Now Playing: September 2019

Our September issue is HOT OFF THE PRESSES, and we could not be more excited. And if, like us, you can’t get enough of our contributors’ words, here’s what they’ve been enjoying and what it means:

Nicholas Guerreiro

You know that magical feeling, when you’ve just finished reading or watching a piece of art that’s so inventive it makes anything seem possible? I recently performed on the Victoria Fringe Festival, and while doing so I saw Theatre Mobile’s Thirteen Dead Dreams of Eugene. It’s based on the true story of an unidentified body left on display in a small-town Ohio morgue for thirty-five years. But the performer-creators Paul Strickland and Erika Kate MacDonald transform this already-creepy inspiration into a series of surreal dream vignettes using folk music, dance, light effects, and shadow-puppets. It’s a beautiful and chilling ghost story, but it’s also a meditation on loneliness, the social construction of history, and how injustice can become normalized. Horror theatre is rare and usually tacky, but this show was so artful that I left the venue charged with creative energy.

Miranda Jetter

The last thing I listened to was “Lilac Wine” by Nina Simone. Why haven’t I listened to Nina Simone before?!? What was I doing with that time?!.

Lorie Matejowsky

"Jimmy Lee" single by Aretha Franklin is a recent record store find that is blowing my mind. I'd forgotten this song existed and everything about is achingly beautiful to me, especially its amazing music video ..so fine. "Jimmy Lee" reminds me to write about the epic, joyful times of my 1980s teenage years as much as the hard times. This song has both nothing and everything to do with my poem in this issue.