metal Kamikaze soles I now wear the remnants of past foreign wars On the bottom of my shoe Mustard colored death mask Peering skulls Eleven kill stamps Underneath left hand side Near the checkered flags For a race never ran, Ninety-degree dives Head first Into the Yellow Seas of Japan Rusted metal on vacation 200 feet below I now wear the remnants of past foreign wars On the bottom of my shoe.
-Brett Stout
Rutting Season Accelerating through the lowering dusk, At the bend in Route 84 near San Gregorio. One astride a straining motor, The other dizzyingly fleet of hoof. The man upright, taken with speed; The buck, head lowered, the better to lock horns. Did he even see the beast before impact? Rubber scars the asphalt, Metal renders flesh meat. Conventional country wisdom claims: Males of the species do crazy things This time of year. -Megan McDonald
Gale DellaRocco
Etching, monotype, collograph Looking Up
Clarissa Plank
Reduction Woodcut
Olivia Fantini is a poet living in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
15” x 15”
Emerald Ash Borer Dance
Todd Martin is an artist living and working in Gardiner, NY. He graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a bachelor’s
degree in Art Education and a concentration in photography. Todd is currently enrolled in the MFA program in Printmaking at SUNY New Paltz. He draws his inspiration from nature, spirituality and teaching. Edward Lee is from Dublin, Ireland. His poetry, short stories and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Acumen, Smiths Knoll, The SHOp, The Moon, and The Sunday Tribune New Irish Writing. His debut collection of poetry “Playing Poohsticks On Ha’Penny Bridge’ was recently published by Spider Press. He is currently working toward his second poetry collection, and a photography exhibition entitled "Lying Down With The Dead". Molly Rose Purcell is a printmaking student at SUNY New Paltz and is a life long artist. Her favorite color is goldenrod. Chloe Caldwell lives in Hudson, New York. She has been published in many online and print journals including The Sun Magazine, Chronogram, The Rumpus and The Faster Times. Her first book of essays, "Legs Get Led Astray" will be released in April 2012 (Future Tense Books). Read more at www.chloecaldwell.com Marena Mitchell is a student at SUNY New Paltz pursuing a Master of Fine Art in Printmaking and has an undergraduate degree in Art Education. Her work addresses identity, gender, control and power through personal memories. She is interested in a domestic aesthetic in her work by adding handmade elements such as sewing.
Matthew Cronin is a student at SUNY New Paltz, majoring in Philosophy and English. Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State. His work appears widely in print and online at such places as Camroc Press Review, Cirque, Blue Lake Review and also at lenkuntz.blogspot.com Kat Patterson is part of the SUNY New Paltz Printmaking Club. Pamela Ugor, Rosendale-an, currently MAT English Graduate student at SUNY New Paltz, forever working at the Gilded Otter, life-long creative writer. Rachel DiMicco The world is an everchanging realm consuming everything that changes and all that is not constant. With drawings translated through the printmaking processes, Rachel DiMicco transfers the temporal qualities evident to her in the environment into prints. She works with layering multiple processes, experimental print-media as well as traditional mediums. DiMicco is currently working on a delicate body of silkscreens and handmade paper installations that explore the relationships between herself and her current environments in a more personal way, magnifying the ideas of memory and time. Rachel DiMicco is currently finishing her Masters Degree in Printmaking. Stephen Mannion lives and writes in Boise, Idaho. He was raised in Upstate New York and graduated from Boston College. His fiction and non-fiction can be found in The South Dakota Review, The Boise Weekly, Full of Crow Quarterly, and Fiction365.
Andrew Keck is a printmaker studying art and theatre at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
a wheel so the image would continue from top into the bottom in a neverending composition.
Jon Irving is a first year MFA student in Printmaking at SUNY New Paltz. His work follows the exploration of unfamiliar places, based on personal experience and intimate stories. His work is influenced by children's storybooks, body language, wanderlust, curiosity, selfreflection and paper dolls.
Gale DellaRocco is currently studying at the State University of New York at New Paltz for her Master of Fine Art in printmaking. She graduated from The College of Saint Rose in 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Art in printmaking. Gale lives on a small sheep and honeybee farm in the Helderberg Mountains.
Clarissa Plank grew up in rural Pennsylvania. She first became interested in art as a small child and continued to develop a foundation in the arts during 9 years of home schooling. Clarissa completed her Bachelor’s degree in Art Education at Ithaca College in 2010. She then became a member of Ithaca’s Ink Shop Printmaking Center, where she started creating a series of woodcuts on insect pests that explore how we relate to nature. Clarissa is currently pursuing Printmaking as a MFA candidate at SUNY New Paltz.
Megan McDonald has been published in Down in the Dirt magazine. She was also the featured poet for September 2009 in the online magazine Eye on Life. http://eyeonlife.squarespace.com/poetry -unlocked/three-poems-by-meganmcdonald.html
Brett Stout is a 32-year-old artist and writer living in Myrtle Beach, SC. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He writes while mainly hung-over on white lined paper in a small cramped apartment in Myrtle Beach, SC. He published his first novel of prose and poetry entitled "Lab Rat Manifesto" in 2007. John Chichester is a part of the SUNY New Paltz Printmaking Club. His included piece is a zinc etching on 11x30 paper. It is part of an edition of five and was originally made as a sculpture placed on
Acknowledgements There are so many individuals and businesses without whom Awosting Alchemy could not exist in this form. Thank you to David Friedman & Barner Books of New Paltz who have supported the project from Day 01. Special thanks to The Yoga House of Kingston, NY who hosted our Paper Anniversary celebration this month. Thank you, talented & diverse band of contributors, for doing your art & word thing so well here in the Valley and around the globe. Aw/Al exists because you exist! And thank you again, dear reader, not only for beginning at page 01, but for reading through to the end. We hope you enjoyed your journey and will be back for the next issue in January 2012. * * * Submission Guidelines * * *
Thanks for choosing to send your work to Awosting Alchemy. We’re writers and artists too, dutifully sending our work out into the atmosphere with our fingers crossed. We truly appreciate what you do and your decision to include us in your efforts. Always check our website for updated submission guidelines & contests. Submit through Submishmash, our wonderfully easy and helpful submission manager. You may also feel free to contact us with any questions you have at AwostingAlchemy@hotmail.com. Our response time is fairly swift. Expect to hear back from us within about a
month. Thanks again. We look forward to your submissions. Send us things you had to write or create because they were nowhere else in the world, sharp and new and not yet worn out by others. Strive for a new set of fingerprints. ******* Read: AwostingAlchemy.com Submit: AwostingAlchemy.submishmash.com/Submit
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