Tag: Winter

‘Three Wishes’ by Rolf Yngve, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue

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Rolf Yngve’s short fiction has recently appeared in Kenyon Review, Fifth Wednesday, Glimmer Train, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Coronado, California. His somewhat holiday-themed story—a lone traveller driving along snowy roads—”Three Wishes” appears in the new issue of ZYZZYVA.

In “Three Wishes,” the aforementioned traveller stops to pick up a stranded motorist and her dog. As they drive along, the protagonists’s cell phone may or may not be guiding the trio in ways beyond simply giving directions. The following is an excerpt, but you can read the story in its entirety by getting a copy here.

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‘Flood Control’ by Rebecca Thomas, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue

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winter2016coverRebecca Thomas, who is currently working on a novel, has had her work appear in Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Stream and other publications. Her essay, “Flood Control,” appears in the new issue of ZYZZYVA.

An English instructor at West Virginia University, Thomas grew up in Orange County. Though known as a region afflicted by drought, Southern California has long had to contended with deluge, too. “Flood Control” is Thomas’s examination—personal and historical—of a place’s fraught relationship with water. The following in an excerpt but you can read the essay in its entirety by getting a copy here.

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‘Poem for Noguchi’ by Matthew Zapruder, ZYZZYVA No. 108, Winter Issue

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matthew-zapruderMatthew Zapruder is editor-at-large for Wave Books, the poetry editor for The New York Times Magazine, and an associate professor in the MFA program at Saint Mary’s College. Next August, his book Why Poetry? will be published by Ecco. Two of his poems—”Poem for Noguchi” and “Stari Trg”—appear in the new issue of ZYZZYVA, which you can get here.

The following is “Poem for Noguchi” in its entirety. You can hear Zapruder read from his work, along with ZYZZYVA contributors Kathleen Alcott, Scott O’Connor, and Ella Martinsen Gorham, at the Winter Issue Celebration at Diesel in Oakland on Thursday, January 26.

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‘Chumship’ by Kristopher Jansma: ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter 2015

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Kristopher Jansma’s first novel, “The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards” (Viking), was the winner of the 2014 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award and a finalist for the Prix de l’Inapperçu, as well as a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick and an ABA “Indie Next” Choice. His work has appeared in Electric Literature, the New York Times, the Believer, The Millions, and other publications. His novel “Why We Came to the City” will be published by Viking in February. His story “Chumship” appears in the Winter issue.

“Chumship” lays out the friendship between two boys, Clark and the narrator, through high school and into college. The narrator is in thrall of droll Clark, who has an innate gift for spinning fictions, including a plan for hatching an imaginary girlfriend as a ploy for getting an actual one. Funny yet tender, Jansma’s story makes the most of its theme about the lies we tell others and ourselves. The following is an excerpt.

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‘Letter to Galway From Tahoe’ by Heather Altfeld: ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter Issue

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Heather Altfeld’s first book, “The Disappearing Theatre,” won the 2015 Poets at Work Prize, judged by Stephen Dunn. Her poems have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Green Mountains Review, Poetry Northwest, Okey-Panky, among other publications, and in ZYZZYVA No. 92 and 99. Her poem “Letter to Galway from Tahoe” is in ZYZZVA No. 105.

Addressed to the late great poet Galway Kinnell, who directed the poetry program at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the speaker of the poem finds herself seeking the ear of Kinnell, who has died only months ago. “I turn to you because I think you were one of the ones a little like me,// for whom terror and beauty were like the green languages of birds/ we longed to interpret, and felt, if we could not do so,/ that we had failed.” The following is the poem in its entirety.

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‘Paddle to Canada’ by Heather Monley: ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter 2015

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Heather Monley’s fiction has appeared in Crazyhorse and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and her story “Town of Birds” won the annual Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. Her story “Paddle to Canada” appears in our Winter issue.

Though under 2,000 words, “Paddle to Canada” is a rich and nuanced telling of a family’s breaking apart, and how we wonder if our happy memories from the past were truly that, and how me carry the weight of experience. The following is Monley’s story in full.

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‘The Snake That Always Bites My Ass’ by Paul Madonna: ZYZZYVA No. 105

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Paul Madonna writes and draws the weekly series “All Over Coffee” and is the author of “All Over Coffee” (City Lights Books) and “Everything Is Its Own Reward” (City Lights Books). His work has been published internationally in numerous books and magazines, exhibited in galleries and museums, including the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and the Oakland Museum of California, and he is a contributing editor to ZYZZYVA. His story “The Snake That Always Bites My Ass” appears in the Winter issue.

Though known as an artist, Madonna also writes fiction, such as his story “Hero,” which was published in ZYZZYVA No. 100. “The Snake That Always Bites My Ass,” which is also accompanied by Madonna’s art work in the Winter issue, is set in Thailand among ex-pats. The following is an excerpt from it.

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‘Eldorado’ by Lauren Alwan: ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter 2015

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Lauren Alwan is a staff contributor at LitStack, a literary news and review site, and her fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, the Alaska Quarterly Review—and next spring—in the Bellevue Literary Review, for her story “The Foreign Cinema,” which won the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction. Her essay “Eldorado” appears in the Winter issue.

Set in the mid-1970s in Northern California, Alwan’s writes of the time she was a young woman, building a house with a boyfriend in Siskiyou County. This slice of memoir isn’t just about that, of course. It delves into the culture of people trying to live off the land, the harsh realities of rural life, and what it means to have a home. It also thoughtfully examines her relationships with her father and with her boyfriend (whom she knew she’d never create a life with, despite their house). The following is an excerpt from “Eldorado.”

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‘The Cave’ by Austin Smith: ZYZZYVA No. 105, Winter 2015

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Austin Smith, who lives in San Francisco, is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford and the author of four poetry collections, including “Almanac,” which was published by the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. His poems and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Threepenny Review, and in ZYZZYVA Issues No. 83 and No. 100. His story “The Cave” appears in the Winter issue.

Relating the arrival of a new kid to a small farming community in Illinois, “The Cave” centers around its young narrator going to the boy’s house for dinner one evening. But around that event, which leads to them exploring a cave at night, is an examination of a child’s rural life, one not immune from the hardships true for children everywhere, including the menace of bullies. In the following excerpt, our narrator talks about the red-headed twin sisters who, for whatever reason, decide one day while getting on the school bus to single him out for their cruelty. The following is an excerpt from “The Cave.”

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Do You Like It?

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To Kay Ryan, former U.S. poet laureate, the gradual evolution of a poet is a strange and scaly one, full of bewilderment. It’s possible, even likely, in Ryan’s mind, that a person destined for the “ferocious religion” of poetry staves off the eventuality for a long time.

In her essay “Do You Like It?,” published in ZYZZYVA’s Winter 1998 issue, Ryan reflects on the unforeseen moment she decided to become a writer. The poet tested her dedication to the craft over the course of a 4,000-mile bicycle trip. Then, an epiphany: “All at once I no longer had to try to appreciate my experience or try to understand; I played with the phrase the peace that passeth understanding like turning a silver coin in my fingers. And with the peace-beyond-the-struggle-to-understand came an unprecedented freedom and power to think.”

The following is Kay Ryan’s essay, in full.

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