Issue 43.2
Winter/Spring 2023

Jabberwock 43.2

Table of Contents

Fiction
Joanna Pearson The Dragonflies 10
Adam McOmber Halloween Story 40
Youn Rourke Getaway 48
Nicole Beckley The Bride Wore Red 62
Dan Rivas Apples 66
Poetry
Jessica Poli Finches 7
Floristry 8
Michael Montlack Running Water 37
Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer In the Morgue 38
Romana Iorga Ghazal to Ward Off Oblivion 39
Daisy Bassen Dear Alien Overloards... 42
Dear Alien Overlords, Evil Supervillians, Misguided Scientists and Hikers Who Said What the Hell and Ate the Mushroom 42
Rachael Inciarte muscle memory 43
Lavonne J. Adams Intermittent Rain 44
Therese Gleason Time of Death 46
Heather Truett Outside the Kingdom Hall in 1982 60
Essay
Anja Semanco Quark Soup 28
Kayla Cayasso If We Were Birds 53

Contributors

Lavonne J. Adams is the author of an award-winning poetry collection and two chapbooks, as well as more than 150 individual publications in journals that include Tampa Review, North Carolina Literary Review, and Artful Dodge. She was awarded residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Harwood Museum of Art, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.
Daisy Bassen is a poet and child psychiatrist who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Salamander, McSweeney’s, Smartish Pace, Crab Creek Review, and [PANK] among other journals. She most recently won the 2022 Erskine J Poetry Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
Nicole Beckley is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Fiction Southeast, New Limestone Review, Litro UK, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 7x7, Tribeza, and The A.V. Club, as well as in many small theaters and on at least one public access channel. She holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Stanford University. She’s currently at work on a comedic novel.
Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer’s work has previously been published or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Crazyhorse, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, and others. The recipient of a 2022 Pushcart Prize, they have won awards from the Ledbury Poetry Festival and Bryn Mawr College as well as received support from The Seventh Wave and Tin House. Their chapbook, Small Geometries, is forthcoming with Ethel Zine & Micro Press in April/May 2023. They attend Syracuse University’s MFA program.
Kayla Cayasso is writer, poet, and editor from north Florida and graduate of Florida A&M University. She is a recipient of the 2012 Hollins Creative Writing Book Award, the FAMU Graduate Feeder Fellowship, and placed first in fiction in the 2021 FAMU Annual Writing Contest. Her work can be found in CaKe: A Literary Journal, Olit, Hyacinth Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Orlando and is an MFA Candidate at the University of Central Florida.
Therese Gleason is author of two chapbooks: Libation (co-winner, 2006 South Carolina Poetry Initiative Competition) and Matrilineal (Honorable Mention, 2022 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize). Her poems appear in 32 Poems, Indiana Review, New Ohio Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, and elsewhere. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Therese lives in Worcester, MA with her family. She teaches literacy and is a poetry editor for The Worcester Review. Find her at theresegleason.com.
Rachael Inciarte is the author of the chapbook What Kind of Seed Made You, published by Finishing Line Press and 2022 Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention. Their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net, and features in Poetry Northwest, Spillway, Juked, and others. They live in California, with family.
Romana Iorga is the author of Temporary Skin, a poetry collection recently accepted for publication by Glass Lyre Press. A multilingual writer whose work has been inspired by different countries, cultures, and landscapes, she has an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals, including New England Review, Lake Effect, The Nation, as well as on her poetry blog at clayandbranches.com.
Adam McOmber is the author of four queer speculative novels: The White ForestJesus and John, The Ghost Finders and Hound of The Baskervilles, as well as three collections of short stories: My House Gathers Desires, This New & Poisonous Air and Fantasy Kit. He is a core faculty member in the Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts as well as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Hunger Mountain.
Michael Montlack is author of two books of poetry, most recently Daddy (NYQ Books), and editor of the Lambda finalist essay anthology My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press). His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Phoebe, december, Cincinnati Review, The Offing and Poet Lore. He lives in NYC.
Joanna Pearson is the author of two short story collections: Now You Know it All (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and Every Human Love (Acre Books, 2019).
Jessica Poli is the author of Red Ocher (University of Arkansas Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, North American Review, Poet Lore, and Salamander, among other places. Originally from Pennsylvania, she is currently a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dan Rivas’s work has appeared in Brick, Oregon Humanities, Your Impossible Voice, and other publications. In 2021, he was named a Finalist for the Sustainable Arts Foundation Awards. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Youn Rourke is a writer of short fiction, poetry, and the occasional screenplay. More of her writing can be found in Story and The First Line.
Anja Semanco is a nomadic writer who lives out of a small camper somewhere in the Intermountain West. Her work has been nominated for Best American Science and Nature Writing from High Desert Journal, as well as nominated for a Pushcart Prize from Terrain. Her other work appears in the anthology Driftfish from Zoomorphic magazine, Tulip Tree, and forthcoming Campfire Stories II. Discover more from Anja on her Substack at https://anjasemanco.substack.com.
Heather Truett is an MFA candidate, a slightly heretical pastor’s wife, and an autistic author. Her debut novel, Kiss and Repeat released from Macmillan in 2021, and she teaches fiction at Interlochen Arts Camp. She has work featured or upcoming in Spoon Knife, Hunger Mountain, and Thimble. Heather is represented by Hilary Harwell at KT Literary and serves as Managing Editor for The Pinch. Find out more at heathertruett.com or visit her on Twitter (@mmerubies).