issue Three
Illustration: By Timothy Schaffert. Anne Sexton (in a vintage coffee-lozenge wrapper from Verduyn Bros. Confectionary Works of Holland)
This cover art was inspired by the following passages from the Sexton poem "Hurry Up Please It's Time" (from The Death Notebooks, 1974).
Timothy Schaffert is the author of seven novels, most recently the national bestseller THE TITANIC SURVIVORS BOOK CLUB ("...gripping historical fiction" — New York Times). His work has been a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, and an Oprah.com Book of the Week. He is the Glenna Luschei Editor in Chief of Prairie Schooner, the literary quarterly, and co-editor/founder of the University of Nebraska Press series, Zero Street Fiction. He has created nearly 1,000 illustrations of notable women in candy wrapper dresses.
“Opposite sides” by Ruben Borg
(click the image to expand the poem)
Ruben Borg is a writer and scholar based in Jerusalem. He teaches modernist literature at the Hebrew University and has published books and essays on James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, cinema, and contemporary theory. He is currently completing a book on emotions in Joyce.
"Thunder Song in C Major" by Noelle Kriegel
(click the image to expand the poem)
Noelle Kriegel is an MFA candidate in poetry at NC State University. Noelle delights in all things Queer, ecological, and Carolinas, aiming to marry the themes in their poetry. Previously published work can be found in Fruitslice: A Queer Quarterly, Carolina Muse, The Lavender South, among others. You can find Noelle on Instagram at @noellenellanneliese and @carolinastunned443ver.
"Poem, Amtrak, Utah" by Wayne Miller
(click the image to expand the poem)
Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The End of Childhood (Milkweed, 2025). His awards include the UNT Rilke Prize, two Colorado Book Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Fulbright to the Seamus Heaney Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His co-translation of Moikom Zeqo’s prose collection Sellers of Chaos is forthcoming from Unbound Edition Press. He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, and edits Copper Nickel.
"Church's Niagara" by Antonio Jocson
(click the image to expand the poem)
Antonio Jocson's poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals and anthologies. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. His life is divided between Houston and Manila, where he manages a small hotel group. He is completing a new poetry collection.
"Pencil Drawings In The Rain" by Ellen Graf
(click the image to expand the poem)
Ellen Graf is a writer, sculptor, and master mask maker living in upstate NY with her husband, artist Zhong-hua Lu. She is the author of The Natural Laws of Good Luck, Shambhala Publications, and has a Masters in non-fiction from Bennington College. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times and literary magazines, online and in print. The essay “A Line of Immeasurable Length,” published in Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, was included on Best American Essays of 2022 Notable Essays list. The essay “Failure is the Name of a Song” was a Rona Jaffe finalist in 2011, Ellen received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in non-fiction in 2009, and 2023 NYSCA grants for writing and sculpture. The poems submitted are all from a collection written in 2026 while undergoing chemotherapy.