ISSUE 6.2: Asquint
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A Sam Shepard influenced, inspired, incited, infused issue.
“Well, you gotta talk or you’ll die.”
~Buried Child
“It couldn’t get worse, so I figured it’d just get better.”
~Curse of the Starving Class
“Nobody can disappear.”
~True West
"How do pictures become words? Or how do words become pictures? And how do they cause you to feel something? That's a miracle."
~Rolling Thunder Logbook
Herein
Sam Shepard
“The Motel Chronicles Life” by J.D. O’Brien
Fiction
“Ten Thousand Tons of Moonlight” by Frank Reardon
“This Could-Be Dream Lover” by Jody Rae
“Magic” by Patrick Strickland
“With All the Trimmings” by Richard Zaborowske
“Dumb Boy” by Julia Nunnally Duncan
“Fossil Creek” by Jonathan Danielson
“Erosion” by Nathan Pettigrew
“Candid” by Sheree Shatsky
“Center of Mass” by Mason Parker
“The Coldest Day of the Year” by Kevin C Stewart
Short Plays
“A Spoke” by Sean Jacques
“Armadillos” by John Yohe
“Making it Big in Bozeman: A One Man Show” by Burke De Boer
“Frog Head” by John Weagly
Creative Nonfiction
“February 7, 1985” by Josh Olsen
Review
Deadheading & Other Stories by Beth Gilstrap (Red Hen Press)
Contributors
J.D. O'Brien lives in Massachusetts. His novel Acapulco Gold will be released in 2022 by Schaffner Press.
Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Minot, North Dakota. Frank has published poetry and short stories in many reviews, journals and online zines. His first poetry collection, Interstate Chokehold, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009 as well as his second poetry collection Nirvana Haymaker in 2012. His third poetry collection Blood Music was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2013. In 2014 Reardon published a chapbook with Dog On A Chain Press titled The Broken Halo Blues. Frank is currently working on more short fiction.
Jody Rae’s work appears in Sledgehammer Lit, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Good Life Review, and Red Fez. Her short story, “Beautiful Mother” was a finalist in the Phoebe Journal 2021 Spring Fiction Contest. She was the first prize winner of the 2019 Winning Writers Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest for her poem, "Failure to Triangulate". She has pieces forthcoming in Rejection Letters, RESURRECTION magazine, and XRAY. Her work can be found at www.criminysakesalive.com.
Patrick Strickland is a writer and journalist from Texas. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming at The Barcelona Review, The Broadkill Review, The Coachella Review, This Great Society, and MonkeyBicycle. He has an MFA from the University of Nebraska - Omaha.
Richard Zaborowske is a librarian from the Midwest that puts a contemporary twist on traditional library offerings. His monthly Short Story Night (a “book club” for the busy) packs the local brewery and features trivia, comedy, and author interviews. His writing is forthcoming in Barstow and Grand.
Julia Nunnally Duncan is an award-winning Western North Carolina author of ten books of prose and poetry. Her most recent books are an essay collection A Place That Was Home (eLectio Publishing, 2016) and poetry collections A Part of Me (Red Dirt Press, 2017) and A Neighborhood Changes (Finishing Line Press, 2018). She has essays forthcoming in History Magazine, Smoky Mountain Living, World War One Illustrated, and Tennessee Home & Farm and poems in Red Dirt Forum, Broad River Review, Crossing the Rift, and BlazeVOX online journal. She lives in Marion, NC, and enjoys spending time with her husband Steve and their daughter Annie.
Jonathan Danielson is an Instructor and creative writing Affiliate Faculty at Arizona State University. He is a Writer-at-Large for The Feathertale Review, and his work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Juked, Superstition Review, Gravel, Able Muse, The Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere. Most recently, he was named a 2021 Faculty Fellow for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Along with his full-time teaching duties at ASU, he is pursuing a doctorate in English literature and creative writing. He received his MFA from the University of San Francisco.
Nathan Pettigrew was born and raised an hour south of New Orleans and lives in the Tampa area with his loving wife. His stories have appeared in Deep South Magazine, “The Year” Anthology from Crack the Spine, Stoneboat, and the Nasty: Fetish Fights Back anthology from Anna Yeatts of Flash Fiction Online, which was spotlighted in a 2017 Rolling Stone article. His story “The Queen of the South Side” was named Honorable Mention in the Genre Short Story category for the 88th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition, while his story “Dog Killer” was named among the Top Four finalists of the Writer’s Digest 8th Annual Popular Fiction Awards for the Crime category. Other genre stories have appeared in Thuglit, Pulp Modern, the Savage Minds & Raging Bulls anthology from Bristol Noir, the Mardi Gras Mysteries and Mardi Gras Murder anthologies from Mystery and Horror, LLC, and at Punk Noir and DarkMedia.com.
Sheree Shatsky writes wild words. Recent work has appeared in The Drabble, Splonk, Wraparound South, Fictive Dream, BLACKCACKLE at Entropy, The Dead Mule and Saw Palm with found poetry at Harpy Hybrid Review and Heron Tree. Her current project is a novella-in-flash set in 1969 Florida. An Alabamian by birth, this long time Floridian is a Tom Petty fan. Read more of her writing at shereeshatsky.com .
Mason Parker is an Okie-born, Montana-based writer. His work has been featured in or is forthcoming from X-R-A-Y, Misery Tourism, Expat, and Rejection Letters, among others. It has been anthologized in print in A Beautiful Resistance and Zhoupheus. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the nearby Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness with his partner and two dogs.
A native West Virginian, Kevin C Stewart is an Associate Professor of English at Carroll College, Montana. He is the author of The Way Things Always Happen Here (WVU Press), and his work has been anthologized in the anthologies Writers by the River: Reflections on 40+ Years of the Highland Summer Conference on McFarland Press (2021) and Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia on Vandalia Press, WVU Press's literary imprint (2017). His stories and poems have appeared in magazines and journals such as Shenandoah, Appalachian Heritage, The Texas Review, The Southeast Review, Fiction Southeast, The Common and in Cowboy Jamboree Magazine's recent "Asquint" issue.
Sean Jacques is a fifth-generation native of the Missouri Ozarks. His wayward career includes bartender, bank teller, stone sculptor, public relations director, creative executive for the Weinstein Company film studio, and screenwriter in various development hell ventures in the movie business. Currently, he teaches English Literature in Los Angeles while writing new tales, his most recent work can be found at Across the Margin, Dead Fern Press, and 34 Orchard. You can find him on twitter @SeanJacques10.
Burke De Boer is a writer and producer in Dallas, Texas. He directs music videos and produces podcasts under the Third Eye Sockeye label. Find him on Twitter @professorjoke.
Since 1992, over 100 of John Weagly’s plays have received productions by theaters on 4 continents. A collection of his short sci-fi/fantasy scripts, Tiny Flights of Fantasy, has been taught at Columbia College and is available through Amazon. Also a short story writer, Locus Magazine once compared his short fiction to the works of Ray Bradbury and Nina Kiriki Hoffman and called him “a new writer worth reading and following.”
Josh Olsen is a librarian and the co-editor of Gimmick Press.
Adam Van Winkle is the founder and editor-in-chief for Cowboy Jamboree Magazine and Cowboy Jamboree Press. He has published two novels and a novella: Abraham Anyhow (2017), While They Were in the Field (2019), and Hardway Juice (2019). He has published a handful of plays as well: The Red Knife Plays adapted from the Appalachian fiction of Sheldon Lee Compton (2020), Two Eunices (2020), and (forthcoming from Leftover Books in February 2022) Dylan Quick is a Dairy Queen Don Quixote.
Constance Beitzel is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Southern Illinois University. She recently published an article analyzing motherhood in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.
“Well, you gotta talk or you’ll die.”
~Buried Child
“It couldn’t get worse, so I figured it’d just get better.”
~Curse of the Starving Class
“Nobody can disappear.”
~True West
"How do pictures become words? Or how do words become pictures? And how do they cause you to feel something? That's a miracle."
~Rolling Thunder Logbook
Herein
Sam Shepard
“The Motel Chronicles Life” by J.D. O’Brien
Fiction
“Ten Thousand Tons of Moonlight” by Frank Reardon
“This Could-Be Dream Lover” by Jody Rae
“Magic” by Patrick Strickland
“With All the Trimmings” by Richard Zaborowske
“Dumb Boy” by Julia Nunnally Duncan
“Fossil Creek” by Jonathan Danielson
“Erosion” by Nathan Pettigrew
“Candid” by Sheree Shatsky
“Center of Mass” by Mason Parker
“The Coldest Day of the Year” by Kevin C Stewart
Short Plays
“A Spoke” by Sean Jacques
“Armadillos” by John Yohe
“Making it Big in Bozeman: A One Man Show” by Burke De Boer
“Frog Head” by John Weagly
Creative Nonfiction
“February 7, 1985” by Josh Olsen
Review
Deadheading & Other Stories by Beth Gilstrap (Red Hen Press)
Contributors
J.D. O'Brien lives in Massachusetts. His novel Acapulco Gold will be released in 2022 by Schaffner Press.
Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Minot, North Dakota. Frank has published poetry and short stories in many reviews, journals and online zines. His first poetry collection, Interstate Chokehold, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009 as well as his second poetry collection Nirvana Haymaker in 2012. His third poetry collection Blood Music was published by Punk Hostage Press in 2013. In 2014 Reardon published a chapbook with Dog On A Chain Press titled The Broken Halo Blues. Frank is currently working on more short fiction.
Jody Rae’s work appears in Sledgehammer Lit, The Babel Tower Notice Board, The Good Life Review, and Red Fez. Her short story, “Beautiful Mother” was a finalist in the Phoebe Journal 2021 Spring Fiction Contest. She was the first prize winner of the 2019 Winning Writers Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest for her poem, "Failure to Triangulate". She has pieces forthcoming in Rejection Letters, RESURRECTION magazine, and XRAY. Her work can be found at www.criminysakesalive.com.
Patrick Strickland is a writer and journalist from Texas. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming at The Barcelona Review, The Broadkill Review, The Coachella Review, This Great Society, and MonkeyBicycle. He has an MFA from the University of Nebraska - Omaha.
Richard Zaborowske is a librarian from the Midwest that puts a contemporary twist on traditional library offerings. His monthly Short Story Night (a “book club” for the busy) packs the local brewery and features trivia, comedy, and author interviews. His writing is forthcoming in Barstow and Grand.
Julia Nunnally Duncan is an award-winning Western North Carolina author of ten books of prose and poetry. Her most recent books are an essay collection A Place That Was Home (eLectio Publishing, 2016) and poetry collections A Part of Me (Red Dirt Press, 2017) and A Neighborhood Changes (Finishing Line Press, 2018). She has essays forthcoming in History Magazine, Smoky Mountain Living, World War One Illustrated, and Tennessee Home & Farm and poems in Red Dirt Forum, Broad River Review, Crossing the Rift, and BlazeVOX online journal. She lives in Marion, NC, and enjoys spending time with her husband Steve and their daughter Annie.
Jonathan Danielson is an Instructor and creative writing Affiliate Faculty at Arizona State University. He is a Writer-at-Large for The Feathertale Review, and his work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Juked, Superstition Review, Gravel, Able Muse, The Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere. Most recently, he was named a 2021 Faculty Fellow for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Along with his full-time teaching duties at ASU, he is pursuing a doctorate in English literature and creative writing. He received his MFA from the University of San Francisco.
Nathan Pettigrew was born and raised an hour south of New Orleans and lives in the Tampa area with his loving wife. His stories have appeared in Deep South Magazine, “The Year” Anthology from Crack the Spine, Stoneboat, and the Nasty: Fetish Fights Back anthology from Anna Yeatts of Flash Fiction Online, which was spotlighted in a 2017 Rolling Stone article. His story “The Queen of the South Side” was named Honorable Mention in the Genre Short Story category for the 88th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition, while his story “Dog Killer” was named among the Top Four finalists of the Writer’s Digest 8th Annual Popular Fiction Awards for the Crime category. Other genre stories have appeared in Thuglit, Pulp Modern, the Savage Minds & Raging Bulls anthology from Bristol Noir, the Mardi Gras Mysteries and Mardi Gras Murder anthologies from Mystery and Horror, LLC, and at Punk Noir and DarkMedia.com.
Sheree Shatsky writes wild words. Recent work has appeared in The Drabble, Splonk, Wraparound South, Fictive Dream, BLACKCACKLE at Entropy, The Dead Mule and Saw Palm with found poetry at Harpy Hybrid Review and Heron Tree. Her current project is a novella-in-flash set in 1969 Florida. An Alabamian by birth, this long time Floridian is a Tom Petty fan. Read more of her writing at shereeshatsky.com .
Mason Parker is an Okie-born, Montana-based writer. His work has been featured in or is forthcoming from X-R-A-Y, Misery Tourism, Expat, and Rejection Letters, among others. It has been anthologized in print in A Beautiful Resistance and Zhoupheus. In his free time, he enjoys exploring the nearby Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness with his partner and two dogs.
A native West Virginian, Kevin C Stewart is an Associate Professor of English at Carroll College, Montana. He is the author of The Way Things Always Happen Here (WVU Press), and his work has been anthologized in the anthologies Writers by the River: Reflections on 40+ Years of the Highland Summer Conference on McFarland Press (2021) and Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia on Vandalia Press, WVU Press's literary imprint (2017). His stories and poems have appeared in magazines and journals such as Shenandoah, Appalachian Heritage, The Texas Review, The Southeast Review, Fiction Southeast, The Common and in Cowboy Jamboree Magazine's recent "Asquint" issue.
Sean Jacques is a fifth-generation native of the Missouri Ozarks. His wayward career includes bartender, bank teller, stone sculptor, public relations director, creative executive for the Weinstein Company film studio, and screenwriter in various development hell ventures in the movie business. Currently, he teaches English Literature in Los Angeles while writing new tales, his most recent work can be found at Across the Margin, Dead Fern Press, and 34 Orchard. You can find him on twitter @SeanJacques10.
Burke De Boer is a writer and producer in Dallas, Texas. He directs music videos and produces podcasts under the Third Eye Sockeye label. Find him on Twitter @professorjoke.
Since 1992, over 100 of John Weagly’s plays have received productions by theaters on 4 continents. A collection of his short sci-fi/fantasy scripts, Tiny Flights of Fantasy, has been taught at Columbia College and is available through Amazon. Also a short story writer, Locus Magazine once compared his short fiction to the works of Ray Bradbury and Nina Kiriki Hoffman and called him “a new writer worth reading and following.”
Josh Olsen is a librarian and the co-editor of Gimmick Press.
Adam Van Winkle is the founder and editor-in-chief for Cowboy Jamboree Magazine and Cowboy Jamboree Press. He has published two novels and a novella: Abraham Anyhow (2017), While They Were in the Field (2019), and Hardway Juice (2019). He has published a handful of plays as well: The Red Knife Plays adapted from the Appalachian fiction of Sheldon Lee Compton (2020), Two Eunices (2020), and (forthcoming from Leftover Books in February 2022) Dylan Quick is a Dairy Queen Don Quixote.
Constance Beitzel is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Southern Illinois University. She recently published an article analyzing motherhood in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.