Guest Post by Madeline Thomas.

When a combination of a Catholic upbringing and the unforgettable viewing of a commercial for The Exorcist sends a young girl’s mind to the inevitability of a personal demon possession, the first steps are taken on a path to parental disappointment. Jessica Power Braun’s “Black Alpaca” places readers at the intersection of religion, generational conflict, and closet-Jesus nightmares with sharp humor and unflinching honesty.

The essay, published in Hippocampus Magazine, works through the realities of fear and guilt in the Catholic Church, the slow movement away from your family’s religious identity, and the discovery of a poignant black alpaca painting in the context of Braun’s identities as a mother, wife, and daughter. Humor forms the heart of the piece, but the essay makes no attempt to pull away from what is both painful and real—forming a balance that cultivates both emotional impact and investment for readers.

In a time where I feel the need for constant breaks from the mire of news and the world in general, the humor and tone present in “Black Alpaca” provides needed relief. Braun utilizes her power in storytelling to craft something worth connecting with.

“Black Alpaca” by Jessica Power Braun. Hippocampus Magazine, January 2021.

Reviewer bio: Madeline Thomas is a graduate student and writer at Utah State University.

Guest Post by Holly Vasic.

In the 35th-anniversary edition of the San Francisco-based literary magazine ZYZZYVA, Lauren Markham’s essay, “Cathedrals of Hope,” reminisces on the women’s suffrage movement. This piece is timely as 2020 America marked the centennial anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Markham not only reflects on the women who sacrificed their freedom and endured abuse so that women can vote today but also discusses populations forgotten in the 1920s: men and women of color.

Markham weaves her own narrative into the larger historical picture, describing how her first-time voting was marked with devastation when George Bush Jr. won—again. Markham takes a unique look at where we as Americans are in regard to democracy while commentating on where we came from. Markham writes, “How easy human beings can forget the people who came before us, and the debts we owe.”

“Cathedrals of Hope” by Lauren Markham. ZYZZYVA, 2020.

Reviewer bio: Holly Vasic is a Graduate Instructor seeking a Master’s in Folklore at Utah State University with an undergrad in Journalism.

Guest Post by Andrew Romriell.

In “White Witchery,” from Guernica, Elissa Washuta offers fierce insight into the varied and complex ways whiteness has plundered Indigenous bodies and beliefs. Here, Washuta offers difficult truths surrounding colonialism and settler violence alongside the strength of her own perseverance.

Growing up in a “heavily Catholic, forest-and-farmland slice of New Jersey,” Washuta found a sincere desire to make magic, to be a witch who “brings change to the seen world using unseen forces.” To Washuta, magic became a way of finding stability within the uncontrollable world surrounding Native women in America, an America where, Washuta describes, “[colonizers whisper] that I’m not wanted here, not worthy of protection, nothing but a body to be pummeled and played with and threatened into submission.” Yet, through magic, her own tenacity, and the communal strength she finds in a women’s spiritual circle, Washuta says, “ My whole body is a fire” and “I have not died yet.”

“White Witchery” grants a rare and vulnerable insight into the capitalistic industry of the United States, the pop-culture surrounding self-care and self-healing, and the internal struggle of surviving a colonized America as a Native woman, a woman with “nothing now but my big aura, my fistful of keys, and my throat that still knows how to scream because no man has succeeded in closing it.” Though the journey Washuta takes us on is not an easy one, it is one of the most compelling, vulnerable, and important ones we can take.

“White Witchery” by Elissa Washuta. Guernica, February 2019.

Reviewer bio: Andrew Romriell is an avid writer, teacher, and student who is passionate about experimental forms, research-based writing, and intersections of genre. Learn more at ajromriell.com.

Guest Post by Mia Jensen.

“When the butterfly struggles out of its pupa, for three long hours its wings are wet and as utterly useless as a newborn’s hands.”

In “Life Inside,” found in Issue 211 of Cimarron Review, author Caroline Sutton contemplates the limitations of mortality and motherhood amid the upcoming birth of her first granddaughter. Sutton ingeniously weaves the eager experiences of her pregnant daughter with the vulnerable life cycle of monarch butterflies and their fruitless efforts for survival in a hostile world.

Reflecting on her own complicated pregnancy decades before, Sutton likens the near loss of her infant to the toxic consumption of milkweed leaves. Monarch mothers lay eggs on milkweed plants and milkweed plants alone, for when monarch larvae ingest the plant’s toxic properties, predators avoid the black and yellow creature. Sutton thinks back to her traumatic delivery and questions her blind trust during the delivery, her assumptions that everything would be alright because it always was, because mothers always offered protection. But, in a world strung with chaos and turmoil, perhaps there are some obstacles a mother cannot predict.

Sutton concludes by comparing her daughter’s upcoming delivery with a caterpillar’s metamorphic emergence. Rather than reflecting on the cliché symbol of hope, Sutton contemplates the feebleness of the new creature. Its wings, wet, useless, and unable to defend against predators looking to “attack and devour the butterfly, toxins and all, before the wings ever open fully.” Although monarch mothers provide protection from larvae to pupa, they cannot predict the perils awaiting beyond the chrysalis.

“Life Inside” by Caroline Sutton. Cimarron Review, Spring 2020.

Reviewer bio: Mia Jensen is a graduate student at Utah State University studying creative writing. She loves horror novels, trail running, and her Australian Shepherd.

Guest Post by Tyler Hurst.

In “She,” published in Issue 18 of Into the Void, author Grace Camille begins with an inventory of the things that the she has chosen to hold onto. Through the memories the objects invoke, we are introduced to the narrator’s own addiction, a need to belong, to be a part of something and to nurture “a proper addiction” that “began as a Hail Mary plan to be accepted by sleek, serious coworkers.”

Camille’s loneliness becomes our loneliness through the use of the third person, creating an emotional distance from events that still allows the reader to recognize. When she meets “him,” he makes her feel needed, wanted. When he leaves for the Peace Corps, the world becomes one of routines. “She jogs in the evenings, washes her hair weekly, flosses daily, eats sometimes,” and the list goes on. One-hundred-and-three days later, she’s still wishing after him, remembering him and longing for what she cannot hold. While she “reaches for his hand,” he is “reaching for a firefly,” revealing the futility of trying to hold onto that which does not wish to be held.

“She” by Grace Camille. Into the Void, 2021.

Reviewer bio: Tyler Hurst is a graduate student at Utah State University studying creative writing while completing his last semester there.