side b Issue 01 Summer 2010
Something in the Air Julie Gallup
On the Cover: Broken Wings, Julie Gallup
issue 01
| contents
Departments 05| Submissions 42| Contributors
Features 16| 30| 40|
Portfolio: Alessandra “Sasha” Goodfriend Interview By Brittney Brown
Interview: The Books & Writing Lives of Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett Interview By Fiona Kyle
Music: Julian Baptista
Poetry 07| 08| 14| 28| 37|
She and I Dance Fiona Kyle
The Cure for Gentleness is Insomnia Nikki Birdwell
Malus Domestica Brittany Goodwin
Adult
Christy Tomecek
Homonecropedophilia Sarah Adler
Fiction 10| 38|
Bennigton Kate Fisher
Addiction
Nidya Sarria
Photography 06| 09| 14|
Kimera Wachna Julie Gallup
(also: 29, 35, 36, 39)
Christina Piña
side b Issue 01/Summer 2010 Editor-in-Chief Nidya Sarria Managing Editor Christina Piña Executive Editors Fiona Kyle Tia Mansouri Brittney Brown Associate Editors Kate Fisher Nikki Birdwell Design Brittney Brown www.sidebmag.com
4
Side B • Issue 01
our mission
...is simple: we hope to nurture the creative spark of artists too old to dabble,
but too young to have achieved significant recognition.
Too often, young artists are discouraged from pursuing their work. Side B seeks to
change that. We are community collaborative project for emerging artists under thirty.
We publish an eponymous quarterly magazine, which seeks to showcase talented
writers, poets, artists, photographers, and musicians across the world.
Throughout the year, we also run a blog, which hopes to educate, entertain, and
inspire our primary audience of young artists. Written by our talented twentysomething year old staff, our blog is updated on a daily basis.
Want to be part of the movement? Submit your work to submissions@sidebmag.com Prose: We’re primarily looking for short stories, but will consider excerpts from novels, screenplays, and stage plays. Our focus is on work below 8,000 words. Email us with the subject line “Prose Submission.” Poetry: All types of poetry will be considered, with no definitive line limit. Email us with the subject line “Poetry Submission.” Art: We are looking for original pieces of art, including but not limited to sketches, drawings, paintings, (photographs of) sculpture or mixed media, and photography. Email us with the subject line “Art Submission.” Music: We’re looking for iTunes compatible demos of work by young and up-coming musicians. Email us with the subject line “Music Submission.”
Next Deadline: November 13th
Side B • Issue 01
5
Kimera Wachna
6
Side B • Issue 01
She and I Dance by Fiona Kyle
To jump, to dance. I step, bird on wire, toward a future that burns and falls. I leapt. Pouring onto the pavement, suture the sidewalk cracks, seething blood hairline fracture, ossifying into pewter. Once gloved: I wash my hands in your mud my lover washes his face in my dirty dish water as Ophelia’s Flood, Noah’s white dove gather at his feet collecting technicolor fish radioactive buzzing waves reach, reflect to my deep blue sky, the ledge as my gift. My lover’s forked tongues sing in dialect humming through my bones what’s dead: the flying parts of me he can’t protect. She reaches up to me from the flowerbed as I dance cross a plane’s expanse at my undrenched heel, mother said, “Wear your socks!” uneven stance weight shift, feint down, she bites at my ankles, my vision enhanced in the vividness of combat, kites balloons try to reach us in the lights.
Side B • Issue 01
7
The Cure for Gentleness is Insomnia by Nikki Birdwell I lower my hands, as dust settling on wood floors. silent and not sighing, slowly daring my gypsum eyes to roll as rocks down the steep walls of a ravine. I am downtown breaking and entering the house of squatters, squabblers. In this hollow womb of a ritzy cafe owned building. I can only sing until the air has all escaped from my pink, doll house lungs. I could take my hands, make fists to pound flour into flat cakes of some violent knowledge. I can form my tiny paws into trowels to scoop out the earth to make wet sandcastles, dirt mound libraries. Yes, this is better than the pummel of small hammers. And I lower my hands as if they were dust sailing on the wind. Singing arias to quiet the loft dwellers, to quiet the homeless politicians, to quiet the sawtooth naysayers of the dark Pre-Cambrian sea, to quiet my own willow-blue teacup heart. And now I can sleep in that cabin I built out of gentleness and pine.
8
Side B • Issue 01
Unfold Julie Gallup
Side B • Issue 01
9
Bennington by Kate Fisher A cool autumn
day. Her favorite. Something about the crisp air and the crunch crunch of the leaves beneath her boots gives her a rekindled sense of vitality. Shoving her hands deeper into her pockets, she pokes a manicured finger through the hole of the corduroy jacket’s lining and finds a yellow post-it note. She hates post-its. Her mother used to leave them for her in various places, with perfectly printed messages: “Did you study for AP Calculus?” and “You have Pilates on Tuesday. Don’t be late.” The square paper she now holds is wrinkled, soft. Unfolding it, she finds the scribbled message: I love you. It’s not from her mother. And then she remembers and forages for the memories crumpled up in the pockets of her mind.
* * * She met him on a mid-October day not unlike this one. There were pumpkins. Colossal. Swollen. Waiting to be sculpted into sneering, grinning faces immediately forgotten and left to rot come the first of November. Bennington, Vermont, is the antithesis of frenetic, insomniac Manhattan. Which is why, at the age of nineteen, Claire Taylor woke up one morning, packed a bag, took the subway to the Port Authority and stumbled onto the first Greyhound bus she saw. She knew she was being impulsive. It was part of the appeal. Claire Taylor is not a spontaneous person. She was raised to be predictable, follow rules, study hard, and live up to the image of the perfect daughter her parents projected onto her, a vehicle through which they could realize their unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Unfinished business. Claire Taylor had just begun her second 10
semester of her freshman year at Columbia University, her parents home thirty blocks south and across the park, when she broke down. Her academic advisor said it was the pressure; her psychiatrist said it was the adjustment; her personal trainer said it was the freshman-fifteen. Her parents said it was incompetence. Claire Taylor thought it was boredom. New York City is not an environment conducive to raising a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child. Claire Taylor, however, was raised not by her parents but by a series of nannies who took her to classes in art, French, ballet, tennis, and fencing. She did not excel in any of these areas. When she turned twelve, the nannies were replaced by a personal trainer, a nutritionist, a psychiatrist, and tutors specializing in every academic field, AP exams, and the SAT. And after years of being alone while never being alone, she decided it was not worth it, did not help, what was the point, and decided to leave. That is how Claire Taylor ended up in Bennington. She found a room to rent in a boarding house and obtained her first job as a waitress at a squalid diner. She learned to coax tips from patrons by leaving the top button of her shirt undone and exposing a sliver of thigh. And underneath her grease-stained, fluorescent-yellow polyester uniform, she wore silk underpinnings, purchased in Bergdorf Goodman’s lingerie department. Souvenirs. Mementos. Her employer, Bob Marciano, an older man who wore a black toupee made of shellac and whose requisite for hiring was a C-cup or larger, taught her how to be a waitress, how to balance orders of cheeseburgers, onion rings, disco fries, club sandwiches, and bowls of congealed soup, how to water down the soda, how
Side B • Issue 01
to tell who is drunk, who is a drunkard, and who is medicine cabinet. He tells her he loves her, that he an alcoholic. could never live without her, that she is an angel On Sundays, she wandered through Power’s fresh from a Botticelli painting. “Like the ones in Market, a miscellany of kiosks selling books, the Met?” she asks. But he does not know, knows produce, flowers, jewelry. And that is where Claire only that she is his oxygen. Taylor met him. She was reading “The Love She learned to coax tips from patrons by leaving Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” at a used-book stall when he asked the top button of her shirt undone and exposing her for a light. She told him she a sliver of thigh. didn’t smoke; neither did he. He was a musician. A pianist. Lanky and flaxen-haired, he twisted his stubble-framed Claire Taylor is in love. Something she mouth into a gentle smirk and asked if her drank never thought possible because children of the coffee. Claire Taylor did drink coffee but had not Upper East Side raised as adults are jaded, do not had a good cup since leaving her home where a fall in love with strangers. They are taught to be Starbucks could be found in any given three-block cynics, skeptics, nonbelievers, passive participants radius. Lips parted, she nodded, bewildered. Let who live peripherally. She had known human us go then, you and I. experience, had known that love was not a part of it. * * * Standing in front of the bathroom mirror one morning, she examines the dark circles under her She follows him in and out of the eyes: purple, crescent moons that are beginning stalls, watching his every move, glance, object he to fade. She hears him playing a Rachmaninoff grazes with his long, graceful hands: the porcelain concerto and closes her eyes, envisioning his hands doll in a sailor suit, the petal of a rose, an antique moving along the ivory keys, longing for the feel of door knob, a peach. A calloused finger finds its that caress on her skin. She knows every inflection, way around an errant curl, sprung free from the every crescendo by heart. She uses her pinkie prior hold of her mother’s straightening iron. He nail to scrape off the crusted drool running from turns her face to his. tells her she’s beautiful, and the corner of her mouth to her chin and find his places his chapped lips at the corner of her mouth. reflection beside hers in the mirror. She is wearing He asks her to be here the same time next week one of his shirts, a coffee-stained, threadbare and walks away, smiling at the children picking button-down. He leans down, closing the six pumpkins. Her breath catches in her throat, her inches between them, and moves the shirt away, chest tightens, her heart pounds, cocoons explode placing his lips on her shoulder for a brief moment. in her stomach, releasing hoards of butterflies. His eyes find hers in the mirror and a smile plays Claire Taylor is a cliché. A cliché who is half in love. at the corners of his mouth. She falls into him, She meets him the next week and the next memorizing his scent. and the next. He is her constant, the market, Claire Taylor wakes up, goes to work, walks Vermont, her rebirth. He defines her and the around, goes home, goes to sleep, and repeats. choices she makes. He gives her a key to his She stays at his apartment sometimes and they eat apartment, makes room for her toiletries in his bowls of cereal for dinner and sit next to each
Side B • Issue 01
11
other on the couch, not saying anything but staring into space. She tries to think of things to say but fails. There is nothing to say, no witty repartee. She wonders why she has nothing to say to the man she loves, why he has nothing to say to her. He is sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a mug – the one she bought him, a cheap thing with musical notes on it – of black coffee when she asks, “Why?” He looks up at her, eyes crinkled, inquisitive. “Why what?” “You don’t know me. You don’t know who I am. I could be insane. Maybe I am insane. I could be a serial killer, planning to murder you in your sleep. Strangle or suffocate you or something. You don’t know anything about me,” she pauses out of breath, sharply inhales, and chokes down the bile rising in her throat. “Why me?” His expression doesn’t change as he sets his coffee down and slowly replies, “Why not?” Claire Taylor does not know what she is feeling, does not know whether to be comforted or relieved or offended. She does not understand, cannot understand but needs to, needs to know what is going on, needs to understand why she is here, what she is doing here. She can find no
back into a familiar pattern of behavior: questioning the good, the seemingly perfect, the happiness and then stealthily invading it, destroying it from the inside out. She is a suicide bomber of emotions, of physical and mental health. She wonders if this is healthy, if Bennington is really that different from home. Claire Taylor is a cliché who has just discovered that it is impossible to run away, that problems cannot be eluded. That shacking up with some slacker musician in Bumblefuck, Vermont, is admitting defeat. She buys a pack of cigarettes and finds a bench, still damp from melted snow, where she sits and smokes one after another, coughing as she feels her lungs blacken, and studies the smoke as it furls, mingling with her warm breath in the cold air. She finds her way back to his apartment and gently closes the door to find him sitting where she had left him. “You’re back,” he says, not bothering to look at her. “Yes.” “Did you have a nice time?” “We had a fight,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “No,” he replies calmly. “You had a soliloquy.” He breaks the few moments of the ensuing silence, “Have you been smoking?” “You don’t care, do you?” “About what?” She squints her eyes shut and pinches the “Anything,” she sighs, defeated, and bridge of her nose, grabs her coat and slams the sits down across from him, placing her head in her hands. If she were the sort door. He does not follow her. of person who cried, she would. But explanation. And that scares her. She squints her she can’t. She won’t. eyes shut and pinches the bridge of her nose, grabs He studies her for a minute and she wants her coat and slams the door. He does not follow to punch that stupid smirk off his face. She wants her. to tell him that this isn’t funny, that nothing about She shivers as she pushes against the this is funny, and how dare he find her distress unforgiving March wind that causes her eyes to tear. amusing. How dare he let her amount to nothing. She should have seen this coming. She should have How dare he let her stay here with him. She feels known better. Claire Taylor is a fool and retreats his hands on her shoulders. She does not know
12
Side B • Issue 01
whether to be disgusted or soothed. “That’s not true,” he whispers into her hair. The room starts to spin and she feels drunk. She has lost control of her senses and relaxes her body, letting him support her as she tries to will herself to believe that this man, who was not so long ago a complete stranger, could care about her. Could love her. Claire Taylor does not sleep that night. She stares at the ceiling and thinks about nothing because there is nothing to think about. She is suspended in time, in space. She looks at the clock, the glowing red digits reading 3:27 AM. She looks at him, lying prostrate next to her, unmoving. She wonders if he is dead, almost hopes that he is dead and does not feel guilty. She finds her coat in the kitchen, his cup of coffee still on the table. She throws the mug against the wall. It shatters and the cold, brown-black liquid oozes down the wall. She searches the kitchen cabinets for a pen, for something to write on, finds a post-it, writes a message, sticks it on the refrigerator, slams the door, walks to the street, turns around, goes back into the house, rips the post-it off of the refrigerator, stuffs it into her pocket, slams the door, walks to the street, heads south to the bus depot, to home. Claire Taylor hails a taxi outside the Port Authority and directs the driver to 74th and Park. Looking out the window, she watches the people zoom past even though it is she who is zooming. There one second, gone the next, each face more forgettable than the last. She rolls down the window and smells the hot-dogs being sold on every other corner, hears the construction workers shouting on every other block, senses the glares of the surly doormen and canopies, mocking her, almost as if whispering in her ear, “We told you so.” Two months later, Claire Taylor is living in an apartment that her parents bought her on 105th and Riverside and back at Columbia University, taking summer classes to make up for lost time. Time that is just that: lost.
Side B • Issue 01
13
Christina Piña
14
Side B • Issue 01
Malus Domestica by Brittany Goodwin
Two of my lovers were impotent My new one wears a map I sit and count the conquests And lick the lines of meridian Sweet salivation drips Away he goes Submerged in water Taste and retract Bobbing for apples Candied, candied apples If Eve loved women as much as he Her apple would not have come from tree Branch and vine Are quite divine But unsurpassed Are flesh and sash You never knew her like you knew me You never held her like you held me Sleep, sleep, ash & rum For I am apples, she a plum
Side B • Issue 01
15
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
16
Side B • Issue 01
Portfolio: Alessandra “Sasha” Goodfriend An interview by Brittney Brown
A recent graduate of the NYC Lab School, Alessandra “Sasha” Goodfriend has more travel experience than most individuals twice her age. She’s set to attend Boston University this fall where she’ll major in international relations with an eye towards women’s studies and becoming a social studies teacher. Her greatest ambition is to eventually establish a school in Latin America focused on bolstering self-confidence and independence within young girls.
Can you give us some background on these photos? How did you come to find yourself in such varied and interesting locales? All of the photos, I’ve taken in my travels with my mom during the last three years. My mom was born with the need to travel and I have been lucky enough to tag along on her adventures. I first traveled abroad when I was only 6 weeks old, spent my first birthday in Guatemala (where I’ve been back 14 times), have spent more than 3 and a half years cumulatively abroad to over 40 countries. Photographing, wandering, bargaining, smiling, talking, learning to understand and explore different cultures is in my blood. During almost every school vacation a week long we take a few days of school off at each end, book a plane ticket somewhere and with only our backpack and Lonely Planet guide book take off and get lost. My mom has been almost everywhere so she knows where to take me and friendly locals love to show us around their home town and I follow eagerly, photographing along the way. Was it a challenge to photograph complete strangers or were they receptive to the presence of a camera? I’ve learned almost everything about photographing from my mom. People will get annoyed when you stick a camera in their face but if you smile at them first (the international language), show them the camera, and gesture to take a picture they are almost always happy to smile for you. When you show them the picture afterwards on the digital screen they love it and get very excited so the whole process is actually a lot of fun! When my mom and I went to Guatemala we would go back and return the pictures to the people and each year they would come out and show us that they kept the photos and loved them. Women seem to be the predominant focus in these portraits - was that a conscious decision on your part? Although I photograph both men and woman I choose my photographs of woman because I feel like the
Side B • Issue 01
17
world should see them more. Too often women around the world spend their lives in the shadows of men, so I used this as an opportunity to give them a moment in the spotlight. Was there an individual that especially affected you, even after you photographed them? Out of these photographs I think the photo of the girl in Vietnam selling fish next to the motorcycle affected me most. I actually ended up writing a few short stories about that girl, about me and where I was when I took that photograph and also where she was when I took that photograph. I think what struck me was the contradiction of selling food right next to the exhaust pipe. Also because she was a girl, and I was a girl, so I felt even more connected to her and conscious of how different our lives are. What in particular did you take away from your experience in these countries? Traveling has taught me to appreciate other cultures and how to learn from different societies. Of course I appreciate everything I have so much more and am incredibly motivated to work hard because I feel so fortunate to have all the opportunities I have. Is there more international travel on your agenda in the future? What role do you see photography playing in those plans? Currently my mom and I are traveling throughout Sri Lanka for a month. Then three days after we return I will embark with my best friend on my first solo trip to Costa Rica which should be fun to test my Spanish. In university I plan to study abroad multiple times and with even longer vacations hopefully I can travel even more or even volunteer somewhere. - FIN
18
Side B • Issue 01
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Side B • Issue 01
19
Hmong Woman - Sapa, Vietnam
20
Side B • Issue 01
Fish Market, Vietnam
Side B • Issue 01
21
Sapa, Vietnam
22
Side B • Issue 01
Vietnam
Side B • Issue 01
23
Hmong Woman - Sapa, Vietnam
24
Side B • Issue 01
Allahabad, India
Side B • Issue 01
25
Lhasa, Tibet
26
Side B • Issue 01
Cape Town, South Africa
Side B • Issue 01
27
Adult
by Christy Tomecek You wanted to get out of the ticking clock; climb, climb your way to adulthood on shaky legs. You wanted to sleep in your own stench and not in your parent’s sheets; you wanted to tear the cord that binds you to the wall of your little house. You open the windows all the way, light a cigarette, feel the breeze pushing and ruffling your newly cut hair and expensive silk tie and look at the breasts peeking out beneath and call, “Yes. I am here.” The night is cold. You don’t care.
28
Side B • Issue 01
Childhood at His Fingertips Julie Gallup
Side B • Issue 01
29
The Books & Writing Lives of Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennet
An interview by Fiona Kyle
Jaida Jones is a native New Yorker and graduate of Barnard College / Columbia University. She released a book of poetry, Cinquefoil Cinquefoil, in 2006 from New Babel Books and her poetry has appeared in many literary magazines. Danielle Bennett is from British Columbia. She studied at Camosun College. In the past three years they have released Havemercy, Shadow Magic, and Dragon Soul all published by Bantam Spectra.
The Books Where did you come up with the concept for these books? Jaida: We were both working summer jobs—Dani was a Starbucks barista and I was an assistant editor for a decorating magazine—and the urge just hit us to do something a little more creative with our time (what little we had of it). I had to attend a sensitivity training session for my job that lasted three hours long, and the entire time I was taking notes on how funny it would be to write a story with sensitivity lessons in it. Since we were—and are—both into the fantasy genre, we spent a while trying to figure out how to fantasy that mundane setting up, tossing around the idea of flying motorcycles or elves or something, when we hit on dragons. It all fell into place after that. What cultures have you drawn from for these books? Dani: Jaida studied Japanese, Chinese and Korean history in college, and we were both particularly into Japan and wanted to pull influences from that source. But we also had Imperial Russia in mind when we were writing Havemercy, as Volstov is based loosely on that era, with a little dash of Rome thrown in for good measure. Why, up until Dragon Soul, did you have only male narrators? What differences did you find writing from the female perspective? Jaida: Havemercy was born from that sensitivity training idea, and one of the stories my sensitivity trainer told was about female firefighters encountering difficulty in a particularly male-dominated world. Volstov was influenced by that; we wanted to set up a chauvinistic society so that we could later work to analyze it and (if we have the chance) completely undo it with future female narrators. The manuscript we’re currently working on for our fourth book takes a pretty big step in that direction, and it’s something we’ve wanted to do since day one, but we had to build it up first so hopefully the pay-off is that much more satisfying.
30
Side B • Issue 01
When is the tentative release/title for the next book? Jaida: The tentative release is next summer. We’re actually working on the edits for it right now; we just got them back last week and (fortunately) our editor really loved the book. We loved writing it, too. Its title is definitely a work in progress, though. It usually takes longer to come up with a title than it does to come up with the plot and the characters, sometimes longer than it takes to write the actual book itself! How many books do you think you’ll write in this series? What other stories in the world of Volstov and KeHan are you interested in telling? Dani: We would love to write more books, but that all depends on sales and future deals we make, obviously! We have a bunch of stuff planned, and we’re crossing out fingers that we’ll be able to see it through to book-form. Most of all, we’d love to write a book some day about Rook’s past, how he joined the Dragon Corps, and what his earlier life was like, before the events of Havemercy.
© Spec tra
The LiveJournal community Thremedon has fan art and fanfiction for the series. How does it feel to be on the author’s side of fandom? Jaida: We love fanart and encourage fanfiction, since we started writing in fan communities, ourselves. I only wish we could read the fanfiction—we can’t, for legal reasons—but we love looking at fanart, and we have some insanely talented artists drawing in our fandom. It never fails to impress and inspire, and we’ll go check Thremedon out when we’re having an off day and need a pick-me-up!
Side B • Issue 01
31
The Business of Writing How do you manage to eat/do “real-world things”/etc. when releasing a book per year? Jaida: The pace is really strange—we’ll write the book, send it in to our editor, then wait for a couple of months with nothing to do but sit and wait nervously. Then, once we get the manuscript back, it’s breakneck editing speed to get it back to her on deadline! After that, more time doing nothing passes… And then we have the copy-edits to look over! So it’s more like long lulls in which there’s too much real life stuff, then short intervals of no real life stuff. Do you presently have other jobs or are you full-time writers? Dani: We are full-time slouches. But we admit that eventually we’ll have to get part-time jobs, at least, once we’ve gotten into the groove of writing and balancing the real world. (No matter how much practice we’ve had so far, it’s still not enough.) You co-wrote Havemercy over the internet, how did that process work and how does it work now? Jaida: It was a lot less intense in some ways, a lot more intense in others. We had to write at breakneck speed for Havemercy because we had such completely different schedules and time zones. Everything else suffered because whenever we got the next part and it was our time to write, we’d drop whatever it was we were doing to get it out as fast as we could. Now, we take a little more time with it; we have a set schedule of how much we write every day when we’re working on a book, and we generally stick to that, give or take a few pages. We also talk things out and plot a lot more than we did the first time around. However, we still email the manuscript back and forth, and we write from start to finish, passing the document to one another like we’re playing hot potato, so that much hasn’t changed at all. How do you split up the writing: does one of you take two of the narrators and the other takes the two others? Dani: We plan all the characters out beforehand together, though generally there will be two that are “mine” and two that are “Jaida’s” just for the sake of playing them off one another while we’re still hashing things out. But once that stage is finished, we make sure we’re comfortable with all of them, as we don’t write by narrative section—one of us basically just writes until they hit a block, then sends the manuscript off so the other one can deal with the problem. We edit each other as we go along, too, hopefully resulting in something that reads more like one person writing than two, with as fluid a style as possible. Editing is considered the most horrific prospect to most writers: how do you split up the work and tackle it as co-authors? Dani: Jaida goes through the manuscript first and tackles the smaller edits and the line edits, working
32
Side B • Issue 01
steadily for as long as it takes to get that all squared away. Then we discuss the larger issues that our editor has outlined and figure out how we want to answer all her questions—plot, characterization, world-building, continuity… Whatever balls we dropped in the first draft! Then I usually do the fewer, larger edits, seeding in information and tweaking the timeline as I go along; after that, Jaida proofs and adds and improves, and by the end we (presumably) have the finished product that our editor approves of. It makes it a lot easier when you’re splitting the work-load between two people, though it can be very daunting the moment you get that 10 page editorial letter in your inbox. What are the best parts of writing as a team? The hardest? Jaida: The easiest is not having to do all the work! Dani: The hardest is feeling like you might be letting your co-writer down. What would advice would you give yourselves when you started writing Havemercy now that you’ve finished the third book in the series? Jaida: Plan ahead! But also, just be prepared for how much you’re going to want to go back and change… when you can’t go back and change it anymore. There’s so much I’d do differently if we were writing Havemercy now, but it is what it is, and we can only hope that some of the stories we didn’t get to tell in that book will come up in another one down the line. What other stories are you interested in telling aside from this series? Dani: Our problem usually isn’t a lack of ideas, it’s sticking one out from start to finish. There are a few other proposals we’ve been working on, and some other manuscripts, but nothing solid just yet. One of the things we’d love to do is write something in the Young Adult genre, especially fantasy or some kind of sci-fi thing, since that’s what we both grew up reading and we have a special place for it in our hearts. Where do you write the best/most? Dani: We write best in a living room, sitting on opposite ends of the room—opposite ends of the couch are way too close. We have to be far enough away from one another that we’re not tempted to read over each other’s shoulder and make the person writing nervous. What are your research methods? Jaida: Dani is really the researcher. I’m a little too “I-Want-Answers-Now!” to be good at that. Also, I think I shorted out my brain on that kind of thing in college. Dani will google something with her incredible google-fu until she finds an answer… Or we IM my mom, who basically knows everything Google doesn’t. If she can’t answer our question, no one can.
Side B • Issue 01
33
The Writers Do you allow yourselves to become interested in how the book has been received? Jaida: I obsess. Dani: And I try to stop her. (It’s hard.) What other writers/artists have influenced your individual work? Jaida: I really love looking at deviantart.com in my spare time; so much of the art there just puts me in the perfect mood for writing something, even if it’s not what I’m supposed to be working on. It never fails to be inspiring, though it also inspires some mad jealousy, as well. What would you recommend everyone to read/see/experience? Dani: Everyone should read at least one Mishima book and experience one thunderstorm while in a very tall building with big windows. What advice would you give to other artists and writers that you wish you’d received? Jaida: I wish I’d known how tired I’d get of a manuscript by the time the last of the galley pages was finished! You read a book so many times that it starts to lose meaning, and then you have to take a huge break from it before you’re ready to be proud of it again. I also assumed, as a reader, that all an editor did was tweak word choice and commas and semi-colons, but a book remained basically the same from first draft to the last. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The first time I got an editorial letter with a million changes, I wondered, “Why did our editor buy this book? She hates it!” But that’s all part of the process, even if it remains unseen, for the most part, by everyone reading the book. Why writing and not another form of art? Jaida: I can’t draw! Dani: We wish we could, though. Jaida: I sang a lot in high school, as well, but I’m terrified of stages and doing things in front of people without the ability to edit, edit, edit. So obviously, a career in opera wasn’t for me. Writing is something where you do have that opportunity to obsess over the details but also maintain spontaneity. For my attention span, that’s perfect. Dani: And we can’t draw. - FIN
34
Side B • Issue 01
Julie Gallup
Side B • Issue 01
35
In Flames Julie Gallup
36
Side B • Issue 01
Homonecropedophilia by Sarah Alder
The cold months stretch out upon the street – weak limbed – and wearily blanketed children, home. Less, aloned. Spent the summer eating, stretched bellies brush when met in close quarters, wound around the towers of distended time. Fingers nestle inside vacant cavities, in wait, larva homed between the wet of blossoms – wriggle and grow red – so was the pleasure of Hades’ seed, your mother, a woman, now. You think about your uncle, between sisters, one: your mother, born. A certain blueness, it folds anxiously against four walls. An empty linen closet. A closet pregnant with bones.
Side B • Issue 01
37
Addiction by Nidya Sarria First, there’s the baby. You don’t want to take responsibility for your own child and that pisses me off. Except I lie. That didn’t come first. First was when you broke my mother’s dish. We were arguing about money and you took the plate and threw it at the wall. I stepped on a piece of glass two days later. Yeah, that was the first time I knew we were in trouble. Even if my friends knew already. “Why are you with him?” they asked. Sometimes I would point at my swollen belly, but that wasn’t why. I was with him because for whatever reason, I loved the hell out of him, and I suspected that he loved me, too. He had to love me, because there was no other option. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the first thing was when we all had weed on your front porch. It was my first time smoking and it hit me hard. You took me to your bedroom an fucked me even when I struggled. That might have been a clue. I should have seen that. But then there was the uselessness of it all. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and you used that against me. You taunted me when I cried. Half the time I minded, and the other half, I didn’t care, because at least it meant you were paying attention. The social worker looks surprised. Yeah, I wanted attention. Who wouldn’t? My parents didn’t pay me any attention. My friends were there only sometimes. And I loved you most of all, so it’s only natural that a look from you was gold to me. No, I haven’t been to counseling. That’s for crazies. And we can’t afford it anyway, so I don’t know what this man is talking about. Tell him for me, please. Tell him we can’t afford it. He’s not listening to me. Oh, trust men to ignore women. That’s typical. Shit, the baby’s crying. Hold on. I have to go get her. She’s mine. Don’t touch her. You don’t even pay child support. Who do you think you are? You can’t just walk into my life whenever you damn well please and expect things to remain the same. Where are your other women? I don’t want a restraining order. Tell the social worker that I love you. I love you. Actually, love means a lot to me. Doesn’t it mean a lot to everyone? That’s what’s wrong with this world. Nobody knows what it means to love anymore. Sssh, honey, don’t cry. Keep your voices down. You’re making her cry. Her name is Sarah. It means princess in Hebrew. I’m not Jewish. I just thought it was a pretty name. What do I want for her? Happiness. I want her to grow up and get a good education and find herself a good
38
Side B • Issue 01
man. I don’t want her to be hurt. I don’t want her to be like me. Give me some credit. I want a better life for her. You’re a no-good son of a bitch. Don’t touch me. Don’t you ever touch me ever again. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. My mother wants me to move back in with her, but I don’t want to do that. Who likes failure? That’s an awful thing to admit. But something has to change, I know. Believe me, I know. Give me the papers. I’ll sign.
I never meant to hurt you, lover Julie Gallup
Side B • Issue 01
39
Julian Baptista “I have loved music for all of my life, and it has always been what I am best at. I have never found anything that lets me feel the way performing in front of a crowd does.” A young singer/songwriter from Salem, Massachusetts, Julian Baptista performs modern folk rock - acoustic songs with an edge. His songs tell stories - about justice, love lost and gained, and about personal discovery. Julian began learning guitar at age 11 and was professionally trained to sing both popular and classical opera music. His musical career began on the streets of Salem, and he has shared the stage with folk/rock artists Amy Steinberg, Carsie Blanton, and Marji Zintz. Julian recently completed recording for his first album “Lost in the Crowd” which was released in February 2010.
Dream World Fading out of a one way track Opening my mind I hear your voice tremble in the dark And I can’t wait to sleep We’re meeting in this dream world Seeing all we could become Discovering our fantasy One breath at a time I know your face I know everything in this place Her steel armor melts to simple skin When her passion wells from within I’ll take you gently in my arms Forgetting all but your embrace And now I fall back to me Losing all that I just had Then finally I realize You were with me all night long
40
Side B • Issue 01
Side B • Issue 01
41
contributors Sarah Adler is a recent graduate of New York University, having majored in English and Creative Writing. A native of Baltimore, she has lived in NYC for five years but, this Fall, will be moving to Israel to teach English in Ashkelon. She is passionate about floral print, literary techniques, nail varnish, Anais Nin, silver jewelry, gory movies, Dennis Cooper, the Fales Collection, backpacks, Zionism, to 90s, and her beloved Pitbull, Ee-mah. Nikki Birdwell moved to Austin, Texas almost two years ago from her home town of Waco, TX, and works at the Blanton Museum of Art. She will graduate with an Associate of Arts degree in Visual Arts this summer and has applied to several BFA Studio Art programs for this upcoming fall. Her artistic concentration is in photography and book arts. Her most recent exhibitions have been in group shows at Co-Lab and Art Authority, both in Austin. In her spare time, Nikki knits, reads (her favorite book is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers) and writes, mostly poetry, but also articles and her work has appeared in BUST, I Heart Fake, and Spin. girlofthegoldenshoes.blogspot.com Julie Gallup is 21 year old art education major at The College of New Jersey. Photography is her favorite medium and rarely goes anywhere without her camera. She began a year long photography project on January 1st, entitled Capturing 365; hoping to end the year with a photograph for each day. Her favorite subjects to shoot are nature, silhouettes/shadows, reflections, and most recently, people. Julie’s work has been published in Weird NJ Magazine and was a featured selection for the New Directors/New Films contest. She hopes to become a special education art teacher, while pursuing her love of photography. http://www.onlinegalleries.com.au/user/art_soul Alessandra “Sasha” Goodfriend has traveled to over 40 countries and spent almost four years internationally throughout her life. She hopes to one day make it back to these places of paradise around the world and return the photographs to the people and their families. sashagfriend@aol.com Brittany Goodwin is a voice from Northern New Jersey. She wishes to grace this world with an echo of hope, pathos & experience. How, you may ask? Simple. Song, dramatics, street & mouth. She is twenty years young, yearning for new experiences and sensations until she can bleed her pen dry. Fiona Kyle is a New Jersey native and recent graduate from Marymount Manhattan College in New York City with a B.A. in playwriting. Her poetry has appeared in Third Wednesday, Don’t Look Minizine, The Thing Magazine, and several college literary magazines. Her plays have been performed at MMC and The Sonnet Theatre in Midtown New York. Fiona is a graduate student at Ohio University in playwriting. She now blogs at The Outrageous, the Academic where she rambles about literature, feminism, politics, the city, and food. http://inbravesunlight.tumblr.com/
42
Side B • Issue 01
Christina Piña began writing and creating “little books” made out of computer paper and colored markers from childhood onward. From her daily experiences, often associated with the mentality that her birthplace, Miami, Florida, can offer of a “Tercer Mundo” (Third World) Latin America, she wrote of realistic subjects dealing with everyday conflicts and perceptions in a multi-ethnic world. When Christina entered high school she began her studies in film and theater; thus, leading her to focus on other genres and fields. She is currently focusing on writing under the genre of Drama, and for commercial purposes, Horror and Sci-Fi. Now a screenwriting student at the University Southern California, she is eager to pursue her career as a full-time screenwriter. Nidya Sarria is twenty years old. Originally from Miami, she is pursuing a degree in English at Princeton University. Nidya likes wandering art galleries, reading feminist literature, and watching the snow fall. She is currently writing a screenplay and a novel. nidyasarria.com Christy Tomecek is about to enter the Masters of Library Sciences program at Queens College. She has previously been published in Mannequin Envy and West 10th. She lives in Queens with her brother in a house with lots and lots of mismatched furniture and odd decor. Kimera Wachna whitepony00@gmail.com
Side B • Issue 01
43
44
Side B • Issue 01