Inanna Carter

Golden Hour: Part. 2

I’m a K-pop girlie through and through, and I’m more than happy to say my latest obsession is ATEEZ. After listening to their song “Bouncy (K-Hot Chili Peppers)” at least fifty times throughout the year, I proceeded to become a casual listener until “Crazy Form” popped up. Considering I’m still in my post-concert depression months after seeing them live, it’s safe to say I like their music.

ATEEZ’s latest album, Golden Hour: Part. 2, released on November 15, and I can’t get enough of it. I hyperfixate like crazy, so I’ve mostly been listening the title track, “Ice On My Teeth,” but my favorite part about ATEEZ is the diversity in their music. If you want something more hip-hop, “Ice On My Teeth” is perfect. The music video is gorgeous, and all my ATEEZ head canons are coming true. But this is a different type of music they’ve been working on, and their past albums have a much different vibe. No matter what your favorite music genre is, I urge you to listen to some ATEEZ. I guarantee you’ll find something you adore.

Nate Ragolia

The Substance

Fans of body horror classics like David Cronenberg’s The Fly and James Gunn’s Slither can rejoice for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance perfectly melds gore, humor, and trenchant social commentary. The film follows Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) a one-time Hollywood ingenue and Oscar-winner who has transitioned from acting to hosting a TV aerobics show. On her 50th birthday, she’s fired by a shrimp-spittle-slime ball network executive (Dennis Quaid) who makes it no secret her age is the reason. Distraught, Elizabeth has a progressively worse day that leads her to a young nurse who offers her a flash drive containing information about the titular Substance. After injecting the mysterious medical miracle, Elizabeth’s life is transformed and a younger version of her has a new lease on life in the spotlight… but this is a horror film, so things get messy, sticky, bloody, and gross quickly and frequently.

Director Coralie Fargeat does an impeccable job capturing the gore and viscera, and hearkening back to giallo films like Argento’s Suspiria, and even Kubrick’s The Shining, but what’s most incredible is how she employs the male gaze and its voracious and wolf whistling consumption of the female body to enhance the tension and pervasive exploitative energy. Not only do we spend long shots taking in the nude bodies of Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, Fargeat also actively deconstructs the women as sex objects, where the focal points of breasts and crotches and butts are montaged to remind us of our cultural failure to really see the whole person comprising the women we exploit. This exaggerated, force-feeding of the male gaze pays off in an ending that pulls no punches. If you thought Carrie had a bloody conclusion, The Substance will ask you to hold its beer.

Kaitlin Lounsberry

Wicked

I’ve been a Wicked fan since 2004, a year after the musical premiered on Broadway staring powerhouse duo, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. I was 10 the first time I watched the musical in Chicago and it become a pivotal moment for my childhood. Fast forward 20 years and those same overwhelming feelings exist as Wicked, the movie not the play or the book, finally comes to the silver screen.

Originally whispered to be in the works in 2010, Wicked shifted from director to director until it finally settled with Jon M. Chu in 2021 and shortly after came the casting announcement of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. It was also announced the film would be split in two, forcing fans to wait even longer for the conclusion of this story. Though there were some additional setbacks due to COVID-19 restrictions and the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023, Wicked finally hit theaters mid-November. And was the wait worth it? Yes, yes, 100%, yes. As someone who has seen the musical more times than I can count and read the book that inspired it all, I like to think I’m a fairly good judge of this adaptation.

Grande and Ervio embody Glinda and Elphaba earnestly and with the care and attention lovers of the musical expect for the iconic duo. Their vocals harmonized in such a cosmic way it’s as if they were destined to star opposite the other. Supporting actors Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Bowen Yang, and Jeff Goldblum exhibit the same zest for their characters as Grande and Erivo. It’s evident the amount of care and consideration Chu put into every decision made in the creation of the film. It is magical, in the most simple and complex ways you could imagine. I cried, as did most everyone around me, as the titular song, “Defying Gravity” closed out part one. I’m not sure how much better I’ll fair emotionally when part two is released November of next year, but I’ll be waiting, eagerly and heart full, to be changed for good.

Dominic Loise

Sunflowers

Sunflowers by Keezy Young could be presented as a companion read to my previous selection of A Fox In My Brain by Lou Lubie. Both biographical graphic novels have the writer/artist exploring mood disorder and destigmatizing the conversations around the classifications and public perception of bipolar disorder. With A Fox In My Brain, Lubie deep dives into the diagnosis and misdiagnosis of her cyclothymia as she goes through therapy and mitigates life. Sunflowers presents to the reader the feeling of cycling and Young’s experiences with bipolar 1 disorder. 

Young starts Sunflowers with the feel-good period of hypomania and through color palette and line breaks portrays their feelings as their personal narrative slides into disconnection associated with mania. Young maintains an organic shift of hues as they begin exploring the psychosis stage. Here, their word blocks are tight, like bricks stacked together, to give the sense of someone behind a wall of racing thoughts while imagery outside the dialogue is out of focus, showing the inner self cut off from the tangible world. 

Young doesn’t shy away from the feeling of darkness that comes with bipolar 1, but they also present a pathway of mental-health awareness and address the stigma associated with bipolar disorder. I read and connected with Sunflowers just after an out-of-state move. My self perception at this time was focused on how I would need to start again with a new talk therapist, psychiatrist, and being away from my core support group. I feared all the work I had done on myself was slipping away with the stress of a move and selling/buying a home. Feeling disconnected from all that, this graphic novel helped remind me I wasn’t alone as someone with bipolar disorder, I wasn’t starting over with my mental health, and I was continuing to heal in a new place.

I am truly grateful that Keezy Young’s Sunflowers was the first thing that I unpacked to read in my new home.

Sunflowers is published by Silver Sprocket.

The corners of Dolly’s eyes are marked red so that the cameras can find them; secretly, it’s so I can always see where she is looking. From the wing, I can tell that she is making eye-contact with every single person in the front row left to right. Each word, she sings especially for each of them, the clear notes of her voice dancing in the air like flakes of early-December snow. Where I stand, though, it isn’t snow so much as ash from a nearby fire. From behind the cyclotron, the spotlight glows a rusty red—as red as the tilled dirt in their tiny town, red as her heart-shaped lips, red as the Republican party. It hangs above me, her, and the entire auditorium like the strawberry moon— but only I can see the red. The audience only sees white, and she only sees the audience. The strawberry moon means that fruit is ripe and ready for picking—shouldn’t all those yokels be at home, harvesting?

The solstice heat was sticky and oppressive, although it was nearly midnight. We laid in the untouched plot of land behind her house. Her father kept trying to grab it, but the zoning office found new ways to thwart him. He is the mayor, for Christ’s sake, she would rant to me. Secretly, I was grateful—I didn’t want to see all the wildflowers mowed down to make room for cow pasture. The way her blonde hair was splayed out on the grass only confirmed my opinion. It looked like the ring around Saturn, a halo to her big round face. She stared at the stars, and I stared at her.

“One day, we’re going to get out of here.” She affirmed, then rolled over and kissed my cheek. I nodded and looked up to the big strawberry moon. “We’ll move to the big city—Nashville, or St. Louis—rent a tiny apartment, and we’ll meet men that aren’t farmers, and—”

She glances back over her shoulder as she turns for water and casts a wide waning-crescent smile. The glare of the spotlight casts her lace dress and the teeth I know to be brilliant white a faded shade of cadmium. The light glances off of her celestial body, and I understand now. She only reflects. Never produces.

When she turns to face the audience again, I walk out the stage door to the parking lot. I look up at the sky, drinking in the stars and satellites and bits of space junk; I drink up Venus and Mars, but I spit them out again, because they aren’t mine to hold. I try to hang on to the harvest moon, but it vanishes from my hands in a red puff of smoke. I brush off my dusty hands and go back inside. Dolly will need her Diet Coke soon.

Dreams! We all have them. And we’ve all seen our dreams change throughout our lives. A childhood dream of being a rodeo cowboy might evolve to obtaining a computer science degree… Or even the other way around… Whether you’ve dreamed of jetting off to the stars or creating vast worlds that transport eager readers, these potent aspirations motivate and drive us.

That’s especially true here at the Brink Literacy Project, where we utilize the power of storytelling to affect the lives of people on the brink—anyone who is marginalized in society or otherwise lacks access to traditional means of learning about and employing the art of storytelling. We want to make dreams come true for our students, everyday.

But… what about our staff members? What have they dreamed about as wee storytellers?

Valerie San Filippo

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?
I dreamed of writing “the Great American Novel.” I’m really not sure what that means.

How did you think you would obtain that dream?
As a young writer, I truly thought a brilliant idea would strike me like a bolt of lightning. I would be so favored by the muses that a novel would flow from my mind fully-formed. Agents and acquiring editors would sense the birth of such an inspired work as if beckoned by the star of Bethlehem, and they would lay bids of six-figure book deals at my feet. I would be rich beyond comprehension! I would be the voice of my generation! I would be a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson!

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?
Thank goodness the dream changed. I learned to love the process. I don’t write because I love being published, I write because I love writing. I’m living my dream every day. I write as much as I can. I help other people bring their ideas to life. On very rare occasions, a stranger will reach out and tell me they liked a story I wrote, and then the world feels cozier and kinder than it did before. That’s really special. That’s the dream.

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?
Writing involves a lot more work than I imagined, but I love the work more that I ever thought possible.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?
This feels awkward to admit because we do sometimes work with him here at Brink, but, I would want to spend time with Pat Rothfuss. I read The Name of the Wind at a point in my life when I was starting to lose my sense of wonder, but the way Pat uses language changed the way I looked at the world. The thing is, when you render something with his measure of care, you can’t help but love that thing. I feel like he would be a great person to do absolutely nothing with. Like, dude, let’s sit in the world together for a minute and describe the sacred things we see. Everything is beautiful. Show me.

Dominic Loise

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?

As a young writer, I was self publishing a comic book with an artist friend right out of college. It was based on a newspaper strip from his college paper and the goal was for the book to help sell comic strips to newspaper syndicates or the comic would take off on its own.

How did you think you would obtain that dream?

It seemed very attainable. The independent comic book community was incredibly inviting. We traveled to the second APE(Alternative Press Expo) and met some legends in the industry at a bar after the convention. They were telling us how to take our zine to an actual comic book.

Once we had a comic book we sent around comic strip samples to newspaper syndicates and magazines to see if they were interested. We even went to the conference for newspaper syndicate artists in Columbus, which happens every few years, to talk with creatives and get an honest timeline for selling a strip.

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?

The dream shifted when the comic book market collapsed in the 90s. Marvel started self distributing their books. Many independent comic book distributions closed and soon a lot of the direct market comic shops were closing.

I remember we had a new issue about to go to press and that week Marvel announced they were going to self distribute and we held it back. We watched everything play out and never printed that issue. And getting a comic strip in a newspaper is hard work. Statistically, we were told it’s easier to get drafted into the NFL.

From there, it seemed life got in the way and I couldn’t get into the industries I had a foothold in so I got a corporate job.

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?

The reality of being a writer is much better. I started writing again as therapy and the people apart of my work have helped my healing. These supports have made me a much better writer than I have ever been.

Also, I have learned to joy of rewriting.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?

If I could meet any writer, I would enjoy being in a room with Steven Moffat. His speeches on Doctor Who are what I play when I am having a hard day. And since we are talking about time travel, I would talk to myself as a younger writer and say it works out the way it should have for the better life.

Maribel Leddy

As a young writer, what did you dream your future in publishing would be?

I dreamt I would be a published author. At one point, I wanted to be the next Louise Erdrich—publishing a book before I turned 30. 

How did you think you would obtain that dream?

I thought I would go to college and write the next great American fantasy/sci-fi series, get published pretty quickly, and then have a miniseries on Netflix. 

Has the dream changed or shifted? And if so, how?

Well, reality has certainly reared its ugly head. Writing isn’t often that lucrative, nor is it as easy to break into publishing as I hoped it would be. I also haven’t actually written my novel/series yet, so there’s that. Being an adult, in general, takes more time and is much more difficult than I think I ever imagined as a kid. Enjoy your youth—you know, the one you have before you have to start paying an electricity bill every month! 

How does actually being a writer compare to what you dreamt it would be like?

In many ways, it’s just as wonderful as I thought it would be. I get to do what I love. How many people can say that? Not me, even a year ago (I quit my marketing job to pursue writing full time). Of course, it’s not as easy as I thought it would be either. It requires a lot of focus to get anything done, which I don’t always have. And sometimes you burn yourself out from overthinking things. That said, the communities I’ve built as a writer keep me going even today. There’s also a lot less sitting in coffee shops over a steaming mug of tea with the patter of rain on the window outside and a cat curled in my lap. That’s the kind of fantasy that truly only exist in dreams. Most coffee shops in NYC don’t have cats. Or good wi-fi. Or bathrooms.

If you could meet any other writer, living or dead, in your dreams who would you meet with, and why?

Definitely Shakespeare. I want to ask him if he actually wrote all those plays. And then I want to hit him on the head for some of the stuff in them. 

The child’s joy was contagious. He had no idea this would be one of the most symbolic moments of his life. He emanated sunlight, smiling.

Moments of happiness and recurring lucidity. Life previously so turbulent became a blue ocean of calm. We fought for the first time, the hurt flowed like rain, and the world collapsed after the relapse. I asked myself several times, “Does no one like me?”

Months that used to pass quickly now pass slowly, dragged by force through time.

At the end of the year, the bright star passed by so quickly that almost no one saw it, but that hopeful child did. He requested to have one more chance to change an uncertain future.

Just like the stars that shone that night, the notification appeared. In the middle of the pitch-black, hope rose again with one simple question, can we still be friends?

Maybe I was too hasty. Maybe I should have thought more. If I leave, will you remember me? It’s sad to know I no longer have you with me, smiling. It’s sad to delete the memories of good and magical moments. It’s sad to see you moved on, and I’m still standing at the same bus stop. Now, I’m the one asking the question, can we still be friends?

Top Notes:

Crisp, elusive, clean.

Like the dried orange peel that flits from fingertips into the shallow of the beach water with the moon draping beyond, and the sand particles drifting past lips when the wind kneads hair into twisted knots while the brine never dries.

Pores opening to inhale scent. Mouth opening along with little holes in my skin, and I can almost hear the crunchy, grainy, salty sand rolling in my mouth. I am the voyeur, standing alone in the middle of an open beach.

My unintentional gift— the orange peel— where did it go? It should have sunk underneath the salty waves and laid motionlessly on the brown sugary sand. It should still be there, stagnant, stationary, waiting to be picked up and returned to my hand. And yet, I don’t see a glimpse of murky orange underneath sand-filled water. The moon nods winks at the beach, it pulled my offering away, but I hadn’t had the chance to see it leave.

There exists no orange by the shore.

Middle Notes:

The top notes are long gone and the remaining concoction blooms into a deep creaminess. The velvety middle notes melt into my skin, but my mind yearns for the clean scent of an orange peel flying away. I can’t delight in the taste of time gliding out of reach.

A cycle of fingertips presses down on the oblong perfume nozzle. Spritzes of chemicals grace the air. I exhale. Sniff deeply to replace the remaining air in my lungs with a glimpse of the dried orange peel that has long since flown away into the ocean by the moon’s accord. There’s a nervous haste to my actions. A senseless, irrational desperation for something I know is transient, a bit too ephemeral, something better left in the past.

Base Notes:

The remains after the disintegration of the baked orange and soft cream. The brunt of the burnt metallic base note lingers and settles into my skin. It pockmarks the open gaping holes, an excess of chemicals sunken in because of my earlier desperate spritzes.  

I can smell it. I feel it sinking and carving a territory into my skin, and I thrust my inner elbow underneath my friend’s nose. Trust me, it’s there. But when they try to breathe the chemicals into their lungs, their nose denies its existence. I hunch my back and dive into the juncture of my elbow and inhale. It’s not there in my nose, but I feel it burrowing under my flesh. The pain triggers memory as a reliving and relieving of the process of the death of The Moon by Planetary Pull.

November is Native American Heritage Month. My personal tradition for this month dictates I read work by local and international Indigenous authors and educate myself as best I can. I would love for you to join me in this.

I’d like to explain why I chose these books over others. I didn’t want my selection to seem arbitrary—I especially didn’t want another lip-service listicle posted for relevant web traffic. This is a topic I care about, and I want to give it the thought and respect it deserves. While selecting these titles, I chose not to abide by colonizer-imposed borders differentiating between the lands we call Canada and the United States, thus identities of “Native American” and “Native Canadian.” These borders were not decided by Indigenous people themselves; instead, they were forced upon them by settlers. In turn, I chose to abide by the Haudenosaunee understanding of Turtle Island, which recognizes the entire North American continent as one.

The name Turtle Island comes from the creation story of the Haudenosaunee, but you may know it by its anglicized name, the Iroquois confederacy. In this story, Sky Woman falls from the clouds but is caught by seabirds and placed on the back of a turtle in a giant ocean. Sky Woman understood she wouldn’t be able to live the rest of her life on the back of a turtle, so she enlists the help of various aquatic creatures to swim to the bottom of the ocean and bring her back to soil. All fail except for the muskrat, and using the soil it brings her, she builds what we now know as North America on the back of the turtle. Different groups have their own variants of this story, but, at its core, this story highlights cultural tenets of the relationship between person, land, and animal. 

I have also made the conscious choice to include only Indigenous women and two-spirit writers. It felt important to highlight the intersectionality of oppression, and, as someone living on Stolen Treaty 7 land, highlight the voices of those most in need of support.

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich is a short-story cycle released in 1984 that follows multiple generations of three families: the Lamartines, the Kashpaws, and the Morisseys. It spans from the 1930s through the 1980s on an Ojibwe reservation split between Minnesota and North Dakota. Toni Morrison wrote “the beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being completely devastated by its power.” Despite this, I was still devastated. This book was important to include not just because of its deft handling of historical understanding, but because of the resilience and its joy. In these short stories, Lulu Lamartine becomes an active member of the American Indian Movement after her house is seized much to the chagrin of her entire family; Lipsha Morissey attempts to rescue his grandparents marriage, is ravaged by assimilationist traumas of boarding schools all while mourning his own missing mother; and Marie Kashpaw fights over spoons with the nun who abused her.  However, it never lets tragedy and injustice take center stage. True to its title, Love Medicine refocuses understandings of Oijibwe communities through joy and humor. The characters are not simple caricatures of the noble savage or vanishing Indian, but first and foremost, they are fully developed, flawed humans. 

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson, released in 2000, tells the story of Lisamarie Hill, who recently lost her brother under suspicious circumstances. The book follows her search for answers in the small Haisla community of Kitamaat just off Vancouver Island. The story combines Haisla legend and myth with gothic and horror conventions to tell the story of different hauntings— of a girl, of her family, and of a community by the specters of colonialism and violence. It’s also haunted by contemporaneous events as it explores what it means to be Indigenous and missing, especially as a woman. Notably, around the time of Monkey Beach’s release, the atrocious acts of Robert Pickton came to light. The book reckons with contemporary Indigenous traumas using their own ways of knowing rather than the Western idea of being followed by ghosts or demons. Instead, Lisamarie sees Sasquatch-like b’gwus and a little red-haired man who predicts when bad events will take place. Yet, despite the moments of haunting, Monkey Beach balances the fright with more optimistic cultural traditions. Lisamarie is extremely close with her Ma-ma-oo, her grandmother, who she forages, fishes, camps, and cooks with. There is a particularly touching scene where they make oolichan grease, which depicts contemporary Haisla living as a complicated, but changing, mixture of joy and sorrow. 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Optimism is the cornerstone of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, which was released in 2013. This collection of creative nonfiction-cum-essays-cum-nature writing weaves together science, traditional Powatomi knowledge, personal anecdote, and reflection as easily as a braid of sweetgrass, defying the Western genre category with grace and ease. My favorite essays in this book are “Violets and Asters,” “The Honourable Harvest,” and “The Three Sisters.” What I love about these essays is how they Indigeneize knowledge we have all been taught, while also highlighting we were only taught half of the story. Braiding Sweetgrass centers Indigenous relationships with the land—learning from the land, reciprocity with the land, and acting as stewards of the land. Kimmerer appropriates Western science and brings it into Indigenous ways of knowing, presenting the folly of colonization and the reality that those of us who share Turtle Island are not so different. It is uniquely prescient as climate disaster looms. For me, especially, this book reminded me that, as the descendant of colonizers living on stolen land, the least I can do is care for that land. 

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq

Split Tooth is unlike any book I have ever read. It was released 2018 but set in the 1970s when the author was a child.  It defies categorization by combining prose, poetry, memoir, and illustration to craft a biotext about the coming of age of a young Inuit woman navigating generational trauma, pregnancy, and the intensity of the natural world. The term biotext, coined by Fred Wah, describes work not wholly fictional nor wholly autobiographical—the idea is it is not either/or but authentic to the experience. Tagaq highlights how this is a form uniquely suited to postcolonial writing as it refuses Western-imposed categories to engage with Inuk oral and musical traditions, folklore, legend, and spiritualities. Furthermore, it worked! There is no contrivance, no forcedness to its experimentation. It feels as though there was truly no other way this story could have been written. While reading Split Tooth, I could feel how Tagaq sank her heart into this book; and there were real, emotional stakes for her, which reminded me there are real, emotional stakes for me, too.

Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead

Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead is the rebellious child of Braiding Sweetgrass and Split Tooth. Released in 2022 and categorized as creative nonfiction, Whitehead takes the torch Kimmerer carries and shoots it clear to space. They explode genre, convention, and language into a new stratosphere, as well as blurring boundaries between gender, animal, plant, and land. It combines her clear-eyed wisdom with the ease and playfulness of Tagaq—I feel this book, also, could not have been written any other way. The words would not work the same in English, and I believe that’s the point. Outright refusing the confines of Western categorizations, Whitehead writes in half Oji-Cree, half English and incorporates writing systems that simply will not translate. And nor should they have to. Isn’t it my job to learn about my own land? This book hit particularly close to home for me, because Whitehead lives in the same city as me and teaches at the same university I attend. This book showed my own home through new eyes. Making Love with the Land is decolonial writing in its most current and realized form and is built on all that came before.

A final note: Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island are not monolithic. Though there are similar thoroughlines, each group is different. They speak different languages, have different cultures and traditions, and follow different spiritualities. There is so much rich variety, and the world ought to see it. I have tried to cover as many unique groups as I can: Louise Erdrich is Ojibwe, Eden Robinson is Haisla, Robin Wall Kimmerer is Powatomi, Tanya Tagaq is Inuk, and Joshua Whitehead is Oji-Cree.

“Are you breathing?”

The girl felt nausea in her nose all at once. Saltwater rose from her stomach, through her throat, and out of her mouth as she spat out bits of the sea trapped in her lungs. The woman standing above her frowned, but the girl didn’t answer her query. What kind of question was that, anyway? Could she have answered if she was not breathing? No.

Shuimu looked down. She was dressed, which was the most important thing. A black dress stuck uncomfortably to her skin, no shoes. The pulse of the waves pushed the fabric of the pants closer to her body, and it irritated her. She moved to her knees, pushing the woman’s hand away.

“What land is this?” Shuimu barked.

“You don’t know?” the woman answered. A smirk played across her face and a silver robe covered most of her frame.

Shuimu looked past the woman from her new resting spot. A blank darkness stared tauntingly back at her. The only light came from the woman, as if she had stolen the moon’s brightness and trapped it inside her. The waves continued to lap on the shore, but no sound came from them. Shuimu laughed out loud. She placed both hands on her chest, took a deep breath, and started chanting.

The Shurangama Mantra came out deep and strong from her lips. The pace was quicker than usual, if only to make the spell work faster.

“What are you doing?” the woman shrieked. “You can’t do magic at night, it’s forbidden here!” Shuimu opened one eye to watch the woman waving her arms. Shuimu smiled at the hysteria and continued her mantra.

“NAMO SARVA TATHĀGATA SUGATĀYA ARHATE SAMYAK-SAMBUDDHĀYA,” she called. Give praise to all the Exalted One, the Well Attained One, the Perfected Disciple, the Perfectly Self-Awakened One! Let us call the power of the Sun!

As she reached the end of the verse, she felt a shift in the air as the woman lunged at her.

Shuimu reached up to wrap her hand around the woman’s hair, twisting it and her head back. Shuimu pulled the woman’s head towards her own face so they were looking at one another upside down.

“Enough games, hag,” Shuimu hissed. “Take me out of this dream and back to my people.”

The woman feigned shock with a wide gasp on her face. She cried out, “What are you talking about?”

Shuimu brought her left hand down onto the woman’s throat and pressed until she heard the quiet, last gulp of air.

The woman’s body disappeared and the light within her died. Just as Shuimu guessed, the woman was none other than the shapeshifting moon in her human form, come to murder her. Too late, you tyrant, Shuimu thought. The horizon faded back into view. Trees on fire lit up the beach as the war against Shuimu’s people raged on. The uprising was here. There was no more time to waste.

Kaitlin Lounsberry

The Great Impersonator

As an avid fan of everything Halsey does, when she announced the concept behind her fifth studio album, The Great Impersonator, I was eager to see how she’d tackle this great feat. That being, every song on the album and its stylizing would impersonate an artist that’s influenced Halsey as a creative artist. Leading up to its release on October 25, Halsey teased the 18-track album and snippets of each song on her Instagram while modeling herself after one of the greats. From Stevie Nicks to Fiona Apple to Linda Ronstadt to Aaliyah, Halsey tackles an impressive range of styles and genres.

Most stunning, though, is the undercurrent buried in Halsey’s lyricism that one might overlook if they’re too distracted trying to determine which artist influenced which song. But pay attention and you’ll discover an album teeming with an artist grappling with their mortality. Haunting, depressing, ripping themselves apart and handing over the pieces, Halsey dives headfirst into her darkest moments, especially those following her diagnosis of Lupus SLE and a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder in 2022. It’s as nuanced as you’d imagine and a powerhouse listen. It’s an album that leaves its listener feeling closer and more understanding to the person behind the tracks. Though I’m definitely biased, this is by far Halsey’s best work to date.

Simon Kerr

Compound Fracture

Miles lives in a small town where a blood feud between his ancestors and the sheriff’s family is written everywhere he looks. Murders both recent and ancient vie for his focus as he struggles to survive as an autistic trans teen in a conservative town. Andrew Joseph White writes incredible characters and vivid details, both of which will haunt your waking thoughts—in a good way!

Ari Iscariot

The Edge of Sleep

Stay awake. Stay alive. Don’t go to sleep. This is the haunting motif of The Edge of Sleep, a new show set in an apocalyptic world where sleeping means certain death. The story centers on Dave Torres, a man who has suffered terrible nightmares since infancy. In a cruel twist of fate, he is one of the few people left awake/alive when sleep descends upon the world and most of the population is trapped in a deadly nightmare. Alongside three other survivors, Dave must discover the source of this global epidemic and how to escape it—before they succumb to the siren call of sleep themselves.

While this is already a fascinating premise, The Edge of Sleep’s greatest strength lies in its actors. Matteo, Dave’s best friend, is the perfectly timed and gratefully received comic relief, cracking through the tension of this high octane show flawlessly. There’s Linda, the passionate and driven nurse with a guilty past, her drive never overshadowing her compassion for her patients and friends. Then Katie, the recovering addict, on a break from a loving yet tumultuous relationship with Dave, who offers him a safe place even as she faces her own demons. And Markiplier as Dave himself, delivering each of his lines with an earnestness that bleeds through every word. With his desperate, kind eyes and his doggedness to save his friends and the woman he loves, you never doubt the others willingness to trust him with their lives.

It’s also worth mentioning the show’s production value. For such a small budget, the atmosphere, setting, and lighting are brilliant. The Edge of Sleep doesn’t shy away from color or well-lit scenes: it possesses an X-Files level of mastery over framing the dark without taking away from its terror. Pulsing, strange dream sequences shine with neon and are haunted by terrifying visages from beyond human comprehension. Psychological torments endured by the characters, punctuated with ghastly dialogue, bring to mind The Twilight Zone—on mushrooms. While the show is plagued with minor errors that smaller projects often face, e.g. the occasional awkward camera angle or odd bit of pacing, this is ultimately a triumph for QCODE, Markiplier, and all who worked on it. Their passion and dedication make this show a unique and riveting experience, a stand-out amongst many other large budget endeavors.

In full disclosure, this review comes from a deeply personal place. I’ve been watching Mark’s videos since I was sixteen, and in the time I’ve observed his journey, he’s gone from excitedly reviewing a vacuum cleaner simulator 2013 to making the masterpiece that is the trailer for the movie Iron Lung. I mention this to exemplify the sky’s the limit when it comes to Mark’s efforts. Every project he’s worked on has grown in size, quality, and expert storytelling. I firmly believe a season two of The Edge of Sleep would build on the excellent foundation that has already been set, just as I believe that Mark will continue to make increasingly incredible media wherever he is given the opportunity.

Dominic Loise

Mallrats

The work of Kevin Smith has been in the zeitgeist for me this month. His ChronicCon came to Chicago right before I moved, bringing folks from different View Askew Productions films, tv shows, and podcast works. And recently, I had an hour-long discussion about Smith’s second film, Mallrats, which came out 29 years ago this October.

My friend, Carl, asked me if I liked the film since he was about to rewatch it. My short answer was yes, but then I went down the rabbit hole from there. I talked about how before Blade in 1998, Mallrats was instrumental in introducing comic book culture to the mainstream. Mallrats showed audiences the type of casual conversations Wednesday Warriors, who support brick-and-mortar comic shops, had as a community before Big Bang Theory was on television. It introduced the Stan Lee cameo before the Marvel movies started rolling out into theaters. But, most importantly, it took the premise of guys running around a mall, pulling pranks, trying to get girls, and moved it beyond the sub genre of 80’s sex farce comedy and brought a 90s indie sensibility to the genre. One which is respectful to women and telling men they can grow and be better. 

Since Mallrats, Kevin Smith has been going strong as a creator for three decades. I’ve heard him talk many times over the years. Each time, I have found him funny and insightful, and I’ve been impressed with how he can captivate an audience. But, what I find most fascinating about Kevin Smith is how he’s always encouraging others to not feel trapped by their surroundings and to get out and create something if they feel moved to do so.

a woman at night is like a man in the morning

except in all the ways she is not

for there are no means for the mounted streetlight to feel as warm

on skin

as the unrobed mid-day sun

nor can the sweet chirp of mothers to their young in the nest atop that big old birch

quite compare to the cricket’s night

interspersed by those phantom voices spun

by the hungry winds

gusty manhandling of autumn’s last branches

the moon for all her virtues

cannot give the time

no more than the sun can refrain himself from his merry traverse

on the trail of east to west

from dawn until dusk

when man’s wondrous telescope finds itself wrapped under a tarp

bearing the dirt of good fun

hoisted onto something so naturally manufactured for liberation

a Jeep, perhaps, or a pickup truck

 sans the sort of thing resembling a cover or door

or perhaps onto a back naked without the indentations of a bra

braced upon loud clunky feet that squelch down the mud path

they have never learned to tip-toe around uncles in living rooms

and meander to kitchens where mothers pour libations for thirsty throats or

to hush the patter of hurried footsteps

and avoid the big old lurker lying in the shadows

or to use inside voices when not inside

and listen for those foreign fingers hungry for tender necks

and to stay away from bad manners and shadows

no matter if the shadows transport  

to a poppy field

their pearly whiteness more spectacular night’s canvas and in it

where a patch of grass has

been worn down by calloused bare feet

in the same way man may fall to his knees

look at stars in skies

as the Romans did when Jupiter struck down light’s mandate from His celestial mantle so

too must woman fall

but to scatter rings of salt in the dark

knees resemble meniscus

at night man will delight in the moon

but know that she is nothing without sun’s light

woman could never think to look up

and arrive at this mournful realization

amongst the manic thrum of

howls erupting from the menagerie’s wolves menacing

the walk from car door to home door

uniformed silhouettes brandishing woven manacles

breeding fathers’ Mendelian gaze on adolescent breasts

dead men

and wandering fingers reeking of menthol and vapor

she hears them all in the menial silence of dawn’s darker precursor

senses heightened by menarche

and tragically

the scent of her own traitorous blood is what does her in before morning

All our guests have arrived, and we’re both at the altar.

I used to wonder what you thought about when you closed your eyes. When you were awake, it was easy enough to tell. You either had your nose down in a book, or you were taking a moment so we could listen to music or read together. You’d come up with these fantastic ideas as we danced to whatever song you chose, and when they blew my mind, you would give me the most breathtaking smile. But when you slept, it was a little harder. You didn’t toss and turn, you never made a peep. I watched you for years. And, though you never seemed quite happy, you always seemed the most at peace.

Everyone’s staring at you. Always at you.

I used to wish you’d never found me. We spent every moment together, since. Every class, every meal, and every conversation. It was great…but I felt guilty. You never spent time with anyone else, even when they asked first. No one ever saw me, standing when someone took the seat beside you, or quietly stepping back when they got too close and unknowingly pushed me aside. They never looked my way, and that was fine. But you never spoke to them, and I always felt like it was my fault.

You look so beautiful, I can barely hear the priest.

Would it have been this way if we’d never met, all those years ago? You knew me better than I knew myself. Maybe that was the problem. I savored every moment with you. But there were days you’d grow silent, and just stare at your phone. Days where you’d smile with everyone else, then cry the moment we got back to your room. There were a lot of those days, and I couldn’t comfort you through any of them. Those days, I wish you’d known me a lot less. Those days, I wished you could forget about me.

After the service, everyone stands as we head down the aisle.

I used to wonder about you. It was seventeen years ago you decided you were tired of playing alone, and you saw me for the first time. You dragged me into your make-believe games, and we’ve been together ever since. You were such a bright person. If we had grown apart, as most friends like us did, I know you wouldn’t have abandoned me. You would’ve sent me off with the most amazing story, more than I ever wanted, even if it could never compare to loving you. How it felt, being loved by you. You were everything, my Sun. I had always hoped you would forget me, and make better friends, like all the other children did. Now I wish I could’ve been enough.

They lower you into the ground. And I go with you.

Both moons were out tonight, their red and blue lights filtering through the branches overhead. The night where both moons were full came only once a year. If Esther were superstitious, she would take it as a sign that both moons were out the night she decided to run away from home.

The silence outside the high rampart of the city made her skin crawl. The cart’s wheels squeaked in protest as the draught horse’s hooves thudded in the dirt, drawing the cart forward. Inside the metal walls, the city was polluted by sirens wailing, car tires screeching, and factories churning away. Something behind those walls haunted Esther, and the fear sat deep in her chest as she recounted the seconds it took to get past the guards.

Crates surrounded her on all sides with her knees drawn up to her chest and a pelt blanket draped over her shoulders for warmth. To forget about the oppressive darkness of the surrounding forest, Esther kept her eyes pointed heavenward on the moons looming overheard. The driver’s rattling lantern was the only light source in the vicinity. The low noise of an owl hooting in the distance made Esther jump in surprise, slamming her elbow into a crate. The motion struck a nerve in her elbow, causing her to wince and hiss in pain.

“You alright back there, lass?” The driver asked, looking back at her.

She rubbed a hand against her elbow. A thick Valendolic accent touched his voice—a rare sound in the post-occupation era.

“I-I’m fine. No need to worry about me.”

“The owl startled you, eh?” he chuckled a bit. “I can’t blame you. Those buggers sound awfully intimidating this time of night. ‘Specially when you can’t see.”

“I’ve, uh, barely been out of the city myself. You don’t hear them a lot inside the walls.”

He nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. I can’t imagine animals wanting to live inside those blasted walls. Humans least of all.”

Somewhere, back within city limits, she knew her brother and father were panicking about where she was. What if they were phoning her now disconnected number, knocking on their neighbors’ doors asking if they’d seen her anywhere, or calling her school to ask if she’d come in for the day? Maybe her father was so desperate he reached out to her mother and ask if she’d decided to stay at her place. None of their efforts would yield answers—by daylight, Esther would be long gone.

This title was published on April 4, 2024 by Zsa Zsa Publishing.

In the wake of her son’s death, Debbie Enever’s world as a mother is wrenched away and a new identity of “midow” takes hold. A term coined by Enever herself, a midow is a mother who has lost, or widowed, her only child. Midowed: A Mother’s Grief explores the year after Dan’s death as she navigates organ donations, funerals, holding onto memories, and finding her future.

Segmented into three parts, the novel starts on a Saturday in late May 2018 following the immediate aftermath of Dan’s accident. Faced with the terrible fact that her son has died, Enever keeps us with her at every step—the trips between hospitals, the impossible decisions, and the horror of seeing her fifteen-year-old son lying unconscious in a hospital bed. The days following his accident are documented in journal entries that intimately navigate her year of loss. We also learn about the process of organ donation while Dan’s friends and family find other ways to honor his memory.

Threaded throughout the present narrative, Enever weaves in Dan’s childhood. This choice allows readers to experience his favorite holidays; how they find their beloved dog, Maggie; and how a mother and son bond over football. And it’s Dan’s fierce love of football that propels him towards athletic ambitions. In his teenage years, he joins a gym and starts making his own high-protein meal plans. From these moments, there’s no doubt Dan’s life was full of passion. The contrast of these timelines fits together, in part, because Dan’s voice is a constant in both. While we get vivid and energetic moments in his upbringing, we also continue to hear him after his death through Enever’s personification of him. Utilizing italics, Enever allows for dialogue, opinions, and even comedic relief through Dan’s voice.

Reading this as a mid-thirties woman without children, I found myself welling up at the café as I ferociously paged through those early, dark days. Enever’s prose hones in on emotions in a way that makes them accessible to all readers. She showcases the detachment of survival that competes with the shutting down of grief.

“I’m in limbo, paused between the past and the future. Dan is in limbo, drifting between life and death. I feel like there are two of me; the puppet version of me standing, looking like a real person, and other me locked inside, with eyes closed, breath held, trying to hold onto one moment forever so nothing ever moves forward again.”

Here is the novel’s universal conflict—the perceived need to be constantly moving forward as grief grips onto us, temporarily holding us in periods of stasis. While I can’t know the loss of a child, the memoir speaks to other areas of grief I’ve experienced—having lost a loved one with no preamble and no warning. Enever’s vulnerability generates a sense of solidarity and being seen. In the year after Dan’s death, Enever deftly encapsulates the strange quality of time and solitude that follows loss.

“Minutes drag, and hours pass in a blink. I don’t want company anyway. Messages of love and support are still coming through, ping ping ping. Everyone else’s grief is hard to bear. I can’t tie up in my mind all that’s happened in the last few days. This is shock and it hums in my ears.”

Bereaved parents and those experiencing grief may relate to this sense of prostration in the wake of loss. And while I personally related to Enever’s raw openness, the novel makes no claim to be the answer to grief. In her memoir, she recognizes that friends and family manifested their grief in unique ways and she highlights the various ways to mourn. Despite their differences, however, those close to her all find small comforts in celebrating Dan’s life. That’s what this novel is at its core. A small comfort, a celebration, and a resource for fellow bereaved parents.

While there’s no denying the heartbreak in this memoir, there is also hope. Dan and Enever shared many conversations about organ donation during his life because of friends who needed, and successfully received, transplants. So, when the time comes to decide, Enever knows she isn’t deciding for Dan, but rather, ensuring his resolution to donate is fulfilled. She expresses this to the doctors to which Dan’s voice replies, Dead right, Mum. When Enever is allowed to enter his room prior to the procedure, she reminisces on his athletic life. Namely she reflects that instead of preparing for a bronze medal Dan’s keeping his organs healthy and preparing to pass on life. For that Enever expresses, “I’m so proud.”

There’s no mistaking this is Enever’s journey, but Dan is a main character, too. During her first year of grief, each chapter is labeled by the days since the accident. In contrast, when we experience Dan’s life, the chapter headings highlight the people, places, and events they experienced together. It’s these past chapters where Dan’s voice brings comic relief and comfort. In this way, the novel’s structure allows the reader to dwell in the darkest moments before being pulled into the bright joy of Dan’s childhood. Through the memoir’s braided narrative, we gain an understanding of his character—how curious he was as a child, how he loved to drink milk even as a teen, his obsession with United (affectionately considered the wrong football team according to Enever), and how caring he was. “He put in the love, and it came back multiplied” and maybe that’s what we should take from this novel, a message of love, of memory, of hope.

Of how Dan’s light shines on.