Miciah Bay Gault – Hunger Mountain Review

Backstage at the Rainbow Cattle Co.

Photographs by Evie Lovett

From 2002 to 2004, Evie Lovett photographed drag queens preparing backstage for the monthly drag show at the Rainbow Cattle Co. in Dummerston, Vermont…

BODIES SPACES

Photographs by Daniel Toby Gonzalez

Toby has found the greatest personal release exploring themes of masculinity—both his own masculinity and the way masculinity is perceived by society—and plans to dig further into the subject, attempting to “hit the bottom, if there is one.”

Paintings

by Don Fenestre-Marek

Over the past three decades, Don has worked in a variety of art media. He considers painting to have the broadest vocabulary for articulating the intersection of practical existence and spiritual inquiry.

Air

Photographs by Evie Lovett

Ten photographs from the series “Ari” by Evie Lovett. Originally featured in Hunger Mountain Issue 19: The Body Issue.

Collage & Mixed Media

by Matt Monk

[doptg id=”7″] Editor’s Note: Matt Monk’s design work was originally the featured art for the Prizewinner Issue—December 2014. In can now be seen in the Creative Nonfiction section. “In my collage and mixed-media work, I explore systems, typography, and narrative through experimental methods involving an expansive range of accretive and erosive processes including painting, gluing,… Continue reading Collage & Mixed Media

by Matt Monk

Illustrations

by Kerri Augenstein

…what a great opportunity to sit in the same space as all of the amazing authors occupying all of the brilliant content of Hunger Mountain.

art as a gorged star: eight erasure poems

by Tyler Friend

These are erasures of a book published by MOMA, which features transcribed versions of three lectures given in the 50’s and early 60’s

Visual Art: “Firsts” Video Project

This gallery is in answer to Hunger Mountain‘s open call for one-minute videos addressing the notion of First Experiences. We asked artists to interpret this notion in the broadest possible terms. Here is an assorted and provocative sampling of what we received: Nike air jordan Sneakers | NIKE HOMME

Wonderland:

Readings by Matthew Dickman

“It seems like everyday now, anytime we make art, or really listen to someone else’s point of view, or empathize with the other, that it’s a fight against meanness…”

Two Poems

Kwame Dawes

The sun falls out of heaven like a stone

One of God’s Ovids

Josiah Bancroft

One of Ovid’s gods is drunk,
and stalking the city in peg-leg pants,
velour shirt open to the loins,

Visiting with Lin King

by Claire Guyton

In my English class, we were frequently discussing the definition of truth. After reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, our class became obsessed with the idea that there is no absolute truth. When we were assigned to write any short story we liked, I decided to expand on the idea that “truth” is like a […]

Ruby Thursday

Richard Adams Carey

Single, childless Augustus Cyril St. Clair would have filled both vacancies with the same presumed applicant, would have married David Biffenbaugh’s daughter the moment she touched his shoulder and trailed a finger like a hot wire through the hair on the nape of his neck.

Night of the Spiders

Sheldon Bellegarde

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#372a55′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] It’s almost midnight but I have got to clean out my bedroom closet. It’s packed with junk and has, like, the most vicious spider problem this side of a radioactive-arachno movie. I’m delving into terror. At least I don’t have… Continue reading Night of the Spiders

Sheldon Bellegarde

Dentist of the Wild West

Deborah Vlock

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#372a55′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] Right while I’m getting my braces, and saliva I can’t swallow is pooling in the back of my mouth, Doc Hallowell tells me about square dancing. “I do it every Saturday with Linda,” he says, “and after we’re done we… Continue reading Dentist of the Wild West

Deborah Vlock

On Revision: Pulling Up Widows

Pam Houston

One of my primary goals in writing Contents May Have Shifted was to make a book in which each of my sentences worked harder than they ever had before. I was brought up in the post-Raymond Carver school of compression, and I still believe the poets are the real wizards…

Two Poems

Mike Wright

I stumble under sunny-thunder sky. The weather
simply does as it chooses, and we all might
learn some lesson there. I’ve been drinking.

Last Dog

Claire Burgess

Joel was worried about the dead dog in his trunk. Heat rose off the road in front of him, rippling the air like a photograph warping over a flame—he was beginning to regret his decision to pack the ice inside the trash bag with the dog. In this heat, he knew, the ice would be melting, soaking the fur, and if there’s […]

2017 Contest Winners Are Here

We are thrilled to announce the results of our 2017 contests! With nearly 1,500 entries, we had a wonderful time reading and a hard time choosing our finalists. Thank you to everyone who entered. The winning pieces will be published this fall, right here in Hunger Mountain’s online companion. Thank you to our talented assistant editors… Continue reading 2017 Contest Winners Are Here

Announcing Hunger Mountain’s 2018 Guest Editors and Theme

We’re beyond excited to announce this year’s guest editors, three writers we’ve long admired. We can’t wait to view Hunger Mountain through their creative lenses. Please help us welcome: 2018 Guest Prose Editor // Melissa Febos Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press 2010), and the essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017).… Continue reading Announcing Hunger Mountain’s 2018 Guest Editors and Theme

The Art of Interviewing

Josh Dudley

The best interviews come out of passion for the interviewee and their craft. You are providing a conduit for them to expand or reach their fan base, and the best way to do that is to be a fan yourself.

Blackbirds in September: Selected Shorter Poems of Jürgen Becker

by Ian Haight

Becker’s belief in reality, his faith in meaning, and his understanding that meaning can be communicated, has value, and originates in consciousness; are all affirmations of human life. These are ideas worthy of gratitude.

A Poetry Reading

from Tom Paine

3 Poems from Tom Paine

Pain is Not the Only Thing

J.C. Lillis

If you catch yourself thinking your evolution as a writer depends on an obligatory descent into darkness, then stop that shit, ‘cause that’s the Gremlin talking.

Portrait of the Alcoholic by Kaveh Akbar

by Genevieve N. Williams

Kaveh Akbar writes with such spiritual risk and honesty that we as readers are brought into the liminal spaces of language, addiction, and displacement.

“The Only Life and Death Matters Are Life and Death”: A Few Quick Words from Porochista Khakpour

Challenge that American addiction to speed — figuratively and literally! The worst writing I have ever seen has come from prescription stimulants and too much coffee, and sometimes both.

Comics = Cultural Criticism: An Interview with Bill Kartalopoulos

by Gina Tron

Comics take a bunch of images and put them together in a coherent and articulate way, where you go from image to image, and from text/image combination to text/image combination. Then you look at it all and it all adds up to something.

The Story That Chooses You

Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons

What I’ve learned through writing about Suzie is that stories sometimes choose writers. If something interests you, you should write about it. I still believe this is true. For me, this was the story I had to write.

The Catalog of Broken Things by Anatoly Molotkov

by Anthony DiMatteo

The book offers a journey of disorder and disappearance. As in life, one must find a way.

Didi Jackson Reads

“On the Death of my Father”

His outsider art graces the album cover of Little Creatures
by the Talking Heads, and a vision of his dead
sister climbing down from Heaven

A Loaded Gun: Hunting My Elusive Book

Rona Maynard

For a couple of months I’d been lost in the metaphorical woods with my writing. The prize, my second book, circled out of my view like a fleet-footed creature of the night.

A Good Medicine
by Jude Whelchel

First Place, Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize

In celebration of their eleventh birthday, the mother orders her twins Sunday suits from the Sears and Roebuck, matching breech pants, double-breasted sailor coats with yellow neckties.

The Slide
by Jennifer Hasty

Runner Up, Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize

I’m sorry your study was ruined,” he said. “But I think those rats gave you an answer after all. Maybe not what you were looking for.

Living in Stereo: An Interview with Alex Green

by Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons

“California itself has appeared almost as a singular character throughout my writing, kind of like the hotel in The Shining, but less creepy — or more creepy, depending on how you view my work.” – Alex Green

Dark Water: Melissa Febos’s Haunting New Memoir, Abandon Me

by Cameron Dezen Hammon

Love without sense or control, love made into a god, is no longer love. It’s a weapon wielded most painfully on the self, but perhaps it also has the potential to deliver healing.

Sympathetic Magic

Annah Browning

This magic is also called the magic of correspondence or contagion — the properties of one thing leaping to another.In folk medicines around the world, it shows up in what has been called the doctrine of signatures…

From The Provost.

by Jeremy Wolf

Half the time, the poems are alright and the prose pages generally work out, but it’s all about that discipline. It’s all about ratcheting in that time.

Edna, With Her Mouth
by Katherine Schaefer

First Place, Creative Nonfiction Prize

Edna’s voice resembled nothing so much as what you’d hear coming from a poultry barn full of caged white turkeys: that loud, shrieking up-and-down gobbling that almost makes you want to scream, yourself.

What a Lonely Youth with Robots Taught Me: MST3K and Storytelling

Amy E. O’Neal

We are literary. We produce literary fiction for literary people. That is why it’s paramount that we expose ourselves and our work to the same ruthless mockery as the saddest of Z-grade films.

Adventure Counselor
by Jocelyn Edelstein

Runner Up, Creative Nonfiction Prize

“Fuuuuuuck!” I scream – three – possibly four times – as I hurtle through air, as my innocent 14-year-old campers giggle until they can’t stand, as the honest wind tells my body a story of speed and force and falling.

All the Pieces Came Together
by Chris J. Rice

Runner Up, Creative Nonfiction Prize

My identity as fractured as my vision, I erected walls around me. Hard walls. Flat walls. Walls I made and maintained…I’d already accepted my fate.

One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin

by Amelia Marchetti

The stories they are living are moments of purgatory, the still transitionary moment where one state of living has ended, but the next stage of life has yet to begin.

Little World / After a Series of Rejections
by Sawnie Morris

First Place, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize

You can safely e merge to sit with magenta tulips ,
orange day lilies shouting

Beyond Words: An Interview with Shozan Jack Haubner

by Kim MacQueen

A lot of times I’ll sit with an experience and let it germinate. Part of it will be something that happened to me, and part of it will be something that I’m trying to work through in my practice.

Carol Amber
by Kate Kingston

Runner Up, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize

She pours us tea, one that claims
to detoxify, to soothe the throat. Honey
dissolves in the agitated swirl

Terrorists
by Donald Levering

Runner Up, Ruth Stone Poetry Prize

God don’t let that be
my bombshell daughter naked
in a sleeping bag on a public bench

Writing First-Personal Journalism About Trauma

Gina Tron

Are you going to write about every trauma in your life? No! Life is ridden with traumatic events. That’s part of living. But in some cases, writing about personal trauma is a powerful way to make a point.

Oprah, Maslow, and Me
by Amy Emm

Overall First Place, Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Literature

We usually go for the middling neighborhoods. We don’t want curving brick driveways, brass knockers, tall clumps of waving grasses, gates, cameras. Nope – we want something riiiiight in the middle.

A Proud Family of Sneezers
by Sandra Nickel

Picture Book Winner, Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Literature

When the doctor arrived, she examined Snookie’s nose inside and out. She poked and pinched and prodded, and finally declared, “There’s nothing wrong with this little girl.

Straight Forward: In Conversation with Fiction Writer Jensen Beach

by M. Demyan

It’s the things that come out of my own life or the reading that I’m doing, or things that I’ve heard from friends or whatever. But in this case, I think it’s just been an ongoing evolving project that had adapted to the realities of my own life…

The Gifts of Ratoncito Pérez
by Joe Baillargeon

Middle-Grade Winner, Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Literature

I stop and drop my bike on the ground, and the young woman’s head appears in the back window. My father’s head pops up too, and then I see a hand reach up, an open hand patting the window, as if asking me to wait.

Invasive Species by Claire Caldwell

by Ariel Kusby

Caldwell’s poems manage to explore substantial themes with an intimate gaze; the humor is simultaneously empathetic and darkly cynical.

The Angel Age
by Val Howlett

Young Adult Winner, Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Literature

The backstage lights are off. The actors are in shadow, lit only by the faint glow of the house lights onstage. You tunnel around them, trying to keep up with Dani Aguilar, but Cinderella has somehow gotten ahead of you…

Alison Prine Reads

“Coming Out”

Alison’s poem, Coming Out, is featured in Hunger Mountain 21: Masked/Unmasked on sale now.

Living Multiple Lives Through Writing: An Interview with Stephanie Tyler

by Tierney Ray

Every once in a while, I’ll call a psychic. I was on the phone with one at one point and she said to me, “Oh, wait. Hang on. Hang on, they’re speaking to me.” And I was like, “Go ahead.”

Scratch That Curiosity Itch

Tierney Ray

I have never committed murder. Nor have I ever been at a murder scene with police, forensics, and medical examiners gathering evidence. But I know how to write that scene. So do you.

Giving In

Rebecca Lawton

So it goes with writing and birding. You try to find a sapsucker, but stumble up on a tiny jewel of a hummingbird. You persist and strive despite a robin showing you the insanity of ignoring results.

Wonderland of Words: An Interview with Matthew Dickman

by Lara Gentchos

I’m going to die, and I want my experiences, as much as I can control them — which is not much — to be experiences with art that makes me feel something.

Ruby Mountain by Ruth Nolan

by Cindy Lamothe

Nolan’s soft, subtle expressions paint these invisible terrains with a quiet, haunting power. The speaker’s thirst for her previous life is a mirage that beckons us forward…

How (And Why) to Build an Author Website

by Adam Robinson

Ultimately, don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid to ask for help, and don’t be afraid to simplify, simplify, simplify. Computer people call this “iterating,” as in “let’s iterate on the simplest minimum viable product.”

Writing In Between: An Interview with Tyler Friend

by Breanne Cunningham

Most of what I write is love poetry. And a lot of it comes from dreams. A lot of it comes from lucid dreaming, that half-awake, half-asleep state.

5 Reasons to Recommend With Animal

by Amelia Marchetti

“With Animal” explores the extreme natures of parenthood. There is no “animals are right, humans are monsters” philosophy, as people and beasts are both capable of selfish indifference and deep empathy.

When the Cake is Baked

Susan Browne

I had to find a way to diffuse these tense and often unbearable situations. One day while discussing a student’s poem, I blurted out, “Hey, the cake isn’t baked yet.”

DIY—Are You a Real Writer?

Amy Souza

Of all my internal struggles, one I really hate has to do with self-publishing. The true me, the one hiding deep down, has never understood why publishing your own work is seen as controversial, vain, worthy of mockery. The socialized me, the one I fight with regularly, buys into the idea that it’s not a legitimate option for “real” writers.

Keep Calm and Query On

Luke Reynolds

Query Letters: Reflections on Bulldozing Writing Walls Now that my wife, Jennifer, and I have been living in York, England for six months, some of the immediate gratifications of moving abroad have worn off. Instead, the steady monotony of life, raising a toddler, and writing have settled in, and I find Winston Churchill’s slogan during… Continue reading Keep Calm and Query On

Luke Reynolds

When Prose Turns to Horses, Remember the Humans

Lisa Romeo

Any horse I made notes about, any horse for which I gathered stats and records, or any horse I got close to so as to describe him or her, was always seen in context of its human counterparts.

Get Lit with Zinester/Book Publisher Sage Adderley-Knox

by M. Brianna Stallings

“There is such an awful stigma around self-publishing, that the books will not be enjoyable…these indie authors just need the guidance and support to help them through the process.”

I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well by James Allen Hall

by Daniel Cretaro

I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well is one of those books that doesn’t come around often. It is the rare book that possesses three key qualities: language, love, and candor.

What Being “Willing to Fail” Really Means

by Hillary Rettig

It might seem paradoxical or even impossible to embrace a low-stakes mindset about your important work, but it is very doable, and gets easier with practice.

How Not to Not Be Funny

Ryan Kriger

Humor is just one of many tools in the writer’s toolbox, and funny for funny’s sake is nice, but if it doesn’t contribute to what you’re trying to accomplish…

Julianna Baggott Whispers Urgently Into Our Ears

by Breanne Cunningham and M. Brianna Stallings

You never really have to look at the blank page at all because by the time you’re free to write and can actually get to a computer, you already know what you’re going to write.

We Are Pleased to Announce the Judges for Hunger Mountain’s 2017 Literary Prizes

2017 Deadline Extended to March 8th! Click here for guidelines and to enter the contest. The 2017 judges are: Matt Bell– Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize Joni Tevis – Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize Major Jackson – Ruth Stone Poetry Prize Cynthia Leitich Smith – Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult & Children’s Writing… Continue reading We Are Pleased to Announce the Judges for Hunger Mountain’s 2017 Literary Prizes

We Are Pleased to Announce the Judges for Hunger Mountain’s 2016 Literary Prizes

The judges are: Janet Burroway- Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize Robert Michael Pyle – Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize Lee Upton – Ruth Stone Poetry Prize Rita Williams-Garcia – Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult & Children’s Writing Janet Burroway, awarded the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing by the Florida Humanities Council, is… Continue reading We Are Pleased to Announce the Judges for Hunger Mountain’s 2016 Literary Prizes

Isadora’s Sandálias

Robin Heald

“Isa, this package came for you.” Mamãe sets a box in front of my cereal bowl.

“It’s from Vó Ziza,” I say. My granny, Ziza, lives in Brazil, far away from our family in Miami.

Again

Tara Bray

The warbler’s folded in my tongue
like a lemon drop. What joy
it is to trap a festival inside,

Two Poems

Chard deNiord

In steps at your command/down the plank of a tall
fast ship with the salt/of sex across its lips.

The Hollow Places of the World

Kenneth Garcia

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#1f4378′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] The ores of divine providence are everywhere infused, and everywhere to be found. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Cristiana The margins of the world surrounded me—at least in the physical sense—for hundreds of miles in every direction: a no-man’s land of… Continue reading The Hollow Places of the World

Kenneth Garcia

Three Poems

Katherine Hollander

These creatures with breathing blue
necks. Arch and bristle. Forelock and star.

Two Poems

Jessica Goodfellow

In origami the mountain fold
folds down—constructing
an obstacle. The valley fold
folds up: receptacle.
The difference between
structure and stricture,
between paperweight
and wastepaper basket.

Three Poems

Nancy Eimers

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I Am Reborn as a Shadow Frog eyes glimmer in water then douse themselves and shiny turtles topple off a log down to the water’s under-black when I step out skin form and sun hauled out of layers of… Continue reading Three Poems

Nancy Eimers

Reeni’s Turn

WAITING Monday April 16th At the barre at Miss Allie’s I lean and dream: onstage alone where the spotlight glows, fears of an audience scatter like stage dust. Music flows through me – it always does like air and blood moving my limbs to dance in ways that push me out so close to the… Continue reading Reeni’s Turn