Vol I Issue X - September 2014 by The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society

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THE RAIN, PARTY, & DISASTER SOCIETY IS A WORKSHOP-BASED ONLINE LITERARY PUBLICATION THAT STRIVES TO GIVE REPRESENTATION TO NEW IDEAS AND THOUGHTS, TO CHALLENGE THE READER, AND TO QUESTION COMMONLY ACCEPTED OPINIONS, VALUES, ETIQUETTE, AND IDEAS. WITHIN OUR PAGES, YOU MAY FIND: WORKS THAT TACKLE HOT-BUTTON ISSUES, WORKS PRESENTED IN A STYLE THAT IS OUT OF THE ORDINARY, WORKS THAT PRESENT THE READER WITH A QUESTION OR DEBATE, AND WORKS THAT BREAK MAINSTREAM RULES WITHIN THEIR GENRE. ALL OF THE PIECES YOU FIND ON THIS SITE HAVE BEEN THROUGH OUR WORKSHOP PROCESS, DURING WHICH THE RP&D EDITORIAL STAFF WORKS CLOSELY WITH CONTRIBUTORS TO HONE THEIR VOICE AND HELP THEM TO PRODUCE THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK FOR YOU, THE READER, TO EXPERIENCE.

TO RESPOND DIRECTLY TO A WORK YOU SEE FEATURE IN THIS ISSUE, USE OUR CONTACT PAGE TO SENT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF. YOU MAY ALSO WRITE YOUR OWN REBUTTAL AND SUBMIT IT FOR PUBLICATION IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

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Table of Contents

GRAZIE, PAGLIACCI, Adam Kane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 TEA PARTY, Kelsey Dean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 MEDICINE MAN, Misty Ellingburg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 ON LOVING MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER, Bee Walsh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 CELEBRATING AN OBSCURE HOLIDAY SOUTH OF THE BORDER, Mitchell Grabois.8  JANUARY IS THE MOST CROATIAN MONTH, Lindsay Herko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 SWEET TO HEAR, Dalton Day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 TO DO, Alecia Lynn Eberhardt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?, Kaity Davie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 FIRE IS THE OTHER ANIMAL, Howie Good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 FLOWERING TOBACCO, Jordan Rizzieri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 KALISPEL TRIBE’S 39TH ANNUAL POWWOW, 2014, Misty Ellingburg. . . . . . . . . . .16 NOAH’S ARK, Laura Herrin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATIONS NO. 711, Duane Locke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 REDEFINING SUCCESS, Jennifer Lombardo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 OKLAHOMA, Misty Ellingburg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 THE THIRD CONVERSATION, Kelsey Dean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 POINTLESS WEIRDNESS, Howie Good. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 STUDY FOR SALESMEN, Matthew Vasilauskas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 CLOVER, BOLDLY, Lindsay Herko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 A LOVE SONG FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE CHICKEN DANCER, Misty Ellingburg. . . . . . .27

EDITORIAL STAFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 CONTRIBUTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

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GRAZIE, PAGLIACCI  Adam Kane Now there's some sad things known to man  But ain't too much sadder than  The tears of a clown  When there's no one around  --Smokey Robinson We live in a pretty remarkable world, you and I. Right now, I'm writing on a device smaller than a paperback, which grants me access to more information than I'd ever know what to do with, plus it plays music and tells me when the bus is arriving. I have a way of life that affords me the opportunity to write almost immediately upon finding the inspiration I need. Many of us go to work with unlimited coffee and friendly coworkers. Many of us have wives or husbands or boyfriends or girlfriends who make us soup when we're sick and show us funny cat videos when we're cranky. Incredibly creative things are being written, or filmed, or improvised in a tiny basement theatre at this very moment. Somewhere, someone right now is having a an idea that has never occurred to anyone else. And that idea will become an invention or a work of art that will change the world for the better. Our lives today, by and large, are vastly better than they would have been 80 years ago, or 180 years ago, or at any other point in human history. There are certainly people in the world who still aren't afforded the same opportunities as others. There is still war, and poverty, and racism. Unarmed teenagers are still being harassed and sometimes killed by authority figures. But the human race, by and large, is progressing.

To some people, the progress of the world, or the small moments of joy in their own lives, are not enough. To some, the remarkable progress of the human race is a cruel and unfair reminder of the pressure and weight of expectations. Even worse, inevitably, one of those people who created so many things, contributed to the wonder and progress of the world at such a remarkable level, will be so crushed by his own demons that he can no longer recognize the joy he gives to others. It’s a dirty, rotten trick, and it’s not anyone’s fault, least of all the person suffering. It’s a heartbreaking, sobering truth. In the worst cases, it all ends in an exacting, permanent, tragic way. In recent days I’ve heard it said that suicide is “technically a selfish act.” That may be true, but in most cases, whenever it’s spoken, it’s the last thing anyone wants to hear.

When I was a kid I imitated everything I thought was funny. I mean everything. My parents had to limit my exposure to Family Matters because they were concerned I would permanently hike up my pants and hunch over like Steve Urkel. What can I say? It got a good laugh. When I was a teenager, I would analyze and memorize my favorite Saturday Night Live sketches, and would quote obscure bits of stand up from a rerun of Comedy Central Presents. I like making people laugh. It’s why I was unafraid to fall on my face on stage when the script called for it (or even when it didn’t), or generally make a fool of myself on stage in front of people I would sit next to in first period pre-calculus the next morning. I liked the laughter more than I cared if people thought I was cool.

Looking back now, I wonder if some of that might have come from watching Aladdin. I remember before it came out that my seven-year-old classmates were excited because Robin Williams was playing the Genie. I didn’t know who he was, unlike my friends with older 4

siblings, but I knew it was a big deal. I remember being captivated the first time I saw it. The Genie was unlike anything I knew was possible. Robin Williams must’ve done 200 different impressions and character voices. I understood one in maybe 20 of the references he made, but it didn’t matter. I was a parrot, mimicking every last line. It’s fitting, then, that the ventriloquist dummy my aunt bought me that year was a parrot that I named Iago. (It’s a good thing I cared more about being funny than I cared about being cool.)

It wasn’t until later that I was exposed to the references Robin Williams was making: Jack Nicholson, Dirty Harry, Ed Sullivan. Ed Sullivan had been dead nearly twenty years when Aladdin was released in 1992, and there I was, still not quite perfect at using scissors, walking around doing an impression of him. All because that’s what Robin Williams did. It was infectious.

Around the same time I was figuring out why those voices were so funny, I was being exposed to Robin Williams. The energy in his performances was so consistent, even when everything else about his work was different in nearly all of his films. Whether he was a gay nightclub owner in Miami, a deranged photo technician, or a father willing to cross-dress to spend time with his kids: each character, no matter how over the top on paper, was a real person. I once thought it was incredible when he won that Oscar for Good Will Hunting - a comedian like him winning such a prestigious acting award! - but now it doesn’t seem so incredible. He was never a comic, or a classically trained actor, or a stand up, or a voiceover artist. He did all of those things, but he was really just a performer. And he did it all so well. I always got the sense that he would do it all for free if he had to. He would do a strange voice, or tell a bawdy joke, or make a face to anyone at any time to make them smile. When an actor compliments another actor, oftentimes they’ll use the word selfless. For someone who loved the spotlight, I can’t think of a more selfless performer than Robin Williams.

Other than watching and admiring his work, I can’t claim to know anything about the man. Nevertheless, it was a punch to the stomach when news of his suicide broke. If ever there was a man who should’ve died on a stage at the age of 93 after giving an off-color punchline, it was him. I’ve certainly read stories of his struggle with addiction, but when someone was as energetic and joyful on stage or screen, I hardly gave it a second thought.

I’m sure the words I’ve written about him seem trite and meaningless. I know I feel the same way when I see a steady stream of “Oh man, {celebrity name} died. #RIP” tweets. Maybe the grief we feel in times like these is selfish, and our instinct to comment on it online is a reflection of that selfishness.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think when we say say something in this situation, even when it’s a hashtag, what we’re really saying is thank you. Above the noise of the cynics asking why this matters, or the grim details, or the armchair diagnoses, I hope, from that undiscovered country, he can hear us saying thank you. The world is a little better because he made us laugh, and cry, and think. He created something new every time he performed. He gave and gave and gave us every ounce of what he had; the least we can do in return in express our gratitude.

Grazie.

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TEA PARTY Kelsey Dean

The sugar cubes cascaded down the tablecloth,  And “One lump or two?” asked the hatter—  but actually there were three  that lived and lumbered in the tissue.  “The doctors took them out with knives  and fixed her with needles” I said.  “And there were tubes and tests tangled in her breasts.”  “How curious!” replied the hare.  I nodded and stacked the cubes neatly in my mouth  while the sparrows nested in my hair;  we sipped and slurped  and the violets twinkled at our toes.  “Another cup?” asked the hatter,  but it was quite the opposite, and I told him:  “No, a less cup actually, or two.”  “Curiouser and curiouser!” sang the hare.

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MEDICINE MAN Misty Ellingburg

Before he began a long and illustrious career inhaling Vicodin up his ever-bloody but still straight and somehow noble nose, my grandfather was a wild wave rider like canoe sojourners of old.

But even after he was going strong with the white powder, blonde and aging women in the local Wal-Mart couldn't help but notice and remark on the Noble Savage sniffing milk past its expiration date while peeking sideways, lest my grandmother arrive while he was trying to get away with something.

"God, his hair is long," one would whisper to the other as he recapped the half-gallon and put it back on the shelf.

"Unkempt," a second intimated to her friend, "But somehow, more authentic that way. Close to nature. All Indians are close to nature," she added knowledgeably. "My great-grandmother was an Indian medicine woman, I should know."

"I have Indian in my background, too," said the iron-straight blonde. "Cherokee, I think. Or Choctaw. One of those. I don't know."

They both laughed. My grandfather had by now moved onto the block cheese, no doubt comparing it to Rez commodities in terms of relative foulness and trying to make a value judgment.

"I don't know anything about my Indian side, or about Indians at all, really. But I think if I were Indian, I wouldn't wear my hair down that way. I'd braid it back. And I definitely wouldn't sniff cheese in a grocery store."

"I'm distantly related to Pocahontas," the other chirped in. My grandfather had moved on to the next aisle, a brick of cheese and a quart of half-and-half in his shopping basket.

"It must be so romantic, to be so close to the Creator. Gitche Manitou or whatever they call it. And having all those dances and ceremonies. If I knew more about the Indian in me, I wouldn't squander it, that's for sure. I'd be a medicine woman, like my grandma."

"Great-grandma, I thought you said."

"Whatever, great-grandma."

In a Wal-Mart bathroom stall, having purchased and pocketed the Velveeta, my grandfather pulled a pill from his pocket and crushed it using the back of a pen as a makeshift pestle inside an Altoid can. Procuring a razor from his boot, he chopped the powder up fine on the toilet roll dispenser, twisted a dollar bill into a straw, and inhaled up his noble nose.

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ON LOVING MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER Bee Walsh

Two mugs, every morning, two down / one back up. Two bowls, every night, / two down, one put away. / Six bananas, three rotten after three days, / half an orange, one piece of bread, one fork. // “It’s okay,” mumbled, / “I’m trying to feed you.” One plate. One side / of the bed with rustled sheets and shallow breathing. / Two mugs, no juice, no speaking, / one bowl.

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CELEBRATING AN OBSCURE HOLIDAY SOUTH OF THE BORDER Mitchell Grabois

On National Lighthouse Day  Bret is charmed by a  fourteen-year-old dominatrix  in a pink pouffy dress and a Darth Vader mask

Yesterday I was a wrestler, she tells him  The Iron Shiek-ette  She raises a bottle of XX to her lips  Bret has XX on his eyes

Are there any lighthouses around here, Bret asks  mindful of what day it is in America and  nostalgic about his years in the Merchant Marine

There’s a lighthouse in your pants, senor  she says  Let your light shine on me

This is wrong in so many ways, Bret thinks  but she makes him feel all warm and fuzzy  as he celebrates his retirement in a Juarez saloon 8

JANUARY IS THE MOST CROATIAN MONTH  Lindsay Herko

January is the most Croatian month. Epiphany is a  garnet. And Capricorn, she gets warm, putting on a   harness  Ass and Vass, they are my aunts - oblivious to nickname carnage  Virulent Vasa Ann & Stella, rechristened on a sneeze to a second daughterhood of being Aspasia are spanked by the grandfathers of all the world’s goat based yogurts to be more Balkan  They do sympathetic magics, slaking their sleeves  – ivory and onion – over the chalk of the blackboard  As a chance to cop out of the winter before leaving the oven of school to be nighttime stock girls

O capoeira of evening light, what do you want with us maudlins?  Do you want us gerbil-jive tight, our gold toe socks, turning our balance on an infinity rolling Olive?

We want to be squatting in the trinkets and stoles,  the ones that will match the Dick Tracey coloring books youngest men grow up with,  and take the pains to buy a cooking range that looks like it could exist among criminals and  happiness. We want to have the short slacks and the vacuum cleaner bag that matches the pants.

But the jokes on us

Cypress trees will always be one shallow scope inside our esophagus and anus  And our father may conceive a seventh daughter, in his eighties, accidentally giving up the detritus of his fading life  By growing a fatal cypress spear in her cardiac muscle that could not tell us it’d be dying;  He named her Dotthee, incorrectly after Kansas cool exiting the movie, expecting her to out glamour her stabbing pine arrhythmia  And when she died and we only had money for work clothes, they buried her in the shallow graves already dug by rabbits playing in the old Victorian cemetery,  On the pound list of the public grounds, they marked her Baby Wizard of Oz  And her headstone was no more than a fallen fray of bee hive

And O Capoeira of evening light, and O January we’ve repurposed as Jane  The eighty year old father who soon lost his life, won’t stay in his plot to hear the university carillon be played, Ignoring our expenditure, to tenderly awl through the dirt, ice and mice to get back to his deformity’s grave

Ass and Vass they were my aunts – chosen Owl eye sunglasses at fifties year old – hoping Baby Wizard of Oz had long succumbed to the lunge of the cemetery pond – bring opaque, proof blotting green algae over history and the land. From now on the only deaths they will feel sorry for are the woman who lost their husbands to helicopter falls in race riots and were forced to live out decades of their lives as hot dog eaters, who die on Little Christmas.

SWEET TO HEAR  Dalton Day

Our new neighbors are actually us.

They are my mother, my grandmother, and me.  They even have our dog.

From what I can gather, they are us about five  years ago. (The dog gave it away.)

My mother makes chairs.

My grandmother walks around with a cigarette,  attending to the roses.

I don’t see much of myself. I’m still a teenager,  after all. I need more sun than I’m getting.

We look happy. We are quiet, but happy.

Some nights I listen to the sleep.  I don’t know why, it makes me so sad.

I think I’m expecting to catch a snippet of a  dream I had one night, and no matter how I  tried, could not remember the next morning.

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TO DO  Alecia Lynn Eberhardt

The first list, scrawled on a sheet of yellow lined paper pulled from a legal pads, was simply titled, “To-Do List. August 7.”

This list, which I taped to my kitchen wall, was so satisfying that I continued. Each line of each list started with a dash of equal length to all the other dashes, and each letter “A” could be compared to every other letter “A” and each would be identical, and same with the Bs, and so forth. After a month, I had twelve lists, taped in a perfect block on my wall, lemon yellow against the avocado paint. After two months, I’d covered the whole area around the sink, and after a year, I had to move on to the living room. Five years, and I’d covered every wall in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room. For twenty-eight years, I taped layer upon layer to the walls, padding them with yellow sheets of paper.

The little gray house was built on a cliff surrounded by beachy grasslands and shrubs; a fire had cleared the area of all the skinny pines and oaks that once grew there. The cliff grew closer and closer every year, the waves working tirelessly to wash the land into the sea. I was alone on this edge of town—all of the other houses had long ago crumbled away, the sand littered with half-buried chunks of chimneys, windows and front porch steps.

The lists went from floor to ceiling; I used a step stool to reach the top. They encompassed an impressive array of topics: “Books to Read,” “Radio Shows I Enjoy and When They Air,” “Christmas Presents,” “Magazines to Subscribe To,” “Restaurants I Want to Visit,” and “Restaurants I Have Visited and What I Thought of Them,” with a system of stars for rating each restaurant experience. Some were repeated weekly, monthly or yearly; some were amended after being added to the wall.

Amelia said it was interesting for a woman like me to have this list-making “sickness,” because, I “really don’t have all that much to think about.”

“You’re one of those people that would make me sad if I saw you at a diner. I’d want to invite you over to my table. You’re that woman, Mom.”

But Amelia never invited me to her table.

She was nine when I started, and she hated it, but that didn’t surprise me—after her father left, she hated most of what I did. He was a train conductor and she loved him very much. When she was a toddler, she clumsily pedaled her tricycle next to him as he rode his bike, a long ash hanging from the cigarette in his hand. At dinnertime I’d watch for them as they came over the hill. Amelia loved his cigarettes; she loved the glow of fire.

The cliff was not so dangerous then.

Amelia easily convinced herself that it was healthier for her to cease worrying about my condition. She cut off communication to live a more fulfilling life, free from my “neurosis.”

But I was proud of my collection, proud of how productive, how organized, how multi-tasking I could be in my old age. “Patty,” I thought to myself, “you will stay sharp; you will keep your 11

mind in order; you will record everything.” My lists were my memories. I would never forget anything because it was all there, right in front of me.

The Inspectional Services Department sent people to poke around the cliff, and a week later, I received a letter from the chairwoman. “You have thirty days to evacuate the property,” she wrote, “and take up another residence.” The letter sat on my counter for twenty-nine days. I had nowhere else to go.

I placed my palm flat on the cool surface of the wall, cushioned with layers of paper, and then I clenched my hand into a fist. A chunk of yellow paper ripped away from the wall, the bottom layer speckled with mildew and mold and the edges brown from age. I stared at it, dropping it onto the living room floor.

I paused only a moment before I tore at the wall again, using both hands, pulling off tape with no concern for the chunks of plaster that came with it. Hours of meticulous planning turned to soiled clumps in my hands. The room smelled earthy, like mud, as a pile of pungent scraps grew on the living room floor. I used my stepstool to reach every piece. When I finished, my walls were a topographical map, textured from mildew and missing patches of plaster.

I planned on carrying the pile of scraps outside and having a bonfire, a ceremonial goodbye to my life’s work. When I opened the kitchen drawer to find a lighter, years of accumulated junk popped out: letters from old friends that I never answered, despite lists that read, “Answer Joe’s Letter,” or “Write Back to Margie”; birthday candles and party invitations from Amelia’s childhood that I never scrap-booked; old photos of myself in grade school, uniformed and pink-cheeked. I’d always meant to clean out those drawers. I found a lighter and a bottle of lighter fluid. The damp paper wouldn’t burn alone.

I sat at the kitchen table wishing Amelia could be here to see this; she always liked fire. Aided by the lighter fluid, the papers were quickly incinerated, years demolished into tiny bits of ash that flew around my face. They caught the armchair which lit the drapes and, within minutes, our little gray house was consumed by flames.

No one saw the house ablaze, embers flowing into the air as it slowly collapsed. No one noticed the chunks of brick and wood careening down the cliff. I was alone on the edge of the world.

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WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?  Kaity Davie

i have a knack for not letting go  of postcards  chipped plates  ex boyfriends  sticky notes

i leave bobby pins in my wake  drop pennies in my sleep  i don’t embody grace, i terrify it  coming in hot with two left feet and a lopsided grin

honestly, i’m more likely to come crashing through your bedroom window  than to show up knocking at your door  (the only knocking i want to do is to the “boots” you heard  your parents’ friends joking about when you were peering down the stairs)

i’m a magnet for avoidable disasters,  falling in love with every boy that has a strong nose and wrings his hands  i drink apple juice by the gallon, relishing the fresh bite  (the kinda bite that leaves marks around my neck, down my spine, up my thighs)

my hair has the potential to be  the drapes to your morning sun, the longest it has been  the lightest, the most ragged, the most unkempt it’s what you noticed first, wasn’t it?

(no. no, of course not.)

we locked eyes in a hopeless place and while i meant to shoot you daggers  instead i shot you poems  lines about softly caressing your cheek and nipping your lips  lines about crying myself to sleep and hiding behind another fucking metaphor  lines about what my subconscious wants to do to boys like you

sweet lord, how did we end up here tonight?  running your hands down my spine  (like that, exactly like that, christ)  is a one way ticket to being immortalized on a page,  and goddamn if your parents didn’t raise you better

i have a knack for not letting go  for holding on to an unlikely hope  fuck it, forever, i’m gonna be sorry.          13

FIRE IS THE OTHER ANIMAL  Howie Good

I live in the reign  of sparrows Bird tracks   make circles   in my palms What isn’t is We have left   bones in the forest  & dark swans   under the water

A collage based on Heather S.J. Steglia, Water Runs To What Is Wet (Burning Deck, 1980)

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FLOWERING TOBACCO  Jordan Rizzieri

On the night they sacrificed my Aunt  to the thing that's been living in the clouds  she wore a grey, worn Van Halen t-shirt and blue underpants.

Her moon face turned upwards  challenging the humidity to an arm wrestle  she knew her broom handles could never win.

They started a blaze of old dining room chairs,  my finger paint refrigerator art  and the dying branches of our family tree.

Before being consumed  by Zippo lighter tongues  from tailgate coals  she looked past my face into my head  and said:

“This place is barely alive.  Go find something worth dying for.”

She went off like a roman candle  and everyone cheered  but nothing happened.

They begged the sky for their daylight back,  gesturing wildly to the smoking remnants of my Aunt  which they’d selflessly donated.

Salty glycerin poured from the thing  that's been living in the clouds  and they begrudgingly  cleaned up the pieces.

The sun no longer stops here  on it’s way to the shore,  sure that we’ve closed up shop  and moved on.

The spring Nicotiana  has followed me to this city  and the blooms still carry  strands of her hair.

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KALISPEL TRIBEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S 39TH ANNUAL POWWOW, 2014 Misty Ellingburg

That day at the powwow, a tornado blew through the outdoor arboretum. The Caucasian spectators, who'd come to watch us Indians in our finery and feathers, were quick to get into their vehicles and skip town as soon as the wind blew hard, but all the dancers put on their regalia anyway, and the children played in the center of the dance circle while a drum group, all under ten years old, beat their drum and sang while the rain came, barreling through two teepees and upturning all our tents. The children's laughter kept us warm past the thunder, and even after the power went out, all the Indians were dancing, and the children were smiling as they cried out, "Hit-cha-a-a-a-!" and nobody was afraid. Â We had already survived the apocalypse; what was a little rain?

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NOAH’S ARK  Laura Herrin

Holding my hand out before me, fingers splayed, I cast a discerning eye towards each nail, checking for flaws in the crimson polish, before laying my palm out flat to affirm that there’s no telltale tremble. I straighten the red, white and blue flag pinned to my suit lapel. The call has been made. The military is in place. Soon, I will step into my oval office and inform a few select cabinet members that Operation Cleanse is underway. Time to pull the trigger. Push the button. Words far too cliché, too trite, for what is to come. I think of the men who have been in my position. These men thought they could control radicals with guns and threats, and they let things go too far. Too many small countries have slowly stockpiled bombs and increased their nuclear capabilities. These governments, with deep hatred for our people and little love for their own, have gained strength and numbers. Millions have been indoctrinated with a disdain for our way of life, “democracy” carrying the weight of a dirty word. Perhaps, at some point, the remedy could have been different, but less drastic measures will no longer suffice. Chaos, anarchy and death loom. The human race is on a course toward implosion. Glancing in the mirror, I tuck a stray hair back behind my ear and smooth an eyebrow. I recheck my notes, held neatly in their black leather binder. Bringing the air slowly into my mouth and down into my chest, I force my pulse to slow. Former leaders did not have the courage to save us and today, the responsibility is mine. The enemies of our people must be destroyed. I am prepared. I acknowledge the great suffering we are about to cause, but there is great suffering now. The sacrifice of life will be immense; however, it is the last resort to preserve life as we know it. The blasts around the globe will all take place within one hour’s time. In the end, roughly 73% of the earth’s population will remain—73% that will live in democracies, free from the constant threat of tyrannical governments and nuclear destruction. The others can no longer be our concern. My predecessors were too short-sighted to see the inevitable solution and too cowardly to initiate the necessary actions. I press a manicured finger to my lips and then to the glass covering the image of my little Taylor. I will do what the men could not. A mother always protects her own.

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TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATION, NO. 711  Duane Locke

Martin Heidegger has rightly said that language  Is the house of being, but our professors, priest-preachers,  The scientific-minded, and the slave mentalities who  Are our ordinary upright and respectable citizens Have turned our language from being the house of being  Into being a whore house. As I have often said that  The people speak a language of lies, and the telos of the poet  Is to turn the language of lies the people speak Into a language of truth. But the poets desiring prizes,  Publication, and popularity became poetasters and  Slavishly copied the language of lies that the people speak,  And thus authentic poetry is vanishing from the earth. Mallarme and I desired to purify the language of the tribe,  Mallarme went to Edgar Alan Poe, and I went to public park pond.  I thought watching the adorner of water, the fish  Could teach me how cleanse from language the lies people speak. I saw a bizarre men throwing food to the fish and not fishing.  His action were not only bizarre, but he was bizarre because  He had not uglified the natural texture of skin with slave mentality tattoos,  As all the fisherman who held reels with technologically decorated hooks. All the fish swam towards him, and I watched the fish turn  And flash silver scales from their sides and I was enchanted  By the harmonious music that was the shape of the fish bodies.  I felt a sense of wonder as I watched the fish. I observed that fish under water have different colors on their bodies  That are changed to a dull hue when forced out of water.  These underwater colors were thrilling, and decided I would  Come every day to study from these fish how to purify the language of the tribe.

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REDEFINING SUCCESS Jennifer Lombardo

My dad attended college and law school in the 70s and 80s, got a job with a law firm almost immediately after graduation and has been with the same company ever since. Over time, he's gradually ascended the ranks to become equivalent to a partner. He's constantly trying to tell me what I'm supposed to do in order to succeed.  My dad has my best interests at heart, but what he doesn't understand is that things are different today. Gone are the days when a college degree guaranteed you a job. Today, there are too many college graduates competing for too few jobs, and college degrees have replaced high school degrees as the minimum job requirement. If you don't qualify for a scholarship, you need to take out thousands of dollars in student loans just to give yourself the bare minimum requirements for a job. Those loans can take years to pay back and put college graduates at a disadvantage immediately after graduation. College has become a for-profit business, taking thousands of dollars from students who have no other choice if they want to get a job in most professions.  The work environment is different than it was 30 years ago. Today's graudates have two basic paths to choose from. The first is to land a good job (although not necessarily their first choice) and then hop from company to company. This can actually be a more lucrative option for today's workers, but it's far less stable and much more stressful.  The second choice is to take any job they can get, regardless of whether it's what they went to school for, and continue to apply for something they really want. The problem with this is that it's becoming harder and harder to find jobs. As previously mentioned, there are a lot of people competing for very few job openings. Candidates are expected to turn a one-page cover letter into an opportunity to show that they are more unique than hundreds of other recent graduates with the exact same qualifications. Some companies are now requiring several years of experience even for entry-level jobs, ensuring that students who were not able to participate in several internships over the course of their college careers will be disqualified.  All of these problems are struggles that Millenials know far too well. Yet many members of the older generation persist in thinking that things are the way they remember when they were trying to get a job: work hard and get good grades, go to college and learn how to do well in an interview, and you're guaranteed a job.  The fact is that no one is guaranteed a job anymore. However, the one bright spot in this mess is that there is no longer a “supposed to” for Millenials. In the past, you were “supposed to” go to college and get a good job; that was the only way to be considered successful. Today, “supposed to” can be anything. You can telecommute; travel the world; take odd jobs; quit a poisonous job and accept a position at a different company; or find what you love and stick with it for years. The uncertainty of the job market can be Millenials' biggest asset – it can give us the freedom to define for ourselves what we're “supposed to” do.

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OKLAHOMA  Misty Ellingburg

Don't you think it would be beautiful  if we laid ourselves down in the tall grass of Oklahoma and taught ourselves how to forget?  I imagine myself in a sundress sprawling sunflowers and the clear sky blue overhead,  clouds so hard they look like the whites of your eyes when you smile,  You smile hard.

My friends, they say we won't be lonely anymore now the bomb dropped  covering everything we'd known in silence.  I still imagine sunflowers.  I pretend we're in Little House on the Prairie, where the little girl wears two braids.  An Indian puts a claw around her neck but they have to leave anyway -the Indians and the girl.  In my dream we don't have to leave; we don't even have to eat.  But sometimes, barefoot, we run into the creek, pull our dresses about our knees.  Sometimes I kiss you there.

Here I'm always needlepoint stitching I love you on coffee-stained napkins,  and seeing you in your black dress backless is akin to chewing glass, but blood can double as  iron lipstick and you said beauty was spawned from pain, didn't you say that?

I ask myself if it's worth it, imagining skyscapes and hills that look like skyscrapers.  Everywhere there we aren't lonely anymore, and in the tall grass, we forget even silence.

But isn't L.A. a beautiful woman?  And Hollywood Boulevard is dirt-soaked and sweat-stained, soaked in the stench of old dreams and lost causes,  but you're headed toward your star.  I never thought of dating a jazz singer before you turned up, bright wild and dazzling.  The Hollywood hills cast long shadows.  Remember to breathe, to breathe when you sing.

I wonder if you'll remember me.  Because I'm hopping that train to Oklahoma.  I'm going back to the Indian reservation.  They'll all know me there.

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THE THIRD CONVERSATION Kelsey Dean

“Who are you?” asks the caterpillar, and I try to say my name.   The A won’t come out and it blocks up all the other letters and I choke. “Who are you?” he says and he is angry and he has purple lips that shake. I forget, my name isn’t Alice—Alice was a spiteful lady who liked to gossip with schoolgirls and hated foreigners. She had salty Frenchfry fingers and she cared about what color the sequins on our swimsuits were and she grew icicles in her eyebrows when we were late. Then I remember that the rabbit wasn’t white, it was black and it died when I was nine and all it left behind was a skeleton and a Hawaiian name. There was a funeral and we drank tea with lots of sugar that made my mouth feel dry; I think there are flowers growing out of its bones now, but my name doesn’t start with A so they don’t sing when I walk by them. I broke my watch when I dived into the ocean—I couldn’t stand for my skin to be crawling with air for another second and the water all around me tasted like tears, maybe Alice’s. The cat that lives under my bed disappears sometimes but it never smiles. There are bird feathers nesting in a disorderly pile because the cat only eats the fleshy bits, and the queen doesn’t need those little songbirds for her games. But the caterpillar is spewing smoke at me and he will eat me up like the cat and I will become a pile of songbird feathers under the bed if I don’t answer him. “Not Alice,” I tell the caterpillar.

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POINTLESS WEIRDNESS  Howie Good

1  Whatever is obsolete is free for the taking. I have a box full of photographs I've taken of clouds! The process is one of clinging to outlaw fragments floating around me. Pointless weirdness gets old fast, but I can’t help myself. Buddy Holly looked right at my mother at the show in Duluth three days before the plane crash.

2  While waiting in the express lane (a serious misnomer!) at the supermarket, I study the candy rack and then the magazines, my eyes catching on the cover of People, even though none of the names in the megawatt rainbow lettering are familiar to me, or their disembodied faces either, and I’m struck, not for the first time, by our casual insertions into ideological circuits, but mostly by the fact that I’m somewhere on the fringes of an ever-moving mass, like the sick and the weak and the slow, easy meals for lions and hyenas.

3  We stop in front of the stained glass of Abraham raising the knife. Who is that, you ask, Elijah? The exhibit goes on for another five white, sterile rooms. Behind every work of art lies an uncommitted crime, Abraham grasping Isaac’s hair. It’s the season’s hottest trend, an ongoing crisis of representation, populated by ghosts and old men. I have a hole in my head I want you to fill with a tongue kiss.

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STUDY FOR SALESMEN Matthew Vasilauskas

Block lent us his car, his overcoat, and a hand in a formaldehyde jar. The owner of the hand had long been forgotten, but it was supposed to be lucky. There had been a real surge in Otwan production, and we wanted to capitalize on it. Otwan was, well—I’d say indescribable but important. Its scent made life bearable; a smell of washed fabric that traverses a rising chest and bubbles in the shifting amber of memory. We took the stuff door-to-door in the more influential neighborhoods, the ones Block had picked. The other salesman let me do the talking, with most of the conversations sounding the same. “Are you aware of the many benefits of Otwan?” “I really don’t have time right now.” “I notice you have a twitch. It has all the signs of being life-threatening.” “I have to attend to a baby.” “This will cure that. It cures everything.” It was the age of heads, doorways containing the rattling echo of exhausted truth. Decades had passed since a proper summer, but I didn’t really mind. Block’s car was perfect for winter, housing the hypnotic swirl of captured breath. As time went on, we received leads that sent us from areas of influence to areas of confusion. We began dodging flaming garbage and the occasional urine-filled aquarium. I was constantly being reassigned to different partners; something about a “yawn that depressed.” Eras meshed, and I saw my adolescent self in the street-light gleam of silhouettes marching through snow. Sales picked up. “I’m going to send it to the boys who are still over there.” “You’re doing a real service, and you won’t regret it.” “What did you say it’s called again? Ottawa?” I looked back through the frost on Block’s car, and watched as the hand turned upside down.

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CLOVER, BOLDLY  Lindsay Herko

At other grandparent’s tables, over wane supper syrup in licorice or chocolate we hear the wild boars are invading Florida. We hear about “throwed rolls” on tour bus trips through the Ozarks, we hear about how the spackle between the bricks of Paula Deen’s restaurant in Savannah asks even the cooking oil from the creatures outside to float in and make things upsetting to a slaw-needing Germanic stomach. My Uncle Rick talks about which lighthouse capes in the Thousand Islands collect the ring fingers or Land’s End wearing bodies thrown out by mobsters. I wonder what it is like in vacation town, to wake up in a heat that’s jumped the shark and see through those grill lines of heat rising on the road, between the lake, the Lawrence and the crowded breakfast buffet called Beefers, that beyond the tides of boat motor oil in the water and the essences of fish – that kneecaps may be coming up to float, to turn and gear their own wave patterns, as they move like a slow crawling blimp around a peninsula. Everyone else, rather, elevate themselves, with dreams of feeling the black dark of wilderness battled by the light of the DaVinci Code playing at the drive in theatre – it is a dark that knits us with the Adirondacks and the New England sloughs of forest, making us feeling eternal, yet in an eternity that is similarly propelled by Stephen King books rowing the vacation reading industry and making Maine and the north east have a different crest of meaning, we cannot bring into our own lives. Is the Stephen King aesthetic the Hieronymus Bosch of our spare era? And in the mornings we dream of waking in the sun steered hallways of the Cape Vincent or Clayton souvenir shops

our eternity feeling like Norman Rockwell figures – as we buy hollow legged porcelain fisherfolk and let our children buy cedar boxes with cheap red velvet interiors – places for them to nasally retreat to – on future fall days, awaiting thunderstorms to finish their homework. But at breakfast, feeling anxious by the scores of people often in white or khaki, looking happier and better adjusted to pummel bacon, maple and ascorbic acids from OJ, all of us have Boldt Castle aspirations, draining off an ill humor of thinking of knee caps in the water. We want to see the island that serves as a second wedding ring. We want to believe in the migration of things beyond what migration has become – geese must be replaced by the time where hoteliers went inland. When an hotelier could be so charmed by the presence of a wife, he quietly assumed the role of building castles, alongside his hotelier peers also coming up with wild love gifts. He did not compare or contrast. To so and so somebody who created a fancy catalogue in his wife’s name where you could order gifts as big as an ice cream regatta by the Taj Mahal or a giraffe to offset the look of your NYC’s apartment’s spiral staircase. The children want to know about the children. Want to go into the hen house that became a playhouse. Want to sink their shoulders backwards in a cottage tub that is always used for showers and take a bath for an hour, feeling the breeze change from a crack in the window that must always stay down to not show off nakedness- want to think of what it would be like to dive underwater as Clover Boldt. The daughter. 25

Did Clover ever go swimming in Heart Island waters? Just like using the tub for a bath breaks some sort of utilitarian vacation order – it seems unlikely Clover’s body would ever be that undressed from looking like a human cloud or fuzzy blanket from the Shetlands, to go into the world of brown weeds under blue waters. To ever loose equilibrium in the Lilliputian of the waves. You would give Clover Boldt your experience of inner ear infections as a real gift, if you could reincarnate her from your grandparent’s drain. Plant this house next to your Green Gables

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A LOVE SONG FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE CHICKEN DANCER Misty Ellingburg

When you were seven years old, I watched you throw rocks, hurl kid insults and laugh with the other pre-k's, swing a baseball bat into another child's stomach and run.

I was fourteen and captivated by the yellowy-blonde boy's wild eyes when he carried a pigskin; the smell of brown skin like sweat, wet.

Now brown skin smells of sweetgrass and sage. It smells like the calm after the rain.

When you were a child, you hit another child in the stomach with a baseball bat. How was I supposed to know over a decade later I'd have the wind knocked out of me, too, the next time I saw you.

2. A list of boys or men (dead or living) I have intended to fall in love with:

a. Martin Freeman  b. any Doctor, ever  c. Langton Hughes  d. the dentist, even with his fingers in my mouth - blue latex gloves and thumb pressed into my cheek, my (as he calls it) "excessive saliva" dripping down his hand

3. A list of girls or women (dead or living) I have intended to fall in love with:

a. Desirae Hafer  b. any jazz singer (see a)  c. Lana Del Rey (see b)  d. the Shawl Dancer from last week's powwow who didn't place because her outfit wasn't as pretty as the others, but whose high kicks and war paint made me feel brave.

4. A list of people I have not intended to fall in love with, but did anyway (dead or living)

a. You.

It goes without saying you are too young for me.

I have tried not to notice you when you sit across from me at work, singing Salish low under your breath, drum chants and tribal songs, or when you say the name of your tribe proud and deep, surfing Facebook, putting all the spit into the hard consonants, utilizing that archaic glottal stop, "Qalispe."

I know your father is the cultural director and Language lead.  27

I know I am only a part-Indian from another tribe whose white skin tells no tales.

So when I see you see me I look away. Of course I look away.

You do not see me very often.

Desire makes me flushed in the face. I try to capture my thoughts and tuck them in secret places, in my bra, under my belt loops, in the empty spaces of my drawstring purse. But each time I see you, they flush my face again, they fill me with shame and excitement, and I am vulnerable to your youth and beauty.

This weekend we danced together in your tribe's powwow, and I wore my tribal colors and on the hard honor beats of the drum, I raised my fan into the air. I smelled like the sage I burned. I smelled like smudging and smoke and white leather and beadwork and fry bread and Pepsi and

the otter furs I wore in my hair and

at last I felt that I could look at you - and so when you danced, I watched you, the proud swoop of your neck and your shoulder-length black hair course and

I watched your eyes when you danced and the quick, pecking movements of your chin, the way you carried the staff and bag with stiff arms bent at the elbow and broad shoulders, with your jingling fur-capped ankles and the orange beads looped under your eyes and your feathered roach headdress and I felt worthy to look at you, then, with my own Eagle feathers high and proud

I wanted you to see me.

Sometimes when I danced I felt your eyes on me. I tried to dance harder, then, to get the swift up-down movements of Traditional dancers right, to look like All That is Woman since you are All That Is Man.

I don't know how well I did.

When I notice people notice me, I pretend not to see, refuse to acknowledge them in their curious approval. Sometimes I think this is why I will die alone. But it's out of self-preservation and the fear of shame that I do it.

10.

If you notice me, I mean, really notice me, I won't look away.

Editorial Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jordan Rizzieri is the 90's-loving, extremely tall founder of The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society. After a having brief love affair with Western New York, Jordan now resides on Long Island, NY. She holds a degree from SUNY Fredonia in Theatre Arts (aka lying before an audience) with a minor in English (aka lying on paper). Jordan briefly experimented with playwriting (The Reunion Cycle - 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival) and her mother's primary caregiver for over two years. She has been running a caregiver's blog on her experiences since 2011, as well as publishing essays on the topic. Now, Jordan spends her daylight hours arguing with her boyfriend's cats and at night takes on the identity of Pyro & Ballyhoo's sassiest critic, The Lady J. When she's not watching pro-wrestling or trying to decide what to order at the local bagel shop, she is listening to Prince and writing letters to her pen pals. Feel free to contact her with questions about the Attitude Era, comic book plot lines involving Harley Quinn, The Twilight Zone and the proper spelling of braciola.

FICTION EDITOR Alecia Lynn Eberhardt is a writer and editor working out of a little blue cabin in the Catskill Mountains. After receiving a writing degree in Boston, she fled to New York City before quickly realizing she'd rather have dirt under her fingernails from the garden than from the subway. She founded Eberhardt Smith, whose projects include Diner Porn and Catskill Made, with her partner-in-crime, Tom Smith. She is the copyeditor for Architizer and a staff writer and women's health curator at Luna Luna Magazine. You can find her drinking white wine and dancing in the kitchen with one Dachshund and one

pleasantly plump cat.

NON-FICTION EDITOR Jennifer Lombardo, Buffalo, NY resident, works full time at a hotel in order to support her travel habit. She graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in English in the hope of becoming an editor. When she isn't making room reservations for people, she reads, cross-stitches and goes adventuring with her friends. She is especially passionate about AmeriCorps, Doctor Who and the great outdoors. Ask her any question about grammar, but don't count on her to do math correctly.

POETRY EDITOR Bee "Internet Coquette" Walsh is a New York-native living in Bedford–Stuyvesant. She graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2010 with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.S. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Reciting her two majors and two minors all in one breath was a joke she told at parties. The English Department played a cruel trick on her and pioneered a Creative Writing track her final year, but she charmed her way into the Publishing course and became Poetry Editor for the school’s literary magazine, The Trident. Bee has spent the past three years trying different cities on for size and staring into the faces of people in each of them who ask her about her "career goals." An Executive Assistant in high-fashion by day, you can find her most nights working with the V-Day team to stop sexual violence against women and young girls, eating vegan sushi in the West Village or causing mischief on roofs. Run into her on the subway, and she'll be nose deep in a book. She holds deep feelings about politics, poise, and permutations. Eagerly awaiting winter weather and warm jackets, she’d love to talk to you about fourth-wave feminism, the tattoo of the vagina on her finger, or the Oxford comma.

Contributors  Adam Kane is a pop-culture enthusiast, essayist, and recovering actor living and working in Boston. You can follow him on Twitter, where he tweets about the Red Sox, Syracuse basketball and the line at Starbucks.

Kelsey Dean's communications degree has been put to good use over the last few years as she has traveled, painted, and practiced her creative writing around the world. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that Weave Magazine was willing to publish a drawing of hers earlier this year, and her artwork and/or writing has since appeared in 3Elements Review, Glint Literary Journal, and on the cover of Falling Star Magazine. She is from Michigan, but despite her love for her home state she is rarely there for more than a few months at a time. Her artwork can be seen here.

Misty Ellingburg is a Shoalwater Bay Indian from the coast of Western Washington. Her great loves include Tribal Journeys, teaching English Comp, and writing grants. Her work has appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, the Rag, eFiction Review, Specter Magazine, Hello Horror, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and 100 Word Story, to name a few. Misty is currently working toward her MFA at the University of Idaho, class of 2016. Find her at mfaconfessions.wordpress.com, and at fourwindslitmag.org.

Bee Walsh is a 25-year old New York City native living in Brooklyn. Her work has been published in Vagina :: The Scene and the SPZCE Love Book, as well as a few spots online here and there. She is the Executive Assistant the the Publisher of Harper's BAZAAR as well as the Poetry Editor of The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society. In all of that down time, she volunteers like a mad-woman for VDAY.

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois’ poems and fictions have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He is a regular contributor to The Prague Revue, and has been thrice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for 99 cents from Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition.

Lindsay Herko’s fiction has appeared in Caketrain and Sundog Lit, while articles about getting an MFA in lady-in-white studies or sending one’s prom dress to Bill Knott’s academic address can be found on Gruel Child or Montevidayo. While studying creative writing at Notre Dame her work began exploring the yearning spaces between longing for embodiment or disembodiment; fictions often spawning companion story-songs in winterized parking lots by statues of saints. At home again in Rochester, New York, her interests have oriented toward the beauty and telepathy of family trees and many days are spent at play in or around Lake Ontario as well as its deserted state park cabins, making companionate visual art and music for her writing. Tumble after or blue bird with her.

Dalton Day is a terrified dog person who edits FreezeRay Poetry. He has work in Banango Street, Plain Wrap’s Quarter, and Jellyfish among others. He is the author of Supernova Factory, as well as the forthcoming Fake Knife. He can be found on Tumblr and on Twitter.

Alecia Lynn Eberhardt is logophile and a library bandit based in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. She co-founded Eberhardt Smith, a creative company, with her partner-in-crime. She is the copywriter at Paperkite Creative and she regularly writes and edits for Catskill Made, Diner Porn, and Luna Luna Magazine, among others. See her portfolio at alecialynn.com.

Kaity Davie is an overly enthusiastic gal taking on the world of the ever-changing music industry, talking music by day and lurking venues, NYC parks, and public libraries by night. She keeps her sanity by writing rambling lines of prose and celebrating the seasonal flavors of Polar Seltzer. You can join in on her adventures on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.

Howie Good's latest book of poetry is The Complete Absence of Twilight (2014) from MadHat Press. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely, who does most of the real work.

Jordan Rizzieri is an antevasin - a border-dweller. She precariously teeters on the line between madcap scribbler, wicked superfan, future game-changer, furious blogger, and stone fox. When she's not combining adjectives with nouns, she's sending out saucy e-mails as Editor-In-Chief of The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society and dishing out heavy doses of angry-girl feminism to the Internet Wrestling Community. She accepts sacrificial lambs and arguments about the proper spelling of "braciole" at her website.

Laura Herrin graduated with a BA in English, then, forgetting she was writer, practiced law for a number of years. Having regained her memory, she now spends her days in the creative stupor of writing. She lives with her three small muses in Georgia.

Duane Locke lives hermetically in Tampa, Florida near Anhinga, Herons, Gallinules, Alligators and other sacred things. He has had 6,907 different poems published in 32 books. He is also a photographer of nature (The Sacred) and Surphotos. His latest book, THE FIRST DECADE, 1968-1978, contains his first 11 books. It is published by Bitter Oleander and can be ordered from Amazon.

Jennifer Lombardo graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in English in the hope of becoming an editor. Some of her greatest joys in life are reading, cross-stitching and traveling the world. She is especially passionate about AmeriCorps, Doctor Who and the great outdoors. Ask her any question about grammar, but don't count on her to do math correctly.

Matthew Vasiliauskas is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago. In 2009, he was awarded the Silver Dome Prize by the Illinois Broadcast Association for best public affairs program as producer of the Dean Richards Show at WGN Radio. His work has appeared in publications such as Stumble Magazine, The University Of Wyoming’s Owen Wister Review and The Pennsylvania Review. Matthew currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

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