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Online Nonfiction Exclusive: “Tea Training” by Zary Fekete

I wave to the security guard as I approach. He smiles and takes out a little stool for me to sit on. I reach into my backpack and take out my latest purchase. It took me a while to find one just like his, but I finally found one at the big market behind the mall: a Chinese tea thermos. 

Since moving to Beijing six months ago, I have been impressed by the differences I see in the people walking and moving all around me in this city of 22 million people. There are thousands of different hair styles, clothing choices, personal phones. But one thing seems common to almost everyone—they all drink tea.

Tong Lei is the security guard who sits in front of my neighborhood compound. He serves as a kind of neighborhood watchman, handyman, and conversationalist all in one. I had my first conversation with him one week after moving into my apartment. He noticed that my bike chain was hanging loose, and we managed to understand each other through gestures. When I tried to pay him after he tightened it, he waved me off with an oh, you gesture. I brought him some chocolate chip cookies the next day. Our friendship began.

I moved to Beijing to teach English at a university downtown, but, like most foreigners here, I also hoped to learn some Mandarin. I take regular language classes, but the most important part of language learning has proven to be having one’s own language helper. For me, that’s Tong Lei.

The first few weeks were mostly filled with small talk about the neighborhood, about our families, about where his home town is (a small town in Anhui province). That was all my language could handle. But I felt like we had crossed an important language threshold when we started to talk about tea.

Tong Lei is forever sipping at his tea thermos. At first, I brought it up because I had just learned the Chinese word for tea (cha or 茶). I wasn’t ready for his response. He settled himself on his stool and thought for a moment. Soon he had launched into a long monologue, 95 percent of which I couldn’t understand, except for his repeated use of the word “cha.” 

After letting him finish, I responded with my most used Chinese phrase, “I don’t understand.” 

He thought this was very funny and slapped my knee. But from then on, he always brought up his tea. He measured his weekly days by which tea he was drinking… and why. Green tea for moods. White tea for teeth health. Weekends were dedicated to oolong tea. He spoke about oolong with a kind of careful reverence, claiming that his father had been cured from a long illness because of its medicinal value.

When he first told me he grew his own tea, I was intrigued. I asked if I could try it. His face changed slightly. He stared off for a moment and then asked me if I could be free for a chat after he finished work that afternoon.

I met him at the gate just after five, and we began to walk through the neighborhood. The apartment buildings nearest to the subway stop were the newest and best kept. Block by block, the buildings became shabbier. After about 10 minutes, we were walking through back alleys that weren’t paved. We finally came to a stop outside of a small concrete shed.

Tong Lei told me that this was where he lived. He stood for a moment quietly and then beckoned me to follow him. He brought me to the back of the grounds where the dirt sloped suddenly to a sunken pond ten feet below, its surface oily and studded with trash. It was one of countless water collection troughs that dotted the city, usually on the outskirts of a built-up residential area. The water was a dumping ground for a variety of trash that couldn’t find a home in the trash bins of the apartment complexes we had just come through. Tong Lei pointed to the far side of the pond where there was a small gathering of plants. 

“That is my tea,” he said. 

I realized why he hadn’t wanted me to try it. It grew very close to the black water of the pond.

I asked him if I could look at the plants. We walked to the other side of the pond, and soon I was surrounded by soft tea leaves. He stood next to me quietly and touched the leaves as he spoke. He said the plants were from his father’s garden. For the next few minutes, we walked back and forth between the rows. Birds flew quietly across the pond.

By the time we were walking back to my neighborhood the sun was low in the sky. I told Tong Lei I could find my way back, but he said he wanted to join me. We didn’t talk much, but the silence felt comfortable.

When we arrived at the gate to the neighborhood, I turned to him to say goodbye. 

“We will practice Chinese again tomorrow?” he said.

I held up my thermos. I said, “With tea?”

After a pause, he nodded and smiled.

 

Zary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia and has been featured in various publications including Zoetic Press, Bag of Bones Press, and Mangoprism. He had a debut chapbook of short stories released in early 2023 from Alien Buddha Press, and a novelette (In the Beginning) was published in May by ELJ Publications. Fekete enjoys books, podcasts, and long, slow films. He currently lives and writes in Minnesota. 

You can find him on Twitter: @ZaryFekete

To those who ask me of my favorite poem

By Matthew Swann

I am often asked if I have a favorite poem. And the truth is for a long time I didn’t. Even though in the beginning I would often boast, either to new friends or potential lovers, that I write poetry. Very rarely did I ever read any poems outside of my own, which I would (and still do) write and enjoy, only to look back months later and hate. I suppose some would say that’s par for the course when it comes to any form of creative expression. If we are trying to bring a feeling into the world, then how can we ever be satisfied with the results if said feelings are constantly changing? I digress. Back to the point: I wrote but did not read, and a writer who never reads can arguably never be a great writer, and I wanted to get better, so I started to read. 

The first books of poetry I ever bought, outside of those needed for class, were collections. I walked into a bookstore with a friend on a cold evening in March. Once we entered, we headed upstairs, the owner of the store alluding to us that the good stuff was to be found there. As we ascended the stairs, I searched the shelves for poetry specifically written by Rumi and Gill Scott-Heron, the latter I was familiar with via his discography and the former more related to my spiritual musings, which I had found myself falling into more and more as quarantine secluded me within my own mind. Upon the dimly lighted shelves, I searched, negotiating the titles of the volumes, conveniently ordered in alphabetical order (as all shelves should be). As I made my way through the volumes of alphabetized prose, I came across a name I was familiar with but had not considered in my search: Charles Bukowski. I became aware of Bukowski similar to the way I had been made aware of Gill Scott-Heron, through music. In the song “Cellz (Born Like This)” by MFDOOM, the poem “Dinosauria, We,” also known as “Born Into This,” precedes the verses of the song. The poem’s content captivated me the first time I heard it and prompted me to Google to discover the author. That is when I first came upon the works of Charles Bukowski. 

If someone asked me to describe Bukowski’s poetry, I would take the easy way out and call it human. The poems of Bukowski are troubled, nihilistic, reproachable, depressing, pitiful, and yet at the same time, hopeful, enduring, and at times, even humorous. For me, Bukowski’s poetry represents what it means to be an honest writer, to be true to yourself and your audience because writing is not just a self-serving endeavor but an altruistic one. To write is to yell into the void, exclaiming “I am here,” in hopes to hear a responding voice say, “So am I.” A great example of this is Bukowski’s poem “To The Whore Who Took My Poems.”

“some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don’t keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn’t you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems…” Charles Bukowski “To the Whore who Stole my Poems”

This poem is my favorite. I came across it when I began reading Essential Bukowski, the book I found in that bookstore on that fateful night and promptly bought, along with two other volumes, with money I did not have. Flipping through the collection’s pages one afternoon during poetry club, the name of the poem jumped out at me, and I knew I had to read it to the rest of my fellow club members. Despite the striking name, interpret this poem more like a love poem than a written vendetta. It is a poem that I believe that all writers, and, by extension, artists can relate to. “To The Whore Who Took My Poems” is a love letter to the creators of the world. Those who do more than muse but strive to create. Who read novels and books and poems written by those whose names sit on gold plaques, which above them read “The Greats,” and not only dare to critique them but to also write at their level if not better. The creation of art is beautiful, but it is not a romantic endeavor. As much as people would like to believe it to be so, the life of an artist, of a writer, is not carefree, nor is it glamorous. It takes more than being able to string words together on a page to create an acceptable piece of work—whether or not it is good is another story. The work we create as artists may not deserve to be liked, but I believe that it at least deserves to be respected, just as we would respect the people who create it. Because when you take a part of yourself and put it into something, sometimes losing it can be as painful as losing a limb. 

Online Poetry Exclusive: “An Elegy for Ogbe Osowa” by Vincent Nwabueze

Who would have thought that time,

               Can obliterate that tragedy in Nineteen Sixty-Seven?

   Eight and Forty years have fleeted on, and still counting, 

                   Yet memories have refused to die,

       Still etched in our consciousness like a sore wound.

 

That fateful morning as the Sun bestrode defiantly above the tall palm trees in the neighborhood,

                    Her powerful sunrays cuddled the frail ferns of the ageless coconut trees,

           Like a mother will do her suckling babe,

               Merchants of death in military camouflage 

         All armed to the teeth invaded the serene enclave.

 

  O, beguiled to show solidarity to one nation hued in diversity,

                               The young, the old, the feeble; all crept out from crannies,

                 Whereto they had fled to escape the flying shrapnel of death.

                     And adored in their trademark AKWAOCHA, 

           The traditional handcrafted white wrapper the people are noted for,

 

All danced gleefully to entertain their August visitors.

                 Boom: Boom: Boom: Boom:

                        The bullets sounded and rattled, 

          As they jumped out menacingly

               From the smoking muzzle of their article of destruction. 

 OLISA; is this what they deserve in return?

              In place of applause and a thunderous clap,

          For entertaining their August visitors,

                  The invading forces pelted hot bullets from their mortars, howitzers, — 

             On the defenseless poor souls.

 

And when the sound of mortars and heavy artilleries had ceased,

                  Heaps, and heaps of mutilated bodies strewn the killing field,

                           Like some prized trophies for the invading troopers to take home.

        And to remind posterity how merciless merchants of death once visited a peaceful enclave,

 And left behind trails of tears, blood, anguish, and sorrow.

 

 Brother, great was the massacre on that day,

                   That the goddess ONISHE, the custodian of the great river, 

Has refused to be consoled.

          Day and night, her ululation could be heard, 

As she grieved the death of her children.

 

Vincent Nwabueze is a poet and author who studied sociology at the University of Abuja, Nigeria where he started writing. He also holds an LLB degree in law. He has written a collection of short stories and poetry and takes part in writing competitions. One of his short stories was shortlisted at the African Writers Awards in 2020. His poetry has been published by the Society Voice Project and the Voices Project. The manuscript of his debut novel has been completed and his latest books, THE BROKEN DREAMS OF THE INTELLIGENT THIEF and HONEY OUT OF LAMENTATION (a short story) have been released on Amazon.
He can be reached via email at: vincenttnwabueze@gmail.com or on Twitter @VincentNwabuez5
Nwabueze currently resides in Abuja, Nigeria.

Online Poetry Exclusive: “Picnic” by Erin Jamieson

Dunk sliced celery in     muddy water
your lips tasting the
garden where as a child you dug
                                     for earthworms, their mottled bodies 
e 
   rupt  
            ing.   your     hands stained with intestines, food

                                                                       < not yet digested>

 

you ask for ranch dip but in its speckled surface
you see fly antennae, torn ant legs. 
You eat because you can but the sun is blistering your 
lips, breaking these bodies these bodies climbing down
                                your bloodied throat &

 

nothing like new plates stained 
rust, from 
                    peeled oranges  or       apricots
for you form you’re F
                                  O       
                                     R            G                    a story you’ll tell
                                         M      N
                                               I      

your own child, her painted fingernails
dusty with lady bug wings                             

              sipping        lemonade

(powdered, not        fresh).           
                         
                               

Come here. We have      a feast.
carrot sticks & gorged    pill bugs,
             cricket legs in your potato          chips flavored
just for you. I only thought of      you.

 

 

Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published in over 80 literary magazines, and her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of the poetry collection Clothesline (NiftyLit, Feb 2023). Find her on Twitter @erin_simmer

Birth of Eros by Debra Di Blasi Review

By Abigail Hummer

I couldn’t gauge what I was in store for when I received Birth of Eros in the mail. Its cover pictures a 1950s-esque woman in a bathing suit sitting atop a red car, a car that is sitting on an exaggerated cigar whose smoking tail mushrooms into a nuclear cloud. The woman is reaching out to the right side of the cover with a damsel-like posture, appearing to be longing for a masculine arm sprouting from the right edge, ready to catch her hand. 

I saw great narrative nuance in this cover art, including symbols pointing towards the role hyper-femininity and hyper-masculinity play in the destruction of healthy relationships. Some of the said relationships that would be affected include ones within ourselves, our perspective of what is and is not beautiful, and most notably the morals around sex and desire. 

Our main character, Lucy, is describing what she experienced when she was delivered at birth. This scene describes how her birth was a victorious moment in her life, yet somehow, the only thing her beautiful-teen-idol-destroyed-via-accidental-child mother could see was how “ugly” Lucy was. Because this happens so early in the novel, it sets the stage for how Lucy will view her surroundings throughout her life—constantly analyzing the lack of depth and compassion within society.

“My first song a little uhmp before I screamed, Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Not out of fear or pain but triumph. Victory! For falling’s flying if there’s something/someone to catch you. And what I could see! What I saw! Everyone singing together a pretty sigh as they huddled around and over me. //Except the mother. The beautiful mother. Peering over her bedside. Gawking at me in infatuated awe, I thought. I hoped. Before knowing hope.

Light of her life?

But she said, “Oh god, she’s so ugly!”

And I hear the disappointment. Saw the grief. No, the anger. In her song.

I loved her anyway” (p. 17).

In this moment, Lucy is not only left with a skewed perception of where she stands in her mother’s eyes, but now in society. A parent’s (or in this instance, a mother’s) opinion is one of the most important values in a young child’s mind; this sets the high bar for Lucy at an unreachable level, which creates tension between her actual self and her perception of herself. We see Lucy experiencing another memory of herself as a child driving a wedge between her parents, her beautiful mother wanting nothing to do with her based on her looks:

“And it wasn’t that she wouldn’t love me but that she couldn’t.

I can’t I can’t I can’t! she screamed at the father offering me like a protoplasmic libation to his forever goddess.

Just try, Baby!

I’ll kill myself!

No!

I will!

Please, I love you!

Oh!

I watched the pretty lights wet when them scatter in ashen clutter around their ankles and I fell dead silent, corpse still, closing my eyes and disappearing into the teeming darkness behind my lids so I would not be the wedge of their cleaving” 

Eventually the father’s arms grew tired of holding me out and the mother’s eyes grew tired of crying: I’m sorry” (p. 74).

Birth of Eros left me speechless in some moments and laughing at its absurdity in others. Lucy doesn’t stray away from using graphic language to cater to a reserved audience, she will tell it as it is—and colorfully. There is nothing pristine and serene about life, love, sex, hate, pain, birth, death, and so on and so forth. Birth of Eros leans into this brutally honest narrative of the beauty that lies within being raw, and ugly, and chaotic. 

 

Online Poetry Exclusive: “Cool” by Pino Pograjc

my body needed to cool,
i begged snow to cover
the scorching concrete

he stood before me and i sizzled,
his breath froze
the oleander blossoms,
introduced the sun to the grey
of thunderclouds

our tongues were not compatible,
he spoke of feasts,
of bodies on display,
of preparation for consumption

i spoke of rest

as he was fucking the daylights
out of me
i thought
there must be
a better way

Pino Pograjc, born in 1997, is a Slovene poet. He is currently in his last year of dual-subject MA studies of English and comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana. In 2022, the newly-formed, alternative publishing house Črna skrinjica (“Black Box”) published his literary debut, Trgetanje (a portmanteau of “trganje” and “drgetanje”—“ripping” and “shivering” in Slovene), which received the award for best literary debut at the 38th Slovene Book Fair. Pograjc is also part of the selection jury for the Ljubljana LGBT Film Festival, the oldest film festival of its sort in Europe.

Online Fiction Exclusive: “Touch” by Stephen Wunderli

I knew the moment he leapt from the train. Here he was, mid-stride, airborne and about to fall. Of course, he’d been falling for years. He could feel the shame unraveling behind him like the cords of a parachute with no chute, just fibers leaving his body, finally. He wasn’t unattractive, not his fault. And his clothes were not what you would expect a young man jumping from a train to wear. They were clean, no miles of desperation ground into his elbows, his knees, the side of his body he slept on. No. Let’s see if we can read the cords as they unspool and float above him: a woman, standing against him. He touched her on the wrist. She smiled at him, her hazel eyes, his blue, really blue at the moment. Anyway, she understood his shy heart without asking. That’s what he loved. That and her skin. He loved how it responded to his fingertips, rising, electrified, aching as if it was the first time she’d ever been touched. The whole of his body craved touch, fingertips on the inside of his forearm, his own fingers thrumming her rib cage to life. Her hip against his. Touch. Not the way the grown man had touched him when he was a child, groping him hungrily, even drooling, making the then boy hard and ashamed. The boy recoiled, never touched anyone again, until her. Her hair was unashamed; it draped her face, a shade to be drawn back. He traced the vein on her neck leaving a wake of goosebumps. He longed to kiss her ear, to let his tears roll down her cheeks and pool at the base of her neck. She pressed her body against his. It was summer, and the heat made their bodies warm. He felt her shape, so different than the grown man’s that held him down, nearly drowning him in dark stench. She smiled at him, at his reaction to her body. He looked down, ashamed, trembling. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.” The tears came and dropped useless to the ground. Even her feet were perfect, delicate, at ease in the grass. Her fingertips touched the tears from his chin. He quivered. She pulled politely away and they sat in the shade watching shadows and feeling the wind that mocks lovers’ touch, brushes hair away then leaves amid anticipation. He wouldn’t talk. She was patient; she collected her hair and tucked it into the back of her shirt so that he would know he didn’t have to talk, although she must have wanted him to. She must’ve wanted him to touch her again; she took long breaths at the thought of it, his fingers on the side of her face, tracing her shoulder, pausing, not sure which path to take. “I should say something,” he whispered. She leaned into him, just slightly, making it safe. But a stench rolled in from the underbrush, and he pulled away. He didn’t sleep for three nights straight, afraid of himself. He is just one of many stories I could tell you. No one at school saw him leave. No one saw him abandon his hand-me-down car next to the rail-yard. His rapid heartbeat driving the train forward. I saw him standing, the steel doors thrown open, hating even the wind touching him. But hers was different, wasn’t it? I can see it in his eyes as he falls toward me. The stones just below my surface. I am shallow. He scatters me into a million diamonds hurtling upward, each imprisoning the sun. It’s beautiful, the end of penance.  

Stephen Wunderli is a writer living in Salt Lake City. He is a past director of Writers at Work, a writing conference in Park City, Utah. He has published several children’s books, mainly with Henry Holt & Co. He most recently published a short story with The Kalahari Review.

Poetry Feature: The sun shines brighter when I am hungry by Celeste Vandegriff

The sun shines brighter//when I am hungry//and the air tastes pure//like I am taking my first breath//I am so aware//that I am a living//breathing//human//thing//with potential burning white-hot through my flesh//early hunger is a delirious//roaring//high//like the raw electric joy that rises//when my breakfast starts//and ends//with a few swallows of warm coffee//it does hurt//the hunger//but the crawling stomach pain//transforms into//productive pain//workout pain//A-plus pain//first-kiss-nausea pain//proud pain//like my mother telling me my diet is working//like the roller-coaster-adrenaline of scale numbers dropping//dread drowns elation//as the blue-white morning fades//into golden afternoon//here//I must face a deep shame//I dedicated myself to hunger at eleven//I am now twenty-one years old//I have made it past lunch exactly once//it was a sugar-high happiness//yet//today//like every day//of the past ten years//I eat//if hunger is flight//food is burial//food sticks to my throat//chokes me//like hospital-grade nutrient sludge//drying up the caffeine//the purpose//the high//food settles into my stomach//like silt at the bottom of a polluted pond//I have bested much of myself//I have muted my mind//censored my tongue//forced my feet//along paths I did not want to take//yet my stomach//always wins.

Celeste Vandegriff is a pre-med biology student in her senior year at Towson. She has shown her dedication to Towson and its surrounding community through years of work as a Writing Center tutor, EMT, and domestic violence hotline volunteer. Vandegriff is in the Honors College and chose to minor in English to find people to talk about books with. She is president of the knitting club, vice president of Original Blend A Cappella, and writes in her free time to relieve stress.

A Conversation with Morgan LaRocca

By Carolin Harvey

Milkweed Editions is an independent literary press based in Minneapolis. The press is a nonprofit organization that emphasizes unique stories of individuals and communities from around the world.

Morgan LaRocca (they/she/them) is the publicist at Milkweed and a 2018 graduate of Towson University’s English program. I had the opportunity to chat with Morgan about their experiences as a publicist and their time at Towson. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

CH: So how did you get started with Milkweed in 2022?

ML: Let’s see. At the time, I was doing freelance publicity. I was friends with professional buddies, for lack of a better word, through the Minneapolis community. The publicist had approached me about applying to be a publicist there and kind of work below her. I was pretty content with freelancing at that time, so I didn’t apply. But then she left, and I went in, and the conversation quickly went from freelancing to an interview for the position. And then I got offered the job, and it seemed like a really good fit. So I decided to take their offer, and I’ve been there since July of 2022. 

CH: Congrats on that! What’s it like working remotely?

ML: So, I wanted to come back to Baltimore for quite a few reasons. Let’s see. I coincidentally started dating someone who lives here, and we didn’t really want to do long distance. A big part of it, too, is that Jeannie Vanasco is a huge mentor of mine and creative collaborator. I also wanted to be closer to her, to be able to do things at Towson, and help people from my own community in Baltimore. I decided to negotiate to work remotely, and they went for it, which is great. I think it’s really strategic for a publicist to be on the East Coast because I can take media appointments. I can go to New York pretty easily for them. The way that my remote work works is that I go back to Minneapolis three times a year. So I’ll be there once in the fall, once in the summer, and once in the spring. I don’t go in the winter.

CH: Yeah, I don’t blame you.

ML: I really can’t function in the winter there.

CH: Very fair.

ML: It’s very nice to have a lot of focused work and then to have these really meaningful months at a time where I’m engaging with my team. It just has worked really well for the particular situation that I’m in.

CH: That’s great. What’s a typical day like for you?

ML: I think that’s kind of the best thing about being a publicist is that it really varies, and I’m someone who needs that in my life. But often I’ll be working on media sends, doing research, or putting lists together for books. I will create and design press releases, write letters and pitches. I do database entry collecting all the reviews about our books. I run our Twitter, which is really fun. I do a lot of event outreach, asking venues if they have availability on their calendar and coordinating all the logistics around events for authors. A lot of it is just being the communication hub for everyone. Answering any questions that authors have is a huge piece of my job. And then I do all of the awards. Next month, the National Book Award is due, so that’s going to be a big month. Yeah, I think that’s kind of a day in the life of a publicist pretty generally.

CH: And do you typically work seven days a week, or is it more the typical Monday through Friday?

ML: In full transparency, that varies. I am the sole publicist for 28 books, which is a lot. So depending on where we are in the season, sometimes I work seven days a week, sometimes I work five days a week. There’s a lot of encouragement to log off when it’s time to log off. I think that the tricky thing is, for example, if The New York Times emailed me and the editor there is on a deadline, or the freelance journalist there is on a deadline, and that’s on a Sunday night, I don’t really have a choice. So that’s just something that I’m always navigating: how to set realistic boundaries and also get the work done. I think that’s not a unique issue, especially for publicists and especially for anyone that’s working in a nonprofit. I like to be transparent about that because I think it’s something that people have to take into consideration when they’re trying to figure out what they want to do as a job.

CH: Thank you for being so candid about all that. What’s the most important aspect of being a publicist to you? 

ML: I think the most important aspect of it to me is ensuring that the book is honored and really understood when it’s received into the world. You’re helping someone’s dreams come true, for lack of a better word. It just feels good when a review comes in, and the reviewer really gets it. Or there’s an event that creates this deeper connection with the reader or the person who’s joining the author in conversation. And the book then kind of takes on a different life off of the page and really gets to be in the world in a new form. Just to know that some of my thought-work has had a small part in the way the book is moving feels really satisfying to me. 

CH: That’s awesome. Now transitioning into your time at Towson—while at TU,  how did your career goals and interests change over time?

ML: I was a speech pathology major. At first, I was really interested in languages, but I think I was someone who wanted to have a clear sense of a direct connection to my degree and to a job. And then I switched over to English because I just realized that I really loved to write, and I wanted to use my college experience as a place to be a thinker and to be in a community. I didn’t ever really think I was going to be able to do publishing. I think I secretly, in my heart of hearts, always wanted it, but I didn’t think it was something that someone like me could do. I think there’s always this sheen around publishing that it’s kind of for the elite in some way, or, like, you have to know someone to get into it. So, I had really shut that door for myself, and I ended up taking an internship at a financial publishing house. But through that work, I was like, wow, okay, I have a broader sense of how publishing works. Not like literary publishing, but how the sausage is made a little bit. I took a class with Jeannie, or Professor Vanasco, and at that point, I was a huge follower and fan of Tin House. So, I read a lot of Tin House on my bad days at Barnes and Noble. I followed them on Instagram and all of a sudden, Jeannie’s face just kept popping up on their Instagram.

CH: Oh?

ML: It was really funny. It was actually like this very zoomed in picture of her, and it was just like a panel on their Instagram. And I was like, “Why is my professor’s face plastered all over Tin House’s Instagram?” Bizarre. And then, as you probably know, Jeannie was publishing a book with them at that time. I think this was for The Glass Eye, so this is like a throwback. I went up to her after class, and she explained that she was a forthcoming author. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I love Tin House—it would be so dreamy, something inconceivable, if I was able to work there—I would be obsessed with that.” And she said, “Oh, well, you should apply to the internship.” And so I did. And then I got it, and I moved to Portland.

CH: Wow.

ML: Yeah, it was a big jump. I graduated a year early from college, so I kind of treated that year as my fourth year of university and was like, this is a learning experience, and I’m going to go all in. Basically pay tuition to myself and invest in myself in that way. 

CH: Oh, that’s super cool. What advice would you give to students looking to pursue some kind of career in publishing?

ML: I think my biggest piece of advice is that you deserve to be there. Even if you’re just starting out in any career or field, knowing that it’s not something that was given to you, it’s something that you’ve earned. And because of that, you can advocate for what you need, even in an entry-level position. Oftentimes, publishing is the type of industry that I felt very early in my career that I just have to do everything that I’m assigned to do very quickly. I can’t say no to anything. I’m just so lucky to be here, and I can’t really set boundaries for myself. And I think that there are great ways to be able to kind of advocate for yourself when you get into the job, so that you can keep it sustainable for yourself to learn and grow.

CH: For sure, yeah, that’s great. 

ML: So that’s always my pep talk to myself.  I’m advocating for what I’m capable of offering, instead of just feeling like because I landed the job, I have to do anything that’s thrown my way very intensely. We all have capacities, and I think that that helps an organization, too, if you’re able to communicate when you’re at capacity. I would also say it never hurts to ask. People are always excited to do informational interviews or just connect and hear about what’s motivating you. And most of the time, if someone doesn’t respond, it’s not because they don’t want to, but maybe because they’re too busy, and you can always nudge them. I think especially in publishing, it never hurts to ask and come out of a space of curiosity, especially when you’re first getting your bearings.

Poetry Feature: TODAY JUST FOR YOU by Jane Costain

      TODAY JUST FOR YOU

                             (a found poem courtesy of email spam)

 

You might find this interesting.

                                      There are bridges only the bravest

        would cross in star-spangled style.

                                                    In the decades since monumental 

          explosions, this is big. Worth the wait. 

                                                               There is still time. But now you better hurry. 

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                                 You might want to take a closer look.

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                       Meet your match today.

                                    (Three-ways are even better.)     

                                                                             Make the most of your summer.

                                                                       Stream in the sun.

Celebrate!

Jane Costain is the author of the chapbook Small Windows (Main Street Rag, 2018) and has privately published A Dozen Centos. Her work has appeared in various literary journals, including Plainsongs, The MacGuffin, Pinyon Review, and Iris Literary Journal. She has a master’s degree in the creative arts in learning from Lesley College and has taught in public schools for over thirty years. She lives with her husband, Gary Moore, in Denver.