InklingSpring 2019Volume 29

INKLING Volume 29 Spring 2019

Inkling is the creative arts magazine of Lone Star College-Tomball. Stu-dents of LSC-Tomball are invited to submit poetry, essays, short stories, or artwork for this annual publication. All copyrights revert to the authors and artists. No portion of Inkling may be reproduced without consent of the individual contributors.

Senior Editors: Amanda Black Brezalel Leviston

Editorial Staff: Angelica Balles Rebekah Chatman Regina Elizalde Ashley Ener Joseph Fenley Marisela Flores Laura Franco Kaitlin Quarles Georgette Smith

Advisers: Mari-Carmen Marín Catherine Olson Kyle Solak

Cover Art: Enchanted Forest (Mixed Media) Emily Ponce-Camacho

The author of the book Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, was never clear on what exactly Neverland was, but from what I gathered, Neverland is a blank canvas that we, individually, paint with our thoughts, dreams, and experi-ences. My personal idea of Neverland is a picture of something like heav-en, a place to visit in my sleep, and a land where I can truly be free (as shown in my art work). We have all been to “that place between sleep and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming.” In the famous 1991 movie Hook, Tinker Bell says this to Peter Pan in hopes of sparking some courage. Now I say this to you hoping to spark some inspiration. Do not be afraid to close your eyes, and have a little faith; then, you will be off to your own Neverland.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Inkling staff, editors, and advisers would like to extend their sincerest thanks to Lone Star College-Tomball for the opportunity to publish this twen-ty-ninth edition of our magazine.

We’d like to thank sponsors of this year’s reading series: the LSC-Tomball Li-brary and the Office of Student Life. With their support, Inkling was able to host an on-campus reading and an interview with short story author Antonya Nelson. Additionally, Inkling would like to express our vast appreciation to Laura Franco and Brezalel Leviston for their efforts in transcribing the Antonya Nelson inter-view for publication in this year’s magazine. And, of course, tremendous thanks go to Antonya Nelson for sharing time, talent, and stories with us.

We offer heartfelt thanks to Dean Melinda Coleman in the First Year Founda-tions Division. Thanks also go to Shannon Marino, Lisa Gutierrez, and Sousan Abdul-Razzak in the Office of Student Life and to Bobbye Silva in the Lone Star College-Tomball Community Library for supporting us throughout the year. We must thank the Inkling faculty judges, Cory Colby, Janie Filoteo, Bo Rollins, and Becky Tate. Finally, we mustn’t forget English professor Douglas Boyd, long-time Inkling judge, proofreader and grammar sage, for the consistent editorial direction he has brought to the magazine over the past twenty-nine years.

Most of all, special thanks go to the talented and inspired students of Lone Star College-Tomball. Each year, we collect hundreds of submissions, and in the end, we are able to showcase only a handful of the creative works that LSC-Tomball students have to offer. Many thanks to all of the student contributors this year, in past years, and in years to come. This magazine would not be possible without them.

InklingTable of Contents

Embodying Eponine by Victoria Adolph First Place Prose Winner Parental Investment Risk by Emmalee Waggoner First Place Poetry Winner I Only Feel Like Myself When You Hurt Me by Laura Dunn To Darken in Sunlight by Joanna Wright The Universe Speaks by Amanda Black The Scythe and the Rend by Sabrina Hiltscher Forest Lullaby by Taylor Elmore Second Place Prose WinnerTo: Voice Leading; From: The Absolute Wrongs by Sabrina Hiltscher Second Place Poetry Winner To the Man, Lee by Joseph Fenley As If to Echo by Sabrina Hiltscher The Moon Cast Her Shimmering Light by Laura Dunn Grungy, the Homeless Man by James Purdy Third Place Prose WinnerAnother Week by Amanda Petersen Third Place Poetry WinnerDiffering Planes by Ashley Elliott Time by Amanda Black The Rock and the Tree by Cortney DeMott Journal #5: The Forgotten by Jacob Perkins The Other Truth (A Reversible Poem) by Julia Harter The Phoenix by Georgette Smith Breathing Again by Kaitlin Quarles Haunting by Kaitlin Quarles Self-Portrait (Sharpie on Paper) by Ashley Rodriguez First Place Art WinnerThe Vanishing (Black Ink & Graphite) by Awesziana Roberson

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Reborn (Gouache Paint) by Regina Roeli Eyes Wide Open (Mixed Media) by Emily Ponce-Camacho Restless Nights (Watercolor) by Mariana Ruiz Loya Awakening Viridian Hue (Photography) by Christy Woelfel Beach Buddies (Acrylic Paint) by Mariana Ruiz Loya Determined (Acrylic Paint) by Regina Roeli Never Forgotten (White Charcoal) by Yadhira Jaimes Second Place Art WinnerEffervescent (Photography) by Joanna Wright At Worst (Colored Pencil) by Marisela Flores Blue in the Inside (Digital) by Cynthia Enciso The Terminator Sketch (Pencil) by Karley Morris Sara (Acrylic Paint) by Regina Roeli Ephemeral (Watercolor & Oil) by Awesziana Roberson Judgment (Watercolor & Acrylic Paint) by Awesziana Roberson Third Place Art Winner A Conversation between Antonya Nelson and Inkling Transcribed by Laura Franco and Brezalel Leviston Walking Alone by Amanda Black Dress Up by Julia Harter The Last Sunset by Reba Threet Primordial Her by Ashley Elliott Love by Kiernan McClaren We, the August Born by Joseph Fenley An Entertainer by Joseph Fenley Within a Tale of Hope and Ruin by Joanna Wright Beneath This Towering Forest by Joanna Wright Contributors’ Biographies The Year in Inkling Submission Guidelines

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First Place Prose Winner

Embodying Eponine Victoria Adolph

It was now or never, the moment I had been anticipating since the beginning of the year. With my right hand grasping the other and my legs trembling beneath me, my heart raced 100 miles per hour dreading yet anticipating my 60-second shot of a lifetime. Alas, I heard the direc-tors yell “Number 76!” and pulled my shoulders back and held my chin high as if there was no tomorrow.

“Welcome to auditions, young lady. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us what you will be doing for your audition?” requested a quite stern but gentle woman sitting at attention in the center of the director’s table.

“My name is Victoria Adolph, I am 18 years old, and I will be preforming ‘Goodnight My Someone’ from The Music Man,” I pro-claimed confidently, pretending to be sure in every move I made, for there was no room for mistakes. The lady nodded and grinned at me as she turned to the designat-ed DJ and cued him to start the music whenever I was ready. A sudden heat flash struck me to the bone when nodding to the DJ, as I simulta-neously watched the lyrics fade into thin air. Afflicted by overwhelming dismay, I struggled; however, I managed to remember my lyrics but a second before my cue. An uproar of applause eased my overwhelmed spirit after my audition and brought about a silence to the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach. I could only hope giving my all was enough. I paced about my room while repeatedly hammering at the refresh button to the cast list page once I got home. Les Misérables was no Little Mermaid show, but a once-in-a-lifetime Broadway-styled opera one may compare to the status of Phantom of the Opera. During my long hours of waiting, I tormented myself with my deep insecurities. Give it up, Tori. You’ve only been an advance dancer and will forever remain

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an advance dancer. Don’t fill your mind up with ridiculous goals; you’ll only disappoint yourself. You would never win the spotlight in a musical like Les Mis. Only the best of the best would be considered for such an honor. A sudden ping from my laptop pierced my body, replicating an ambush of arrows from a high scout barricade. I turned frantically to my laptop to scroll with quivering fingertips through the posted cast list.

“AHHHH!” a high pitch scream burst louder than my body knows how to project, shaking the whole house. I brought my hands to my face, slowly massaging my forehead and rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I did it! I was notified with the casting of the role Eponine and a private message from the director requesting me to meet with her about the de-velopment and character building of this strenuous character.

Still baffled by the news, I approached the director with a hum-ble, eager spirit later that week for character development. I realized throughout the meeting, the director had higher expectations than I had anticipated. The role of Eponine is highly emotional, heartbreaking, strenuous, and quite perplexing to portray. Be that as it may, the chal-lenge was mine to face, and the prominent expectations the directing team had needed to be exceeded.

With one week to be off book, I rehearsed relentlessly and pushed myself beyond limits I have never come in contact with prior to. As rehearsals progressed, I began to struggle with relating to the char-acter and truly reflecting inside how Eponine felt. With an intense show such as this, it is critical to feel what your character feels on a personal level in order to convince the audience the emotions are raw and real, captivating the audience in such a way that the show becomes a reality they are living. Eponine was one who was abused and neglected the majority of her life and later died in the arms of a man she took a bullet for because of a devoted love she had for him. However, he did not feel the same and only saw her as one of the guys, leaving her in the dirt when an aristocratic young lady glided her way into his life. It wasn’t till after she died in his arms that he realized how much he cared for her all along. How was I supposed to feel that on a deep personal level? I

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spoke too soon. My dearly loved boyfriend, whom I had been in a seri-ous relationship with for quite some time, and I realized life was far too testing handling a relationship with other distressing issues. In short, we knew things were far too challenging at the time for us and we would be better off parting ways. Therefore, we had to say our goodbyes. Both of our hearts seemed to fall out of our chests and collide with the ground, shattering like thin, fragile glass hearts, never to be whole again. This is not what we wanted, but we knew it was the only way to leave us happy in the years to come.

Returning to my usual rehearsal routine, I played the orchestra soundtrack to the world-renowned solo of “On My Own,” an honor yet a burden for me to sing. Not even a full three measure into the lyrics, I broke down into a sobbing puddle of tears. I began to feel the empty loneliness Eponine felt when she sang this tragic, tear-jerking song un-like ever before. The lyrics began to play a harmony my own heart grew to know and battle with after the loss of a treasured relationship, leaving me with a broken, empty heart. As the show dates rapidly approached, I feared my relation with the character I portrayed now might become a boulder that caused me to be too emotionally invested. I hoped my per-formance would be the tearjerker it needed to be without me sobbing in the middle of a performance, causing an awkward crack in my vocals and a potential harsh lashing out from the directing team.

A thunder-filled applause split the grand red curtain; the beating of drums and the symphony of trumpets and violins echoed throughout the auditorium. I could feel the intensity of the music in your chest as if it was generating the beating of my own heart. As I listened to the voice-over while sipping on my hot Throat Coat, a miracle worker of a tea, I reminded myself to breathe deeply and slowly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to NYT’s production of Les Misérables…” And so it began. Anyone could see the sweat accumulat-ing on my forehead as I prepared to step onto the stage for the big solo. Even so, no one could see it on my face, for the life of an actress is to warrior through the emotions and intensity and welcome the audience

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into her character’s world. As “On My Own” continued, I sang with the intent of showing the true emotions I could reflect from off of my recent heartbreak.

I was greeted with tight hugs and tear-soaked cheeks in the wings after my performance. “You killed it, honey! Oh, I am so so proud of you. We were all in tears. You made the entire backstage crew truly feel your pain, even the grown men back here were crying!” said my mother, who had been running the backstage crew operations at the time.

Proceeding cast bows, I made my way down the theater hall to the main lobby to meet and greet audience members. This one feeble, older gentlemen shuffled his way towards me, hands held in front of him to meet mine. As his soft, old hands held mine as tight as he could manage, his tear-filled eyes met mine. “You…” he muttered out in a shaky tone, “I was worried to buy a ticket for this show. I didn’t know if it would be worth it. Oh, but my dear, I was blessed. You are a blessing to me. A true blessing. Thank you. Thank you.”

Holding back tears myself as I listened to this tender man, I thanked him for coming to see the performance and humbly showed my gratitude for his heart-touching feedback. It was in that moment I found the strength within me to fight my insecurities and to never doubt my ability in taking on an emotional challenge.

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First Place Poetry Winner

Parental Investment RiskEmmalee Waggoner

First off, thank you for the life that you’ve given me. Next up, screw you for leaving, mostly because you have the choice to leave, like a bird migrating to a new warm, safe place. You didn’t think about the damage you helped create, the bed you made that I get to sleep in and love and cherish and raise and say good morning and good night too. Not caring about the sour resentment I taste in my mouth when I think about how you just get the choice to leave because you’re still just a man and I’m now a mom.Because of parental investment risk.According to studies done by RL Trivers, all men truly have to lose is sperm when creating life. But come on, you give plenty of that up every time you partake in a little selfcare. But women lose nine months of their life, their life drained to support and create a new life that took you less than five minutes to solidify and create inside of my body. Five minutes for nine months of evidence that I get to wear under my shirt that you get the choice to deny and never look back on like dirty laundry you don’t care to wash because, hey, you’ll just buy new clothes.Now you’re not entirely to blame. It takes two to tango and we had options, but we’re past the point of no return now, or at least I am and you have a “get out of jail free” card that nobody bats an eye about because you’re “Just a young guy who doesn’t know what he wants yet” and I’m just a girl who should have known better and gets told to “man up” and take care of what she got herself into.And when I hold her in public places and she’s crying, and I can’t tame

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the small beast in my arms or I’m feeding this child that you gave me, from my body, I get disgusted looks from passing faces because I’m an inconvenience and a bad mother. But if you decided to stay, you’d be praised by all around for just holding her because “Oh my gosh, you’re such a good dad,” like you’re an angel sent from above to solve all my problems.I just want to scream and let all of the white, hot anger crash down on you like vicious waves pulling you down like you did to me, but if I just let a few tears out, I’m told I’m crazy and hormonal for having feelings. Like it’s irrational to be upset or hurt.But honestly, I feel sorry for you. Sorry you took the easy way out that I didn’t have the option to take, that you’ll never enjoy the sweet song of her laugh, or hold her small hand in yours as she looks in your eyes and says “I love you,” or know the bittersweet pain of watching her grow into the beautiful, strong, independent woman she will be. Sorry you didn’t “woman up”, but truly, thank you for the life you gave me.

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I Only Feel Like Myself When You Hurt MeLaura Dunn

When the words you feed me cut like glass, I chew them until my mouth bleeds, and the pain becomes something past that,When it hurts so badly, you can’t feel it anymore, and you can pretend it was love. It was selfish of me to believe I was worthy of anyone’s time. Everyone leaves, and I stay too long. My rose-colored glasses have a crack in them, but I wear them anyway. The bartender pours me a glass, and I’ve forgotten what I ordered. I sip it, and it tastes like my blood.

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To Darken in SunlightJoanna Wright

My dear, golden hero—Tell me, what have you done?You once stood so proudly,As bright as the high sun. Your sword gleamed in twilightAmbition in your eyes, You put up a good fightThrough the hurt and the lies.

My strong, stubborn hero, So long you’ve been fighting,You have withstood it all,The thunder, the lightning. When skies burned as embersAnd all hope seemed to drown,Still light lay on your headLike a golden spun crown.

My small, stumbling hero, Your heart feels so heavy,And sometimes they wonder,If you weren’t quite ready,For Atlas’ burden,Of this great, wide world,To pass to your shoulders, While frail screams unfurled.

Nay, boy, listen closely:Stop living in your fright!For the sun’s still shining,Once you waken the night.Darkness set on your soul,But it will flee in time.You fell down a mountain,Yet still you can climb.

My sick, darling hero,Tell me, why don’t you smile?It’s like that shining spark Is dead to your wiles.Your sword lost the moonlightSo dark it had become,It was coated in crimson,Tell me—where was it from?

Oh, my sad, sad, sad boy,That regret in your eyes.They stole your innocence,Like a gold-laden prize. And they cut down your hope,While the world burned to ash.Then they convinced you thatYou held the guilty match.

Oh, dark, fading hero—Are you Hero no more?Your wings, they have shriveled,No longer you may soar. And your shoulders stoop low,Darkness swims in your eyes,Could all those promises,Have just been twisted lies?

My courageous hero,Hope is drawing nearYou’ve made it this far,What have you to fear?Stand straighter and stronger,Let out a lion’s roar.Keeping courage within,You can still win this war.

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The Universe SpeaksAmanda Black

The universe speaks to me through wind and whispers. Through death and breath.

The world turns and shakes all those who claim it as their home. The expanse speaks and tells me that I matter.

That I am here for a reason. That I am a being, existing by more than chance or circumstance.

That my smile matters. That my tears matter.

That even though I am but a speck within a void of uncertain darkness I exist for a reason.

My presence impacts the turn of this spherical womb we call Earth None who live or die do so for nothing.

We matter. Our stories matter.Humanity matters.Now, go prove it.

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The Scythe and the RendSabrina Hiltscher

The scythe hissed a soft melody through the air, catching a late-opened blossom in the stem.The scythe whirled to rest before the flower fell.The morning glory made no sound till it rattled the leaves on which it fell. The last of its sweet perfume was lost in the cool scent of fallen leaves.“How fallen, now, art thou.” The worlds were a whispering hiss to match the speaker’s blade. “To bloom, to stay too late—too late… ‘Twas greatly erred with thee. Rest now with thy fallen cousins; pervert thy ways no more.”Thus spoken, the starlit figure moved on, his feet silent as shadows over the dry grass—golden grass turned silver in the scant moonlight. He walked among the silent rows—those marked with cross or chiseled stone. Flakes of painted fell, faded, here; deep carvings so etched with time as to have lost all legibility lay crumbling there… there were the markings he passed.Those that lay cleaner—those better attended—had passed through his shadow before—before the fate of the ill-timed flower.Finally, the ghostly figure stopped. Whispers rose like wind in the trees—if the wind had words. Begging, pleading for final rest, the words came, unrelenting.The silence now broken, the scythe swung out once more. Light caught against the blade, gleaming in a gentle song unsung—Once more the blade sang, catching not the air but The Veil of Life itself. The Rent was caught and torn; a light beyond brilliance burned at the edges.Hissing, whispering, grateful souls flew through with gentle song. The man stared after them, a deep longing haunting his time-worn eyes.Then with once more hiss—one flash of blade—The Rent was closed once more.

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Second Place Prose Winner

Forest LullabyTaylor Elmore

Tall pillars of moonlight stood gallant and steadfast through-out the forest as if to help the trees hold up their heavy branches. All was still aside from a little rustle here and there from critters scuttling through the shadows and a bird or two snoring somewhere in the quietness. As the tired hours passed, the moon drifted across the sky; clouds slowly rolling by it threw their shapes over the treetops. Every place the clouds pulled their shadows over the stellar moonlight pillars would fade away as if to rest. A cricket began to chirp somewhere in the nook of a tree and a bird nearby woke to the sound and ruffled her feathers. She settled back down on her perch, and as her eyes began to slowly close again, something began to stir in the forest. It was quiet at first, very quiet, just the faintest sound of the trees brushing their leaves together. Soon the little bird could feel the branch begin to sway as the trees gave way to the nudge of the wind. The moon-light that had been so still was then bushed and began to stagger over the forest floor. Groaning, the trees bent and bowed, and the cricket stopped chirping to listen. It was a slow, soft sound that flooded the night air so gently. Fallen leaves tumbled over the earth below as the wind began to sing. The bird looked up through the broken can-opy and saw that the clouds had started to pile on top of each oth-er. Recognizing this as the omen of a storm, she took off. Fluttering her wings, she weaved through the swaying branches and passed the dancing pillars of moonlight until she found an isolated barn through the darkness. Being careful of her wings, she flew in through the window and found a warm, safe corner to sleep in. Before long, her eyes had closed, her breath slowed, and all that could be heard was the lilting voice of the wind outside.

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Second Place Poetry Winner

To: Voice Leading; From: The Absolute WrongsSabrina Hiltscher

What am I?I’m the nightmare of many a classically trained musician,The call of demons to spawn the end of this world.I’m a terror composed of parallel fifths,To say nothing of my many crossed voices. My common tones are dispersed freely—Not holding as they should.My scale degrees wander as they will,And none has taken so firm a hold as the dreaded seventh—That nightmare, Ti, unresolved with no Do,Simply doubled, tripled, quadrupled…With still no do in sight.To the poet I’m merely annoyance, no rhymes or rhythm to name,But to a musician, my parallel octaves send shivers,As my tri-tones display proudly.What am I? The deliberate destruction of rules, The caller of nightmares...I am a rule of disobedience—I am the call of the end.

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To the Man, LeeJoseph Fenley

Dear generalissimo,

For two decades, you’ve been behind their screensFor a century behind the pen

A master of your craft, stories you sought to bringNow the desk shall never be as open

We once lived in your mindBut you shared us with the rest

With aid from Kirby so kindYou gave every lone bird a nest

You called us incredible, mighty, and spectacularMade us the first, the invincible, and the uncanny

Made us a home built on strange and peculiarBut above all else, kept us fantastic and hammy

We became helpful heroes, voracious villainsAwe-inspiring antiheros all around

As a wisecracking watcher, a frolicsome fill-inYou made sure our stories would astound

But tonight, the wizards weep, the soldiers stay silent,The spiders sob in their webs, and even monsters morn

The geniuses grieve, the deities distress, the lunatics lamentEvery believer, of every page that is true, is tremendously torn

For now is the time to put down the pun-filled penYour writing comes to a rest, the responsibility onto them you pass

For all of us, whom you shared and loved to the end,And the next beginning, that followed soon after our ash

Signed,Your fantastic, uncanny, avenging, and friendly neighborhood,

Marvels…

Excelsior

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As If to EchoSabrina Hiltscher

Starlight danced over the water, through the moon’s reflection.Wind sang through the trees and grass.As if to echo, she played.The flute’s music chased the wind.Together they rippled the water.As if to follow, she stood.The skirt hem brushed the water, sending its own ripple out.As if to dance, she stepped.Silence broke for a moment,As if to echo her heart.As if to echo, she died.

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The Moon Cast Her Shimmering LightLaura Dunn

Upon the pair as their shadows stumbled together. Their eyes met with an intensity that fate had long ago decided. They spoke in whiskey-laced whispers that danced off their tongues. In a moment of earnest desire, they slipped into the night. Found again were the pair, by the illuminating light of the sun. Forgotten now by the magic of the night, shadows nowhere in sight. Words were not found to be spoken, mouths parched. They parted ways hoping to someday be noticed by the moon.

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Third Place Prose Winner

Grungy, the Homeless ManJames Purdy

He smelled like an ashtray and body odor, and his skin was leather. His beard was tattered with gray hair and riddled with debris. It had clearly been a while since he last bathed, and he did not appear to be incredibly sober either. I wondered to myself, How does a man become homeless and live on the streets? What must happen to a man that is so bad he decides to stop living? Turns out, it is as easy as “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” according to Kevin “Grungy” Packard. I had noticed the same dingy and dirty man standing at the intersection near my house for at least three months, and my curiosity finally got the better of me. I pulled my truck over and offered the man a free meal, saying it would only cost him a conversation. I was hungry for answers, and he was just plain old hungry. Apparently, a free meal at the Waffle House for him and a free casual conversation for me were enough to satisfy both our hunger.

Kevin was born in San Francisco in early 1970 to a hippie mother named Rose and an absentee father just known as John John. His mother had told the tale of his conception most of his childhood. She had been strung out on heroin and LSD while attending the Woodstock Fes-tival in New York during August 1969. She was desperate for a fix and slept with a man named John John, so she could scratch her itch. This was not her first rendezvous with drugs, nor would it be her last. Rose was no stranger to the free love movement and had already traveled all over America protesting the Vietnam War. Once young Rose realized she was expecting her very first flower child, she became elated. Rose packed up and moved to San Francisco with a caravan of hippies she had been traveling with to prepare for her new bundle of joy. Sadly, the new envi-ronment did not stop sweet Rose from continuing the same psychedelic lifestyle she had been living, and she was arrested for drug possession

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charges. You guessed it! Kevin was born into incarceration, which was symbolic because he would spend a lot of his adult life in prison, too. As you can imagine, Kevin was a very sick baby and was already addicted to a plethora of party drugs. Once Kevin was well enough to leave a hospital, he became a ward of the state of California and was sent to a convent, of all places. Fortunately for Kevin, that did not last very long because his mother, now sober, was released from the California Penal System after only 18 months. After what Kevin described as a “pretty easy fight,” Rose was awarded custody of baby Kevin, and they were a family again.

Rose moved back home to Delaware with Kevin soon after leaving California. She was out of friends, out of money, and out of options. Her parents were the conservative sort and did not approve of their daughter’s hippie lifestyle, but they begrudgingly let her move back home because of baby Kevin. It did not take long for their lifestyles to clash, and after just over a year, Rose was out on her morals again with toddler Kevin and nowhere to go. “Mom did what she knew best: she hitched her wagon to the hippie train, and away we went,” said Kevin. “She was back on free love and drugs before we even hit the state line.” They spent the next few years traveling the United States in an old bus owned by a man Kevin refers to as “Uncle Larry.” Kevin was not short on father figures, he explains: “I had at least twelve I can recall. Some were casual lovers, and some were drug buddies, but they were all I had.” He was, however, short on education. By this time, Kevin was about six or seven years old, and the only education he had received was what to do if someone overdoses. They continued to travel around for a few more years, but life continued to get worse for Rose. As it does with most of us, destiny had finally caught up with her. Rose had finally overindulged and taken her last trip. She was pronounced dead of a drug overdose. Kevin was only twelve.

“It was the first time in my life I was really alone. I didn’t real-ize it at the time, but it was also the first time I was homeless,” Kevin ex-plained. Kevin, or Grungy, as Uncle Larry had dubbed him right before

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his mother passed away, had nowhere to go. “I did not know how to get in touch with any of my family, and quite honestly I didn’t really know I had one.” In 1982, soon after his mother had died, Kevin found himself a ward of the state again, only this time in Seattle, Washington. Kevin said, “I had not spent much time around other children, and the only life I had known was pure unadulterated freedom.” He did not take to being the property of anyone or anything very well and rebelled at every chance. “I landed myself in a juvenile detention center at 14 years old for drug possession and battery. I was not a very good kid.” He explained that he spent the next few years bouncing around the foster system and “juvie.” At eighteen years old he was released from the foster system and was out on the streets of Seattle. “The music scene was just starting to pick up in Seattle, and the drugs were amazing.” Clearly, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Grungy had taken to the streets and now relied on petty larceny and drugs to survive. He was arrested for breaking and entering in 1990 and sentenced to two years in Washington State Correctional Fa-cility where he was introduced to the Aryan Brotherhood. When I asked Grungy about his time in prison, he was very bleak about the details, but he did say, “I did some shit I ain’t proud of, but prison is a whole differ-ent world; sometimes you have to become a monster. On the bright side, I thought I found something I had never had before: a family,” referring to the Aryan Brotherhood. Once released from prison, Grungy wasted no time in fleeing to the streets with his new connections in the Broth-erhood. “I slept on couches, garage floors, and pretty much anywhere I could for a short while until I heard the sweet serenade of Kurt Cobain.” Rock and roll as he knew it had died and a new era had begun, the era of Grunge Rock.

This chapter of his life gets even darker. Grungy made the con-nection between his nickname and the new wave of rock and roll pretty quickly. For him, this was a manifestation of destiny, and he said, “I start-ed following a few local bands and got mixed up with drugs and some very bad people. Heroin, as you know, was really popular at this time and I was in deep.” He met a woman at a concert named Rebecca, who

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was four years his junior, making her only 17. She was a high school dropout and very into the music scene. He added, “Oh, and very into heroin, too.” At this point in Grungy’s life, he had never had a serious girlfriend. Rebecca was his mother reincarnated, and he fell in love. He lamented, “I was doing pretty well on my own, but supporting two drug habits got expensive real quick, and I fell into debt with the wrong guys.” One night, the dealers he was mixed up with came to collect a debt he couldn’t pay and beat Grungy and Rebecca to a pulp, placing them both in intensive care. With sad, glassy eyes, Grungy explained, “Rebecca, un-beknownst to either of us, was pregnant at the time and miscarried in the hospital.” It was a while before either of them could leave the hospital because they were suffering from serious opiate withdrawal. “Once the news of losing our child finally hit us, we got real upset with ourselves and each other.” It didn’t take them long to realize something had to give and Grungy said, “Once we finally sobered up, we decided it was time for a change, so we left Seattle.” They loaded up a little beater car he had purchased and traveled a long distance but finally ran out of money and gas in Texas. “We decided this was as good a place as any. We figured It was going to be hard for either of us to get into too much trouble because we didn’t know nobody,” he explained. They both looked for work, but with his criminal record and their lack of education, they did not get very far. They settled into a halfway house outside of Dallas, Texas, in a town named Denton. He was able to pick up side work from the halfway house, and she picked up part-time work at a local grocery store. Things were really starting to look up for them, but tragedy was not quite fin-ished with them yet. One of the guys at the halfway house asked Grungy for some help moving furniture at his friend’s house. Grungy said, “I needed all the money I could get, so I jumped at the opportunity for an easy fifty bucks.” This so-called friend was right about one thing: there was a lot of furniture to move. As it turns out, however, the furniture was not his friend’s and that “fifty bucks” weren’t so “easy” after all. They were almost finished loading up the furniture into a truck when the police showed up. Grungy got booked for a second-time offense of breaking

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and entering, but the state of Texas was not as nice as Seattle had been. Grungy was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in a Texas State Prison in Huntsville, Texas. “Rebecca came to visit me at the prison fairly often at first, but her visits got fewer and further between, and after two short years, she just quit coming.” Grungy got a little choked up at this point in his story. “I still think of her often. Hell, I don’t even know if she is still alive.” Being a creature of habit, he turned back to the Brotherhood again for protection and comfort.

Again, Grungy was short on the details about his time of incar-ceration, but he did manage to get out early in 2004. “When I got out this time, everything was different.” Grungy paused for a minute and then said, “I had no reason to live anymore, and I decided that life was never going to give me a fair chance. So I decided to spend whatever time I had left doing whatever I wanted.” Grungy traveled the city for a few weeks, sleeping under overpasses and abandoned buildings. He stumbled upon a group of vagrants that had made a tent city near I-45 and Loop 610. He said, “Everyone seemed pretty nice, and we all kinda shared our stuff. They were very accepting of me, so I decided to stick around.” The only thing in this life he had known to make him feel better was “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” He claimed to have had many experiences with all three during his time in tent city, but as time faded, it was just drugs. I asked Grungy if he was still familiar with the other vagrants from the corridor, but he said, “Nowadays, I travel alone working various parts of the city for any money I can gather to feed my habit and my belly.” By this time Grungy had sobered up a great deal from the beginning of our conversation and was just about finished with his breakfast, so I knew our time together was almost over. I had wanted to know what drives a man to give up living, and I got my answer. Though Grungy would argue otherwise, it is not “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” As it turns out, some people just never get a fair chance at life. I thanked him for his story and brutal honesty. The second he finished his waffle, he stood up, asked me for money, and left the table. As he stumbled away, I just sat in the gravity of our time together and thought to myself how fortunate I have been in life.

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Third Place Poetry Winner

Another WeekAmanda Petersen

It’s another week,Another school shooting.Another group of childrenWho never came home.The world cries.The world sends thoughts and sends prayersAs the children and parents wonder who really cares.

It’s another week,And more children are crying.They’re hiding in classroomsAs their schoolmates are dying.Teachers lay down their livesProtecting their charges.They never signed up for this,But today they are soldiers.

And every time, more children are scared for their livesWhat once were safe havensAre now darkened with fear.

It’s another week.The people cry out for change,But the politicians aren’t listening,And Washington gets nothing done.

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Common sense gun laws,I guess they aren’t so common sense.The NRA has Congress in their pocketsAs these shootings become all too common place.

What about mental health?Could we start there?Show those troubled that there are people who care?Apparently not.The arguments just continueWhile Washington still does nothing.

It was another week in Sandy HookAnother week in Parkland,And another week in Santa Fe

How many more weeks must we go through?How many more shootings?How many more children will never come home?How many until something gets done?

Never again!The people cry out week after week.Never again! The politicians claim to agreeButIt’s another week,Another school shootingAnd it seems like the weeks just keep on coming.

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Differing Planes

Ashley Elliott

Look Up!Crystals’ twinkling lightExpanding waves of rainbowsThe marvelous void!

RainWith the slightest soundShe cries: my only comfortAnd claps!: my delight

The First Light Hope for the adrift Warmth for the cries of the heartA careless mistake

My PlaceHer sighs show my stateNectar drips off my god’s mouthBlushing nuns took chairs

For LauraI will not be next.Dead emotions/hope brokenThe stone has no brand

WigglesSheltered then wantedTime paints her, the sky shakes herAnd yet who saved who?

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TimeAmanda Black

I am always there. Always participating. Always observing. I like to dance. My limbs reach and coil around like the beat of space and soul. Like a ballet dancer’s pointed toe, or the flick of a conductor’s wrist. The pace will pick up, or slow, depending on the slope of the ride.Sometimes I love what is happening, and I get excited. Like when I am around a group of friends having fun. My heart speeds up. It’s like a thrill ride. Laughter is motion, and I am the ride.Sometimes I am sluggish. People don’t usually like when I trickle by. A lonely soul calls out for a faster pace, but my heart stills for them. They don’t understand me, and that I am only trying to keep them company. Sometimes I freeze up. It is hard during tragedy. People use the term “the world stops spinning”, but my head is spinning for them. I wish to hold them in my palms—soothe them. Make sure every moment is precious before I move on.Not all events can be cradled. Some are so vast and expulsive with too many butterflies affecting each outcome. I cannot steady what happens in the blink of the world’s eye.People resent me because I am. People fear me for what I bring. People crave me and curse me and pray for more, but I cannot give any more than I am. I am a dance. I am the heartbeat of the universe. I am always there. Will always be there. I love fast, mourn slow, and hold the world as tightly as I can, but I can not change myself. I can only grow. I can only move forward.I am Time and I will always be there for you.

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The Rock and the TreeCortney DeMott

The tree may haveBranches and roots, But the Rock is sturdy. The Rock does not Bend to the will of the wind Or can’t be made hollow by the will of Time and avians. It does not disease And will thrive in any weather,Excess or barren. The Rock casts a shadow from the sun when it is too harshAnd becomes a shelter when the weather’s too brutal. The Rock does not falter, But it does not change.

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Journal #5: The ForgottenJacob Perkins

(Dedicated to my grandfather, Allen Perkins, a veteran of the Korean War.)

It is called the “forgotten war,” but it’s really a forgotten victory. The conflict many do not know about, but those who were there will never forget, and for some it will never be over…It was 50 degrees below zero, yet so close to hell. Ancient mysterious mountains of central Korea watchedas the tranquil chosen river ran red with blood,consumed in fire with a hailstorm of bullets and bombs.One minute, killing with sniper rifles from half a mile away, then the next minute, killing up close… knives, guns, swords, bare hands, teeth, the white snow stained red.The screams of the wounded filled the air, grown men crying for their mothers as they lay dying.Men, women, and children all dead,their villages burned down because they wouldn’t submit to Communist rule.Our dead, so many there were not enough body bags, many buried in the snow-filled mountains.A country saved and possibly more. A world war stopped before it started.This was a battle of ideologies,but in truth this was a battle to protect friends, to protect our allies in the east—Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,

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to protect them from their attacking enemies.Our teachers say, “It’s not important enough to teach in school.”Our veterans forgotten here, yet honored over there as heroes and saviors.So, tell me…How can a war be “not important enough?” Are our dear allies, now living freeinstead of under Kim’s rule not important?Were the lives of our men not important?Were those boys, all of 19 years old,lying dead face down in the snow,their young lives cut short not important?Were all the innocents caught in the crossfire not important?Were all the grievingmothers,fathers,wives,husbands, and children not important?Are the unhealed battle scars of my grandfather not important?

1950-1951: The Korean War was fought only five years after the end of World War II. After the total defeat of Nazi Germany and fascism, democracy and communism resumed their conflict, which had been brewing since 1919. In 1946, the new nation of communist North Korea invaded its neighbor, democratic South Korea, followed by communist China joining North Korea in the invasion. The United Nations inter-vened in the conflict, wanting to stop North Korea and China to protect South Korea and the other allied countries in east Asia. The United States led the counter-attack against North Korea. This would be the third bloodiest conflict in modern history with millions dead on all sides. My grandfather was in the U.S. Army and fought in Korea from 1951 to 1953, and he still suffers with P.T.S.D from the war.

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The Other Truth (A Reversible Poem) Julia Harter

So simple Was the sweet morning

I question Nothing

The world showed me Nothing

But Smooth honey air

Rustling grass blades Welcoming sun on my skin

The lingering taste of moisture on my lips The feeling in my soul that I just might burst into a thousand fragments

I knew it all As just a child

My tears Gone away

My mother had Loved me

Hadn’t She

(read bottom to top)

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The Phoenix

Georgette Smith

As human beings we are conditioned to imagine a marriage full of hap-piness and joyous memories with our family. But when one’s significant

other’s inner demons take over, one loses all self-respect. You destroyed our family and burned bridges that led to our childhood

friends abandoning us. I figured out who was really there for me when it all went up in flames.

Broken into pieces like last night’s cocktail glass. I never wanted this to be our life. Lost in a wreckage full of lies, sex, and hatred. You project the blame onto others, never accepting responsibility for your actions.

Like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, I feel like I’m drowning. Has my life been driven to hell?

You act like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, always so innocent until the curtains are drawn. This is not what love is supposed to feel like. I’m

facing your inner demons. I showed a state of confusion at the hands of your illusions.

You unleashed your inner beast. You smirked, you laughed, and you punched and slapped. I built up the courage to fight back, throwing

punches, fighting for this round to be over. Anticipating the next round is more than I can bear… I set myself free from the cage, the cage you had

imprisoned me in.One in four women has experienced domestic violence. Domestic

violence is violence or other abuse by one person against another in a do-mestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. See, the thing about

domestic violence is, it’s not prejudiced. It affects people of all social classes, races, religions, and education levels.

All too often we feel like we are getting what we deserve. Like we must be stuck in the quicksand we call a relationship. But we have a voice.

USE IT! We must fight for our lives. We should not be afraid to face what we

may see as an embarrassment. Seek help and end the abuse. Break the cycle. Like a phoenix. Rise from the ashes!

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Breathing AgainKaitlin Quarles

When I think of you I think in flowersIn every color that ever mattered to meWith ever gasp for breath I feel your memory there in my lungs

/Hack/Red roses like the blush I wear around you/Choke/Yellow carnations a symbol of how you feel about me/Cough/Purple violets a love that would never be accepted

I begged for someone to take you from meTore myself open to save what remained The blade was as sharp as your rejection

/Slice/My need to be close to you/Chop/The all-consuming thoughts of you/Cut/Dreams I had of us together

And then I was emptyAll the love I had for you now goneI could finally breathe again

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HauntingKaitlin Quarles

After reading “Rilke’s Maid, Leni at the Little Castle of Schloss Berg” by Lois P. Jones

In the night In the dark

It’s never truly silent hereOur cries will echo

Under creaks of woodThe shatter of glass

It’s our screams that signal the endUnsatisfied with just a taste of promised flesh

It demands our dance The twirl closer to madness

That will feel like clarity With an aftertaste of newly dug earth

Open the door painted in temptation and let it swallow us whole.Until we are nothingUntil we are numbUntil we are alone.

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Self-Portrait (Sharpie on Paper) Ashley RodriguezFirst Place Art Winner

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The Vanishing (Black Ink & Graphite) Awesziana Roberson

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Reborn (Gouache Paint) Regina Roeli

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Eyes Wide Open (Mixed Media) Emily Ponce-Camacho

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Restless Nights (Watercolor) Mariana Ruiz Loya

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Awakening Viridian Hue (Photography) Christi Woelfel

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Beach Buddies (Acrylic Paint) Mariana Ruiz Loya

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Determined (Acrylic Paint) Regina Roeli

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Never Forgotten (White Charcoal) Yadhira JaimesSecond Place Art Winner

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Effervescent (Photography) Joanna Wright

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At Worst (Colored Pencil) Marisela Flores

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Blue in the Inside (Digital) Cynthia Enciso

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The Terminator Sketch (Pencil) Karley Morris

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Sara (Acrylic Paint) Regina Roeli

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Ephemeral (Watecolor & Oil) Awesziana Roberson

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Judgment (Watercolor & Acrylic Paint) Awesziana RobersonThird Place Art Winner

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A Conversation between Antonya Nelson and InklingTranscribed by Laura Franco and Brezalel Leviston

Antonya Nelson, an acclaimed short story writer, visited LSC-Tomball last fall (2018). She read from her work, answered audience questions, and inspired us all. Nelson has written four novels, including Talking in Bed (1996), Nobody’s Girl (1998), Living to Tell (2000), and Bound (2010). She also has seven short story collections: The Expendables (1990), In

the Land of Men (1992), Family Terrorists (1994), Female Trouble (2002), Some Fun (2006), Nothing Right (2009), and her most recent collection, Funny Once (2014). She has received many awards and accolades for her achievements, including the Rea Award for Short Fiction, Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, and an American Artists Award. She currently teaches at the Warren Wilson Col-lege MFA Program for Writers, as well as in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. She is also a writer for the New Yorker, which claims Antonya Nelson to be America’s premiere short story writer. In-kling was deeply honored to sit down with her before her reading to ask her some questions about her life, work, and concerns as a writer.

INKLING: Many of your writings focus on familial relationships, and human relationships in general, and how they function, and why they are the way they are. Relationships of every kind can be seen everywhere, but is there a certain place that you go for inspiration?NELSON: I think I’m interested in family and the various ways that family affects people because I grew up in a large family, I married into

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a large family, and now, I live in a large house with a whole lot of people who aren’t necessarily related but who are nevertheless sitting around the dinner table together nightly. I’ve been at a kitchen table with a great many people for many, many years and the business of my life continues to be conducted in a family setting.

INKLING: You’ve described yourself as a people watcher. How does people watching affect your writing?NELSON: I do like to watch people. I like to figure out what makes people do what they do, but the other side of people-watching is that we writers sometimes feel ourselves outside of the group and wanting to be inside but are not exactly sure how, so observation and watchfulness are a prominent character trait in many writers. Yeah, it’s no fun to eat at my parents’ house when somebody says, “Careful what you say. She’ll write about it.” It’s not untrue; it’s just unfortunate.

INKLING: So, to a certain extent, do you take inspiration from your own life?NELSON: Absolutely. I think it’s important not to misuse that trust that family or any relationship places in you, and the way of testing that is to determine whether you’re writing as an act of revenge or in an attempt to understand. And if it’s an act of revenge, it’s misguided, and I wouldn’t do that. I don’t doubt that sometimes my family feels I do write to get revenge, but revenge has never been my motive. I try very hard not to do that.

INKLING: Is there an overarching narrative among your story collec-tions and novels? Did you intend each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each text?NELSON: If there are connections, they’re just indicative of my fasci-nation with whatever is in front of me at the moment, and that’s consis-tently been family entanglement. Also, the location for the stories reflects where I’ve lived and where I’ve been a native or a newcomer, which

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are both very useful positions for writing. If you are new to a place, its weirdness is going to be interesting to write out of, and if you are famil-iar with a place, the authority you have to write about that place is also very useful. The bad position to be in is when you are neither newcomer nor native so that none of the freshness and none of the familiarity are present. So place [setting] is one of the ways my writing is coherent—that is, if I were trying to look back on my writing and the way, say, the Midwest and the West or now this big city of Houston have different ef-fects on the characters who inhabit them. The characters in my works feel like a consistent group of people who have troubles and alliances, who are inside families and either want to be inside these family relationships or are having trouble inside them. Family entanglements are a consistent obsession of mine. I can’t say that any of this is exactly on purpose. It is just what I could say about myself if I were trying to step back and stare at my work with some kind of detached lens.

INKLING: Let’s talk a minute about the psychological complexity of your stories, and let’s focus on the story you are reading to our audience today, “Literally,” from your collection Funny Once. Though the narra-tion of that story focuses on Richard, the widower who has lost his wife to an accident with an eighteen-wheeler, you manage to take us inside the precarious interior worlds of all of this story’s characters, from Richard’s son and daughter to his immigrant housekeeper and her sensitive eleven-year-old son Isaac (who confesses he hears voices). Your stories unsettle your readers and cover so much of your characters’ interior worlds in just a few strokes. Can you talk about your interest in psychology? It seems central to your stories. NELSON: As I mentioned, I’m from a large family. My parents are both English professors, so I grew up in a house where reading was a priority, and all of us read a lot. Of the five children in the family, two became psychologists—therapists—after having been English majors in college. But I came at psychology the opposite way: my reading made me understand how people tick, and I applied that insight to an art form,

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the short story. I think the short story is a good form for me because it permits me to focus on the small interactions among people and to give small moments priority.

INKLING: Yes, like the two small moments in “Literally” when Richard first thinks to himself that Isaac is probably a sensitive boy because he is latently homosexual, doesn’t know it now, but will figure it out later in life, and then, when near the end of the story, Richard’s son tells him that Isaac has been hearing voices. The deeper truth here is that Isaac has been wounded by trauma or may soon develop a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia.NELSON: For sure . . . one of the things I like to do is to create char-acters or conflicts that upend conventional wisdom. When you read a story in the newspaper that’s about anybody you know the back story on, you understand that a whole lot of what makes the story a story isn’t there, that what’s being reported is often incomplete—incorrect—in some profound way. I feel fiction is designed to elaborate upon what is missing from the newspaper article, and that’s what makes me interested in getting to the bottom of things, to the torqued, weird, or ironic truth. That’s my experience with people—that they are not as straightforward or simple as a diagnosis would lead you to believe.

INKLING: You mentioned you grew up in a household of readers. How does being a writer affect who you are as a reader? Do you lean towards books or works that are similar to yours, or do you gravitate towards the opposite?NELSON: I read a lot of different stuff, and more of my time is spent reading than any other thing except maybe sleeping, and my reading habits are all over the place.

INKLING: So there isn’t a specific voice or type or work you prefer?NELSON: Well, I teach, so I’m always rereading works that I love and that I want to share with my students, whether they’re undergraduate or

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graduate students. These are writers that students would otherwise not know, or know only one piece by. I’m thinking of one of my favorite writers, Eudora Welty, whose story “Why I Live at the P.O” is always anthologized, even though it is not representative of her work. I feel it’s my mission to make sure that Welty is retained in the literary canon, so I have students read works that represent her accurately. Welty is a more high-minded kind of reading, but I like detective books, too. Right now, I’m reading Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins books, and I just finished a book one of my students gave me, Nervous Conditions (1988), by Tsitsi Dangarembga (the first black woman from Zimbabwe to publish in En-glish). Her book was a fascinating read—and I read everything under the sun, maybe five books a week. . . . I have insomnia.

INKLING: You’ve always been a big reader, but when did you decide or know that you were a writer and wanted to share your stories with the world? NELSON: I was a reader before I was a writer, and for a long time, I didn’t see writing as something a mere mortal could do. I was very enam-ored of writing and writers and books, and I aimed myself at journalism to fulfill the things that writing fiction eventually satisfied for me. I just didn’t think I would be a fiction writer. It didn’t seem like something one could do. But when I was in college, my boyfriend at the time recom-mended I take a fiction workshop, and I found I loved that atmosphere. This was in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when there weren’t a ton of workshops for undergrads everywhere. It just seemed that the focus [on writing as craft instead of literary history] was proper. Afterwards, I went on to get an MFA, and there, I felt I’d found my tribe.

INKLING: Do you think most people have a writer in them but not many decide to share their stories?NELSON: I’m not sure that I agree that everybody is a writer. The personality of the writer is one that is sometimes not performing life but is on the outside observing it. In literature, there is often a distinction be-

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tween the character who is capable of reporting what’s happening but not capable of actually enacting or being within the action. When I was real-ly young, I used to narrate my own activities from the third person. It’s a distinct mindset and not necessarily pleasant. For example, you might be running down the street and in your head saying, “She was running down the street.” That’s annoying in a way. It’s a weird self-consciousness. Here’s another way that it comes up. Say something awful happens on the news, and you say to yourself, “Oh my God!” but then stop and think, “That’s such a cliché. Everyone says things like ‘Oh my God!’” On a subconscious level, everything is potential material. It’s exhausting. I hope everybody isn’t thinking like a writer because it’s really exhausting to be in that line. I do think everybody has a story . . . but the capacity or desire to tell it is on a rangy spectrum.

INKLING: You said in the online video interview series Writers on the Fly that your favorite writers are William Trevor and Eudora Welty. Have you formed a similar attachment to other writers? Further, have you used what they have taught you to become a better writer or storyteller?NELSON: I for sure have been influenced by other writers. When I run into trouble in my writing, the solution sometimes comes to me when I realize what somebody else did in terms of shaping a story or getting out of a scene or making a trope that’s familiar and cliché into something that is unfamiliar and fresh. So I look to other writers all of the time to give me help with my own work. But a bad byproduct of being a writer is also that when you are reading, you are no longer just reading for the pleasure of reading. You are also mining it or critiquing it, or if you love it, you are trying to figure out what you can steal from it. And if you hate it, you can’t get lost in it because it’s full of bad writing. So some of the pleasure of reading is taken out of the mix when you’re paying attention to how writers work. That said, in my teaching, I oftentimes demonstrate to students the relationships writers and their works have to previous writers and works. We read a lot of literature that’s based on or in argu-ment with or an homage to earlier literary works. For me, that’s been one

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of the great things to discover—how frequently other writers use their literary ancestors to inform their work.

INKLING: What about detective fiction then? If you’re talking about how you critique or you mine, detective fiction seems out of that loop—but maybe not?NELSON: I just like mysteries. I try to read literarily complicated ones—police procedurals or mysteries set in Norway or Iceland. There are many fairly well written series out there—I don’t like the junky stuff—but on the whole they’re not as highbrow, and they’ve got a lot of violence. I don’t know why, but I’ve always read mysteries as a palate cleanser in between more complicated works. Writers like to cook, and they like to read detective fiction. That’s what I’ve decided. I think there are reasons for that, you know—recipes and cooking are the exact op-posite of what you do when you sit down to write. When you write, you want something, but you’re not sure what is going to come out, and you don’t know how long it’s going to take. Writing is a big unknown quan-tity, and you’re by yourself. When you cook, you are in your kitchen, a communal space, and you’re thinking, “I’m going to get this meal togeth-er and then hand it to a bunch of people who are all going to be real nice about it and like it.” It’s the exact opposite of writing.

INKLING: You have been a part of the literary world and publishing industry since the 1990s. How have you seen the literary world and pub-lishing industry change since then? NELSON: When I was in grad school in the early ’80s, everybody was all geeked up about the rebirth of the short story, but it seems as though they keep saying that every few years and nothing’s changed all that much. What has changed are influences. When I was in grad school, Ray Carver was the overwhelming influence. Then for awhile it was David Foster Wallace. But the students who are applying to creative writing programs now are influenced by writers like Karen Russell and George Saunders.

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INKLING: In your stories, you often respond to the status quo by upending it. How do you take a situation most people would frown upon and make it socially acceptable—find the good in it?NELSON: I think I’m a little contrary. I just have arguing in me. When there’s the assumption that a thing can only be negative, my mind starts working. I start to ask, “What would it take to demonstrate arguably on the page, in a character, that, for example, this teenager’s being pregnant or this man on the plane’s behaving like an asshole is not a bad thing?” I think, “How can I subvert some expectation of character, circumstance, or situation?” It’s just a way of being interested in the world and not dismissive of or anticipating the easiest thing and being able then to dis-pense with it. If a student in my class writes, “He was an alcoholic, blah, blah , blah,” I reply that in writing, if the first thing you say is the diagno-sis, you are not capable of drawing a character. If you say he’s a romantic . . . okay, he also might drink too much, and he might be an alcoholic in the psych lab, but still, for fiction’s purpose, what’s interesting about him is not his alcoholism but that he’s nostalgic and that drinking lets him release tensions, makes him feel romantic. If you just label a character an alcoholic, then I won’t identify with him. That alcoholic will make me think, “You’re a hot mess. I’m not going anywhere near you.” I can find common ground with him if he’s nostalgic and romantic, even if I don’t want to drink as much as him.

INKLING: What advice would you give to writers who are attempting to get their work published for the first time?NELSON: I would say that I recognize the eagerness to get published, but the rush to publish is a mistake. The best thing you can do is to make sure what you’ve written is worthy, to revise a great deal and get a lot of feedback. If what you’re asking is how you get published, the first thing, again, is to make sure that what you’ve written is as good as it can possibly be. Once you’ve done that—and this goes back to your question about how publishing has changed—I would be less able to relate to that

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at this point because all of these online places where you get your stuff read and where you’re reading stuff now is opaque to me at this moment.

INKLING: So what did you do to get published? Do you have any tips?NELSON: A really good resource if you’re writing fiction is The Best American Short Stories. It comes out every year and contains twenty exemplary stories that have been published in various magazines, from slick magazines to very small ones. These stories have been curated and judged, and they are terrific. In the back of the book are a hundred other stories that have been selected by the editor as being noteworthy plus a list of the literary magazines where the editor found these stories. This list includes editors’ names and each magazine’s address. So for fifteen bucks or so, The Best American Short Stories is a great resource that tells you what is being published and where. For poetry The Best American Poetry does the same thing. There are similar annual anthologies like The Pushcart Prize (which honors the best of the small press in fiction and poetry, including online magazines) and The O. Henry Prize Stories.

INKLING: You stated in your interview with First Draft Magazine that you are not a disciplined writer (and that’s a very honest admission), that there are gaps of time between your works. Why is that? What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?NELSON: Yeah, that is true. When I have an idea for a story, I can be driven by writing it, but if I don’t have an idea, I can just be frustrated by sitting in front of a computer screen. I know some writers make a habit of writing a couple of hours every day and at the same time, and that’s obviously to be preferred. Everybody should do that, but that said, that isn’t how I work, and to try to make myself work that way only makes me crazy. Still, I must have some discipline because my books come out every now and again. I haven’t written anything much lately, and I think that is the result of just feeling I want to do something different and don’t know exactly what that is. It’s not that I want to write a cookbook or something, but I just want to challenge myself in some way fiction-writ-

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ing-wise, and I’m waiting to come up with what that’s going to be. Hon-estly, nobody cares whether or not I’m writing. It has to be that I want to do or that is going to be of interest to me and this has always been the case. The happiest I can make myself in writing life is when I’m in the middle of a story and it’s working. It’s just like when you’re a kid and you’re playing and the little elaborate world you’ve built is magical to you and you are really lost inside of it. If somebody interrupts you, that whole world shatters and falls apart. Fiction writing can be something like that for me, but it is a very rare state of mind to get inside. No other part of the process is as pleasurable as that, but in order to get there, I just have to feel I’m doing something new. I’ve already written a lot and if I find myself too familiar with what I’m doing on the page, it’s already boring to me—and I don’t tolerate boredom very well. You can ask any-body who knows me. I’m really, really intolerant of boredom, so if I’m boring myself on the page, I’d rather go read somebody else’s work that is interesting or ride a bike or deal with the dog or whatever. I don’t want writing to be work—I want it to be play.

INKLING: Do you keep a notebook with you?NELSON: I do. Lots of stuff, grocery lists, you know, notes to self, but yeah, I do have a notebook always with me. . . . And in my head, I have a cast of characters and a situation, and I don’t know what to do with them at the moment. I don’t know whether they are a novel . . . I don’t know. I know everything about them, and I have no idea what to do with them.

INKLING: Have you ever thought about writing in a different genre?NELSON: My husband and I talk all the time about writing a mystery together—because we both really like them and the thought would be to have one of us to write the first half from the character’s point of view and then the other of us would pick it up and write the other half, and it would truly be a mystery, like “How did that happen . . . ?” [Laughs]

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INKLING: So going back to what you said about not publishing un-til your work is worthy and the best it can be, how did you combat the feeling that you’re work wasn’t good enough? Were you nagged by self-doubt when you were starting as a writer? Did that feeling go away? Is it still there? NELSON: I think self-doubt is a good thing to have, and that’s why it’s important before you send your work out to find some readers you can trust, readers who are going to be, on the one hand, hard enough on you to make you rewrite or to see the piece as something you could revise, but on the other hand, able to understand what you are up to and encour-age you without just patting you on the head. So if you show your work to your mom, and she is either automatically horrified or says, “That’s great,” that reaction is not helpful. My husband is also a writer, and I have friends who are writers, and I still like to have somebody like this read my work and let me know whether it’s working or not and what would make it better if it isn’t. You need workshop partners like this.

INKLING: So when do you decide that your work is ready? When do you finally say, “No more—it’s done”?NELSON: When I can’t do anything else to it, I send it off, and an editor gets back to me and says, “Do this to it, and I’ll look at it again.” You know, it’s never a hundred percent ready for me until it’s actually on paper in a magazine or something. Even then, I recently had to reread a story of mine from a long time ago. As I read, I thought, I would revise this if I could because, looking at it now, I see it could be better.But I like to be edited. I like it when somebody really gets in the middle of the work and asks questions and wants me to revise. My editor at The New Yorker has been really helpful, and I listen to her. Once, she told me, “This story is fine right up to the moment that you don’t let this charac-ter who is off stage show up. I really think this character needs to show up.” That advice made such good sense to me because I had thought the character’s off-stage presence was what made her larger than life, but in fact, her appearance was just the dramatic moment that had been accru-

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ing in the story and that needed to happen. I couldn’t see it before, and my husband didn’t see it either, but the editor did. So I forced myself to make that character show up, and then the story was finally done. Her recognizing that this character needed to appear on stage and my will-ingness to go back and make that event happen merged. I believed what my editor said, and she said the right thing. That’s the proper relationship that a reader and a writer, or an editor or writer, or a teacher and a student should have. There are so many times when I’ve offered students my advice, and they haven’t taken it.

INKLING: Do you ever not take advice? Like, say, from literary critics? What do you do with critics or their voices? Even editors, do you some-times feel like “Um no, I don’t go there.” NELSON: I guess I have felt that way. When people offer you advice about your work, if you take it, you’re solidifying what the story is up to, and if you resist it, you are also committing to what the story is up to. In my collection called In the Land of Man, the title story features a woman who had been raped in the past. Her brothers bring her rapist to her in the back of their family vehicle. He’s in the trunk, and they tell her she can do whatever she wants with him. But she doesn’t know what to do, and the story just cuts off there, with her thinking. That’s just how it ends. When my husband read that ending (this was a long time ago now), he said, “No, the next act has to happen . . . you can’t leave her hanging like that.” I thought about that a lot, but I didn’t think there was anything the character could do to make the story end better. That was the state I wanted it to end with: nothing she does is the right gesture. This decision solidified my instinct that sometimes resisting advice forces you to make a decision that makes the piece stronger.

INKLING: So a writer has to have a thick skin?NELSON: Yes—a leather ass.

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Waking AloneAmanda Black

I peel my eyes open, finally waking up after a deep sleep. I’m not sure why I was sleeping in the first place.

Where am I? My fingers curl around sheets, but they aren’t familiar. Did I get too drunk last night?No...I didn’t have a drop. Where am I??I rise up quicker than I intended, but my head doesn’t swim like I

expected. My senses are perfectly fine. Sunbeams are peeking through a pair of torn curtains in the dusty room. It looks like a clinic.

Am I ill?I attempt to stand, placing my bare feet on the dirt-streaked hardwood

floor. The boards creak slightly at my weight, and I pad over to the other beds to find them mostly empty, save for one. The person on it looks lifeless. I’m afraid to check.

I turn towards the door and delicately place my hand around the cold steel of the knob. With a silent turn, it’s open, and I almost lose what semblance of sanity I have left when I see what’s on the other side.

At least a dozen people are shuffling around in a trancelike state. Their sightless eyes peer around, barely taking in the surroundings as they clumsily slide their feet in the direction they are facing. Flakes of skin flutter off of their faces and arms, their skin so dulled it makes my insides twist. And the smell—the smell! I try not to gag on the sickening stench of death all around me.

I’ve seen this before a million times. I know what these things are. One of them is missing an eye, its socket empty and seeping a greenish liquid that makes my stomach coil.

Zombies.I try so hard not to scream. The effort nearly makes me pass out again

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as I clamp my mind shut over the panic of just seeing them. I gasp softly, but the sound pierces through the hallway.

One of the creatures jerks towards me, and I can see a glint of some-thing in its glassy eyes. It knows I’m human—or suspects. I clench my lungs, holding my breath and letting my body go limp. The reflexive reaction surprises even me as I hang there, barely letting myself stand, acting like one of them. Acting like I am dead.

The zombie approaches me and makes a grunting whistle through its hollow face. It lets out a growl and seems satisfied. It turns and shuffles away with its fellows. I play my hand as best I can. I follow it, shuffling around in the dirt, trying to ignore the sandy scrape between my toes.

I turn a corner and see even more of them. All dead. All standing around, as if waiting for something.

I nearly lose my cool again when something brushes my hand. I quell my pounding heart as my head cranes slowly over to see out of the corner of my eye. One of the dead people swings its arm softly towards mine and takes my hand, warm fingers sliding in between mine and clasping our hands in a subtle squeeze of an embrace before releasing me with a grunt.

What was that? I look deeper into the creature’s eyes and see...life. Their eyes flicker

and mine widen. This is a living person! Doing the same as I am! I try not to jump with joy. I succeed. I grunt back, hoping my gurgling

sounds similar enough to the dead things around me. I shuffle onward, hoping that there are more of us but not expecting it. Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe I will die here in the end. But one thing is certain.

I am not alone.

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Dress UpJulia Harter

When I was 6 I played dress upI wore a blue dress

A blonde wigI pretended to be a princess

When I was 13 I played dress up I wore lots of mascara

Flat ironed hairI pretended to be a celebrity

When I was 18 I played dress upI wore little clothes

A lipstick poutI pretended to be sexy

When I was 30 I played dress upI wore a tight suitClean slick hair

I pretended to be confidentWhen I was 45 I played dress up

I wore a stained apronWhite smile

I pretended to be content When I was 60 I played dress up

I wore mature shirtsPerfumed skin

I pretended to be wiseWhen I was 90 I played dress up

I wore a hospital sheetWrinkled hands

I pretended to be braveNow I’m dead

And it is my neighbors who play dress upThey wear black clothes

Somber facesThey pretend to have known me

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The Last SunsetReba Threet

I can feel the blood running down my finger tipsLike raindrops hitting the ground they wash away a little bit of the pain One after another they run down, and I can feel a peace coming over me.Let it wash away my sanity.I feel your warm dark breath on the back of my neck making my hairs stand on end.Your weight crushing my chest like a wave possessed by a storm.Your eyes as black as an empty house absent of lifeI beg you to not do this once again to the woman you want to call your wifeAnd like a lightning strike breaking up the stormy sky I feel the sharp pain and then start to die inside.I close my eyes and try to imagine the calm after the storm.But like a rising tide my tears spill over and I am defeated.Lifeless I lie with a tear-stained face, my knuckles red from trying to escapeYou roll off with a sigh of relief leaning in just behind me delivering one final blow. Your lips part and the poison begins to flow and the words “Thank you” burns my soul to the ground This storm is like a song stuck on repeat and its only purpose is to destroy me Where is that peace that so eludes me?The cold sets in and I have no where to go and nowhere to hide and so I decide To give myself a sigh of relief, the calm after the storm and watch the sunset that won’t come any More.

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Primordial HerAshley Elliott

The Universe has forged my heartIron flecks flow through wormholesGlittering ribbons sewn across the satin fabricPulsars breathed into my ventricles and Stars dripped off into the void where My memories are kept, a system of Solid cores beating on time withThe big bang band

The Universe screams and flails about,Punching/pulling/scarring/breakingCracking/taking/holding CryingWhen the dust compressed,I was a particle of broken star shards.My brains took form from the ancient atomsThat felt the backhand of Her wrath.And I feel this, I know Her, a root unpulled.This celestial organ yearns for Her freedom once moreTo hit, to sob, to leave this cubicle of order,To lash out, to explode, and create a mess.

This is my disorder: Her disorder

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LoveKiernan McClaren

\Happiness and joy turned stale All that’s left is to impale\\To destroy decimate decapitate\\ It’s all turned into hate\\Once so close now so far We forget who we are\\Who we were it’s all a blur That vile word now just a slur\Empty and hollow A chasm to swallow a pit wallow\\No light nor sound can bring us around Out of this that’s taken its toll\\Have I seen before Had I known it would torn\\Something so pure born Now dark and full of hate\\Destroy decimate decapitate\\Love is a curse that moved to this simple verse\\Why I hold my hand I don’t understand\\Impossible to leave No one believes\\Guess I’ll have to die first Love is a curse\

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We, the August BornJoseph Fenley

With heat and pressure you are born.Like a diamond in the mantle with a mistake.Through an odd accident, you now form.With your clear complexion at stake.

You’re found alone, far from the perfect family you know.As you can see, your sins and defects on your face.White complexion you should have and harmless as a doe.There is instead olivine flesh and an explosive trace.

You never quite matched up to your “peers.”In the ways most people care to grade.Refusing to give you their attention and ears.Never did without question, whatever you were bade.

You always notice an inability to be seen, ever with equal and greater luster. You never are wanted or needed around just a poor and weak mistake.Ridiculed and mocked, yet, as strong as you could possibly muster.But in private, are so envious and green that your heart begins to break.

Then one day someone comes along and strikes you in just the wrong place.And you explode with violent wrath and pain in your broken heart and face.All your struggles, all your work, all your patience, wasted and for naught.As I pick up your scattered shards, my dear friend and brethren, my Peridot.

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An EntertainerJoseph Fenley

A musician, an actor, a poet, and the kindAn author, a comic, an artist, none come to mindWhen I think of that which I feel I am meant to beHowever, the word entertainer does come to me

I want to take the muses, running in my headAnd silence them by bringing fruition to ideas poorly fedThey say, “Make this so they’ll laugh, make this so they’ll cry,Make this to help the living live, and this to prepare the dying to die”

I wish to be their morphine, their drug to numb the painI wish to be their mental salve, to ease the emotional stainI desire the feeling of being mankind’s temporary escapeOr the catalyst for someone to put their life in better shape

To force a laugh from those who need toAnd inspire the ignorant to go out and learn tooTo tell the forlorn that they are not dammedBind the broken in tape, until they again stand

To stimulate the senses in ways that others will learn from and enjoyThat is the dream that I would bring to fruition with plentiful joyBut if a dreamer can only find his way by moonlight and is punished with the dawnThen to enjoy the aurora with the rest of the world is a hope that must be long gone

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Within a Tale of Hope and RuinJoanna Wright

She was a blooming flower’s petals,

Adorned with the dew of morning’s first rainfall.

He was a dormant fire’s embers

Lying in wait of the smoldering flames’ call.

As one they became a fierce storm of

Ashes and beauty, kindness and cruelty—

Fallen in the depths of each other,

And when they met the bright sunrise together,

The world could not hope to stand against

What roaring force came crashing down upon it.

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Beneath This Towering ForestJoanna Wright

The trees towered above me like a mountain would its valley. I’d been wandering the woods for a long time. At least, I thought I had. It felt like eternity had passed by me while I remained to wander be-tween bushes and under branches. A few times, I tried to remember when my journey had begun—or, at least, how long I’d been here— but every time I tried, my memory traveled further and further and further, back and back and back, and then— And then nothing. Like my memory had faded to be as thin as the wisps of clouds that faded across the sky.It didn’t matter though. Not really. It wasn’t so bad here. The leaves were beautiful, especially in the autumn. Come springtime, the birds sang a song so beautifully that days blended together into a melody of warmth and color. The wind was kind in the summer, sweeping through my long hair as a gentle relief from the bright sun. Sometimes I even got visitors. They never stayed long and always seemed in a hurry to be leaving, but I always enjoyed meeting them. For some reason, they never really wanted to talk to me. . . . The first time I saw someone else, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to scare him, so instead, I followed him for a while. Occasion-ally, he looked behind but never caught sight of me. Eventually, I decided that he seemed rather lost and was determined to help him. Quickening my pace, each step crunching one leaf upon another, I came very close to him. When I was only a few steps away, he looked over his shoulder again—and for some reason didn’t see me at all. For a moment, I was confused. Considering how close I was, he should have seen me. “Hello?” I said and waited. The man turned his head, just a little bit. Like he might have heard me, or it could have been a bird’s call had fallen upon his ears with how

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little mind he paid to it. He should have seen me. Unless— This could be a dream. Time was endless in those, wasn’t it? And people rarely acted as they should. I closed my eyes and held my breath. What felt like seconds passed me by. Maybe it was longer. Maybe not. But when I opened my eyes, the man was gone, and the forest looked different. Hopefully, I had woken up. Some voice among the trees whispered that I should stop to see whose dream it was. Maybe one day I would listen. That day I chose to wander. Even then, the forest seemed far too beautiful to be of a dream. Even then, I chose to believe that the world was far kinder than reality made it. . . . The next time I saw, she looked kinder, her spirit gentler and smile softer. The trees were lovely, the river’s song sweet, but I missed speaking to others. We already were near each other. I had hardly noticed her pres-ence until I’d gotten too close to turn away. She sat beneath a tree, the same way I had many times before. A book rested in her lap, but she wasn’t looking at it anymore. Her gaze was fixed in the distance, her face pink as the wind breathed its chilled whis-pers. I walked closer to her. The leaves hadn’t fallen this season, so this time my approach was almost silent. I folded my legs beneath me, sitting and watching. Most people would notice someone else appearing next to them. Strange that she wouldn’t. But then— “Hello?” she said, her brow furrowing. I sat straighter. Had she seen me? “Hello,” I answered, hoping desperately that maybe she wouldn’t be another dream.

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“There’s someone there, isn’t there?” the girl said. “My name is Lily.” “I’m right here.” I tried to yell, tried to make her hear me, but maybe my voice wasn’t as loud as I thought or maybe this was all another illusion or maybe— She didn’t even blink. “See me,” I whispered. My heart pounded. Thud. This was pointless. Thud. Thud. I was still stuck in a dream. Tears gathered in my eyes. Thud. Thud. Thud. And yet, what if? Then she gasped. I jerked my head up, and in that moment our gazes collided. Her breathing became as heavy as my own. “Can you see me?” I said, every word a struggle. Slowly at first, she nodded, shock embodying her every feature. “You—you’re the girl.” I could almost laugh at that. “So are you,” I said. “No,” Lily said. “You’re the girl. The girl of the woods. I came here to talk to you. People said you wouldn’t show, but I knew you would.” That sounded strange. Who could’ve been talking about me? Surely, not that man. He hadn’t been real. “This is my home,” I said. “It was only kind to come and see you.” “I’m glad you did. It must be terribly lonely to be here by your-self.” She shifted onto her knees, leaning forward. “What’s your name?” Now it was my brow’s turn to furrow. That was one question that I’d never managed to answer for myself. Until now, it had never seemed that important. Lily laughed. She said something else, about already knowing my name. Something else about a girl in the newspaper, but I wasn’t listening anymore. She was nice. Kind. But our worlds weren’t the same. Not any-

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more. Of that, I was certain. I shook my head, offering her a small smile. As I continued my walk among the trees, her voice echoed behind me, a call for my return. Part of me hoped she would come visit again. Another part of me knew that she brought with her far more confusion than I was ready to allow into my life. . . . The days blended together. Others visited, and some of them even saw me. Most didn’t. And those who did—sometimes they ran. No one ever told me why. I just wished this dream would end. Most of those days I forgot. They were hardly important. But there was one day that remained seared in my memory. It was sometime in the summer. The sun was bright but bearable. I hardly felt the warmth of it anyway. That day I was bored. For once, the woods didn’t feel so lovely. I imagined it was because of the people who had come to visit that day. Their presence lingered all day. It wasn’t until nightfall that I saw them. Indiscernible shouts brought me to them. Raging laughter punctu-ated by careless pounding. Lights flashed between the branches. As I got closer, I could see more clearly. There were boys and girls alike. By the look of them, they were older than me, but not by much. A memory just out of reach said they were near the age where teens became partyers. The age I seemed to be fated to never reach. I wandered into their midst, going from person to person, standing in front of each of them just long enough to test if they could see me. None of them could. Still, this was more excitement than had been around me in a long time. They had built a campfire, a few large stones surrounding it. Most of them were standing, smiling and talking, obviously not paying any atten-tion to me. I took a seat on one of the rocks, watching them. They looked so happy. Like there was so much for them to live for. Had I been like them once? The forest was nice, but sometimes

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I wondered what may yet lie beyond these towering eaves. I never had managed to find the edge of them. Suddenly, everyone grew quiet, their movements stilling around the campfire. One of them stepped onto one of the rocks across from me, arms raised as a king addressing his subjects. His words hardly held the impor-tance as someone’s who held true importance. They slurred together and hardly made sense. I was surprised anyone present could even pretend to care. My thoughts wandered far away from what he had to say, not re-ally listening but for pieces of his words. Then his speech caught my attention. “They say there’s a girl in these woods,” he said, his mouth twist-ing into a nasty smile. “People who travel through here have seen her figure passing between the trees, and some even claim to have spoken to her.” “Oh, come on, you don’t actually believe in those stories, do you?” another boy said. A few others laughed in response. “I’m just saying, you never know.” The boy on the rock shrugged. “Some say she lives here, others say she haunts here.” Just a few feet from me, a girl crossed her arms. “Right, like that would ever happen. Have a bit of realism. I can guarantee you there is no girl lurking amid the trees here.” “Why don’t we test it out?” The second boy said. “If she really is in these woods, and people have seen her, then I’m sure she wouldn’t mind coming to visit us.” Were they talking about me? Again, my heart pounded in a wild tantrum. Thud. The people’s laughter was cruel now. “Forest Girl,” they shouted, “we’re waiting; why don’t you show yourself?”

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Didn’t they realize that this was my home, not theirs? Thud. Thud. Their shouts continued as a deafening roar. The longer they lasted, the louder they became. Thud. Thud. Thud. They were mocking me. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud— Finally, my patience wore just thin enough to snap. I shot to my feet, seething. They’d had enough fun. I wouldn’t let them do this any longer. “Stop, I cried, pushing between them all. “I’m right here. Just look at me, I’m right here.” No one did. I hated their laughter. In all my life, I’d never heard anything so horrible. “Enough!” My anger would not be contained. Warmth spread across my skin, as if I’d pulled all heat from the air. Even the campfire had lost its flame. This time, I knew they heard me. And now, they saw me. All their eyes had widened, and not one voice continued its mocking cry over the stillness of the forest. “I am right here,” I said, heaving a breath. No one spoke. Apparently, they no longer had anything to say. Instead, footsteps shuffled away from me. Some of them stumbled and fell. I couldn’t stay any longer. I’d remained too long already. I ran, back into the only place that had ever welcomed me. All those people feared me. Not one of them had come to visit my home. And maybe, no one ever had. I just wanted to wake up. . . . After that, I rarely had any visitors. Sometimes I thought it was because I scared them all away. Other times, I knew it was because I had stopped searching for them.

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Days came and went as they ever did, and I was left to wander this dream alone. I couldn’t say I minded it. Since that horrible day, solitude had become my friend. Though with the forest around me, I could never say I was truly alone. And as long as I stayed here, I knew I never would be. But, maybe, every once in a while, I could admit to wishing that someone was with me. That someone would walk beneath the waterfall with me and lie upon the leaves the same way I did. I never expected to meet anyone ever again. I especially never wanted to look for someone to visit with. So it was with great surprise that a day came when someone searched for me. The day was just like any other. Clouds came and went with the brightness of the sun and walked the same path that I often did. When I reached the clearing, though, I stopped. Someone else was nearby. I stood still for a long time, though I couldn’t bring myself to be excited or even afraid. Whoever it was wouldn’t even be able to see me. Why should I care? Sense said that I should continue walking and not give the feeling a second thought. Curiosity made me look over my shoulder. Between two trees, there was a boy. He was just… standing there. And he was looking at me. I turned to face him completely. “Can you see me?” I said. “Of course, I can.” He smiled as the sun shifted to alight upon the green of his eyes. “You’re the girl, aren’t you?” So he could see me. Even talk to me. And I hadn’t had to do a single thing. “You know who I am?” The boy walked closer. “Maybe.” I shook my head. “You can’t possibly.” “And why’s that?” “Because I’ve never left this forest. I don’t even have a name for

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myself anymore.” He shrugged. “That’s alright. Can’t say I really remember my own, either. Honestly. I’m just glad you can see me. Met a few people a while ago who must have been both blind and deaf—not that that’s a bad thing, just an observation.” I watched him warily as he stepped further into the clearing and nearer to me. “You’re different,” I said. His approach slowed, and he clicked his tongue. “Trying to figure out what that means…. Nope, I’ve got nothing.” Things had never been like this. I’d seen so many people who hadn’t seen me. Tried to reach out to those who couldn’t be bothered to breathe an acknowledgement of my presence. This whirlwind of a dream had lasted for so long, I couldn’t remember how things were supposed to be. All I knew was that they weren’t supposed to be like this. “Listen,” the boy said. “I know I haven’t been around here for long, but I can promise you I’m not a threat, in any form. I just saw you and thought we could talk a bit. It’s been a while since I had a chance to really talk to anyone.” My mouth was drier than the leaves that crunched beneath my feet as I shifted my weight. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Everyone talks as if I’m not normal. As if I’m the exception to the rule. It doesn’t make sense, none of it.” That caused the boy to stop walking. “Wait,” he said. “Do you not know?” “Know what?” So many of these people spoke in riddles. Why could no one just talk? “Oh. You really don’t know.” One hand absently ran through his hair. “Honestly, that would make so much sense.” His eyes shot up to meet mine. Mirth fled his voice as he said, “Come with me.” “Where to?” I said. “Do you remember anything before coming to this forest?” “No.” “Well, it’s a place that you’ve been before. Trust me.”

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I could never explain why. But for some reason I trusted him. So I followed. We wove between familiar trees, beneath branches and through brambles. Eventually, we reached a path that even I didn’t recognize. “You’re sure you know where we’re going?” “I said trust me.” We walked, and we walked, and we walked. When at last the path ended, he lifted a low hanging branch and motioned me beneath it. “This might be a bit shocking to you, but seeing as you don’t seem to know already, I thought it only best to show you.” “You’re still not making any sense,” I said. A few leaves brushed across my face, and I pushed them away. When I looked up, my heart stut-tered to a stop. Planted in the ground there was a white cross, ribbons tied around its middle. Someone had died here. “So,” the boy said, “do you remember” A flood of memories assailed me, and I struggled to order them into a cohesive story. “Yes. I think. It was my seventeenth birthday. I’d come here to read, up in one of the trees, but fell asleep. When I woke up, it was late. I knew my parents would be missing me, so I tried to hurry down.” I swallowed thickly. “But you fell,” the boy said. “All the reports said you hit your head on the way down. Never felt the impact.” “No,” I breathed quietly, an image of the past rising in my mind. “I didn’t. Which means—I’m dead.” I turned to face him. “And if you say you’re ‘just like me’—so are you.” His eyes didn’t meet mine. For the first time, a flicker of sadness passed over him. “Yes, it would seem that way. One day I went hiking in the woods. It got a bit colder one night than I expected, and there wasn’t any service this far out so—here I am now.” “And you remember that?” “Vaguely. Then again, I didn’t knock my brain around on the way here.”

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I looked back at the cross, saw a flicker of myself around it and looked back toward the boy. All this time, I thought this was a dream. That I would wake up and see the world as it was supposed to be once again. Instead, the world would never be anything like that ever again.There was one thing, though. One nagging thought. “But that girl—she’s not me. I mean, she is me—but also, not. I barely remember anything about that girl.” The boy leaned against a tree, arms crossed. His knees bent until he sat slouched at the tree’s base. “Understandable. I’m much the same. Can’t say I’m all that surprised.” “How so?” “Well,” he began, “my mother was a strong believer in magic. Not like wizards and witches and all that—but a simpler form. The every day kind.” He huffed a laugh. “She used to say that there were a few places left on this earth that still had a little magic. Those places could take the bad things and hold them long enough that they became good.” I sat down next to him. “What does that have to do with us?” “I guess I can’t say for certain, but I think that we aren’t the us that was before. The real versions of us are gone, probably already making s’mores in heaven—I’ve already noticed there’s a lack of chocolate here, so that’s definitely a problem we need to fix.” “Agreed,” I said, “but, please, go on.” “See, the thing is, when you—y’know, died, the magic in this for-est captured some of the best parts of you, to be in this forest just a while longer. Me too, I guess. I can’t say why. Unfortunately, my mother’s sto-ries never got quite that specific.” My thoughts whirled, one tumbling over another like waves in a storm. “Maybe,” I said, “just maybe, we’re here to make things better.”He nodded once emphatically. “Right… and that would mean, what, ex-actly?” “You said the magic could take bad things and make them good again. Maybe it created us to make the tragedy of our deaths better. To turn ghost stories into hope. All this time that I’ve been, I’ve just been wander-

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ing, as if I’m a phantom, and, believe me, it hasn’t done me any good.” “So what do you propose?” I looked around us, lips pursed, and stood. “Starting today, we focus on getting people to open their eyes.” “Pretty sure most people already do that.” “Not what I mean—this is half your theory anyway, so you’d best get on board with it.” I ran my hand along the tree trunk. “I don’t remem-ber much about before I came here, but I remember this much. People saw beautiful things, maybe took a picture of them, and moved on, never to think of it again. “And what do you propose needs to be done?” I bit my lip and tapped my fingers against the tree bark. “We get them to take some magic with them. Follow them, show them, help them see the beauty that’s in the world so powerfully that they can’t forget it.”I looked up nervously. For having spoken so little in the last long while, I wasn’t even sure I could force words to make sense anymore. The boy stood up next to me and held out his hands. “Sounds good to me. Where do we start?” At least I made sense so far. “The same place as always.” “Honestly, can’t say I know where that is.” I smiled and offered him my hand. “We start wandering.” “Alright. Don’t have much else to do. Might as well get lost. By the way, I was thinking, and I thought Mark might be a nice name. If we get to choose a name for ourselves. It had never quite occurred to me that we could do that. At this point, there were very few rules to follow anyway. But what to be named? I thought of the girl that had first noticed me—who I might have tried to give a bit of magic to. “Lily,” I said. “That’s what you can call me. And,” I offered one more, small smile, “thank you, Mark. For helping me.” “Seemed a good way to start spreading the magic.” For the first time in very, very long time, I didn’t have any reason to want to wake up. . . .

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Contributors’ Biographies

Victoria Adolph is a senior in high school completing dual-credit classes and has a passion for theater, singing, and her pursuit in pediatric nurs-ing.

Amanda Black is an aspiring writer who enjoys a good book, warm coffee, and long walks through Azeroth.

Cortney DeMott is a Lone Star College student who loves writing.

Laura Dunn is a sophomore creative writing major with a passion for dogs, running, and reading all the Stephen King books she can.

Ashley Elliott is a sophomore English major who loves short-form writ-ing and poetry and loves drawing on the side.

Taylor Elmore has been writing sense she was young, loves animals, and is working on getting her Associates of Arts degree.

Cynthia Enciso is a passionate digital artist who enjoys painting land-scape and subject pieces that convey emotions.

Joseph Fenley is a Lone Star College student who loves to write stories and poems and has interests, if not skills, in many other art mediums. De-spite his autistic disabilities, he finds joy and purpose in creating things for others to enjoy and distract themselves with.

Marisela Flores is a freshman at Lone Star College-Tomball. She is majoring in business marketing with a minor in communications. In her free time she enjoys writing poems and creating drawings that bring awareness to problems in today’s society. Marisela has a strong passion

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for helping others succeed and bringing joy to those around her as well.

Julia Harter is a high school and college student who loves theater, music, and obviously, writing.

Sabrina Hiltscher is a dual-credit student who enjoys using her creative insanity for good AND for awesome.

Yadhira Jaimes is a college student who is very passionate about draw-ing, and her favorite medium is charcoal.

Kiernan McClaren is a history major who likes video games, ancient warfare, and philosophy

Karley Morris is a dual-credit student who loves drawing, writing, pho-tography, and fishing.

Jacob Perkins is a history major at Lone Star College and has a passion for Japanese culture and language. He is also interested in mythology, science, and military history. He enjoys traveling and spending time with friends.

Amanda Petersen is an education major who loves to read and enjoys dabbling in poetry and various forms of art.

Emily Ponce-Camacho has been drawn to art her whole life and has often been found day dreaming.

James Purdy is a first-year student, studying to be a male nurse. James may be intrigued by the human body, but he has an immense passion for creative writing and the arts.

Kaitlin Quarles is an English major who is passionate about reading and

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writing the things she’d like to read. Awesziana Roberson is an architectural design major. From a young age, she had always been creative. It is easy to say that designing is in her blood. Art is an amazing escape from the outside world and a big pas-sion of hers. Being so busy, she knows that at the end of the day picking up a graphite pencil or some exquisite oil paint will make everything better.

Ashley Rodriguez is a freshman science major aiming to earn a degree in veterinary medicine at Texas A&M University. She enjoys painting, drawing, reading, and playing relaxing video games in her spare time; however, her true passion is helping our furry friends feel their best.

Regina Roeli is an Art major student who loves spending time working on her passions. Roeli wants to become a movie director, 3D animator for movies and a fashion designer.

Mariana Ruiz Loya is a freshman architecture major who has a passion for drawing, concerts and Boston Terriers

Georgette Smith is a senior who enjoys photography, arts, and nature.

Reba Threet is a Lone Star College student who wants to bring aware-ness to sexual trauma and rape.

Emmalee Waggoner is a young, single, expecting mother dedicated to providing better education to students and a positive future for her daughter.

Christy Woelfel is a passionate seeker of knowledge and beauty who is finding such things through her dual-credit learning experience at Lone Star College.

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Joanna Wright is a lover of all things fantasy and books and is currently studying diagnostic medical sonography as well as the creative arts.

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The Year in Inkling

Kyle Solak, Mari-Carmen Marin, Amanda Black, Brezalel Leviston

Laura Franco, Mari-Carmen Marin, Amanda Black

Marisela Flores, Sabrina Hiltscher, Laura Franco, Ethan Hiltscher, Brezalel Leviston, Joseph Fenley,Catherine Olson, Mari-Carmen Marin, Amanda Black

Dorian Martin, Ethan Hiltscher, Kyle SolakMarisela Flores, Brezalel Leviston, Amanda Black,

Laura Franco, Catherine Olson, Mari-Carmen Marin

FALL FEST CHRISTMAS MEETING

OPEN MIC

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2018-2019

EDITING MEETING

SELECTION AND LAYOUT MEETING

Regina Elizalde, Amanda Black

Georgette Smith, Rebekah Chatman, Angelica Balles, Amanda Black, Kaitlin Quarles, Mari-Carmen Marin, Laura Franco

Amanda Black, Brezalel Leviston

Rebekah Chatman, Georgette Smith, Angelica Balles, Laura Franco, Kaitlin Quarles, Amanda Black, Ashley Ener, Roegina Elizalde

SPRING FLING

LAYOUT MEETING

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INKLINGSUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Go to www.lonestar.edu/Inkling, or scan the CR code on the following page. Click “Submission Procedure” and follow the directions.

1. Submissions received by December 15th will be considered for the issue to be released in the spring semester immediately following the submission. Submissions received after December 15th will be consid-ered for the spring of the next academic year 2. Only original, unpublished works are accepted. Simultaneous submis-sions are acceptable. Please notify us immediately at Inkling@lonestar.edu if your piece is accepted by another publisher. 3. Only LSC-Tomball students (enrolled in credit courses at the time of submission) are eligible to submit. 4. All work must be submitted electronically, through the Inkling Submission Form. Upload your file(s) to this form before you press SUBMIT. 5. Reproductions of artwork must be submitted as a .jpg files, with a res-olution of 300 dpi or greater. Students may take a digital photo of their drawing(s), painting(s), or photograph(s) and upload the resulting .jpg file(s) to the submission form. 6. Maximum entries per person: six (6) writing submissions and six (6) art submissions. 7. Writers and artists selected for publication will be notified by mail. Expect notification by February or March of the semester for which they are selected. NOTE: Submissions selected for publication are automatically entered into the Lone Star College - Tomball Inkling Magazine Creative Arts Contest. Winners will receive place awards.

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SELECTION PROCESS

All entries are submitted to Inkling Magazine advisers. Advisers replace the authors’ and artists’ names with numbers to preserve their anonymity. A voting packet of all submissions is then compiled and distributed to Inkling Magazine editors, staff members, and participating faculty, who vote for inclusion in the magazine and placement for awards. A staff meeting is then held to finalize votes. Only after final selections have been made do the advisers reveal the identity of those individuals whose works have been chosen.