by Jo-Anne Rosen He knew it would be a mistake to let Bella drive. She was hard on cars and his was past its prime. “You don’t want to drive all day, Charles,” she said. “How far is it to Joshua Tree? You’ll need a break.” “I’ll be fine,” he said. “You need a holiday
Summer 2023 Dedicated to Nicholas Johnson and Maureen Holm, co-founders of BigCityLit To the Lighthouse by Nicholas Johnson Poetry Fiction Nonfiction Reviews
by Bill Kitcher As I often do, I was sitting at the bar, writing. I thought I had a pretty good idea so I was focused, and didn’t notice as the bar filled up and I was surrounded. When I looked up to order another beer, I noticed the crowd, particularly the guy sitting beside
by Melinda Thomsen Inspired by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s Jane Avril Dancing (1891-1892) Henri hangs out in the corner drinking absinthe and sketching. Look at this sketch of me in lines. He throws lines down as fast as he tosses drinks down his throat. Remember the famous poster he did called La Goulue? Now his placards sell
by Les Bohem “Someone like you should not be allowed to start any fires.” — David Bowie, “Win” My friend Peter Woolcott was incredibly good-looking. The great grandson of a duke, he had the classic features of a prince, with a combination of arrogance and vulnerability that was amazingly appealing. He did not carry himself
by Cullen McMahon What is the word that describes the feeling you have when, on returning home Mother’s Day morning with bagels and coffee and, on the passenger seat beside you, an orchid (the last available orchid, in fact, $89.50, “a beaut” said the sales girl), you park in the garage and, because the garage
Review by Daphne Astor Ilka Scobie’s new book, Any Island, published by Spuyten Press, is a powerful collection of lyric poems and free verse contemporary elegies that are delivered with wit and courage. Scobie is a lifelong New Yorker, born in Brooklyn in the 1950s. She writes in deceptively plain language about daily life at
Review by Victoria Reynolds In Orange Tulips, Joan Barasovska explores the perilous territory where, as a young woman, she was “neither dead nor safe” (57). We follow her out onto the ledges and lethal precipices of her own mind, then into a locked psychiatric ward, where, as a young woman, she battles a “death sentence
by Michelle Cacho-Negrete We were Poland. We were Romania. We were Ukraine We were Hungary. We were Russia. We arrived in New York with ragged clothes, a swirl of languages, and our babushkas and yarmulkas and kasha and borsch and pierogi and cozonac and palinka and our dreams and nightmares, and later, tattoos on our