Tag Archives: Alina Stefanescu

Issue #27 – Joy Sticks

During Stalin’s rule, poet Anna Akhmatova memorized her poems because she was afraid to commit them to paper. The written poem was evidence of a crime—the insistence on thinking and feeling for herself. To write joy in a time of fear is an act of resistance and repudiation.

Read the full guest editor letter from Alina Stefanescu

Guest Editor’s Spotlight:
Impressionable by Norah Priest

Mushrooms and Dew by Anastasia Cojocaru

Birth Night Pantoum by Jeanie Thompson

Bad Trip by Meg Tuite

Trail: Easter’s Eve, 2015 by Heidi Lynn Staples

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Kookaburra by Melinda Jane – The Poet Mj

Queynte by John Repp

Divorcees by Jasmine Don

Tasha Yar At Her Best by Shanti Weiland

I Want To Be a Drag Queen Diva by Steven A. Gillis

On Your Way to and Mostly After a Car Wreck by Marvin Shackelford

In Death They Bloom by Cover Artist Sarah Shields

This Is How Two Women Have Sex [2] by Emily Blair

Encircled by Meg Drummond-Wilson

The Girl in the Boat by Larry Blazek

Rachel Nix Interviews Jeanie Thompson of Alabama Writers’ Forum

Rachel Nix Interviews Alina Stefanescu


About Our Guest Editor
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Alabama with four incredible mammals. Find her poems and prose in recent issues of Juked, DIAGRAM, New South, Mantis, VOLT, Cloudbank, New Orleans Review Online, and others. Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize in Short Fiction. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes and President of the Alabama State Poetry Society. More arcana online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com or @aliner.

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cahoodaloodaling Turns Six!

cat birthdaycahoodaloodaling turned six this May and I can hardly believe it. We’ve been incredibly lucky, both with who has volunteered time on staff and the amazing submissions we’ve received for our themed calls. With 26 issues under our belt, we’re excited to move into our 7th year!

We’ve had some recent staff additions I’d love to take a second to brag about. Sam Singleton, our Assistant Poetry Editor, is pretty fantastic, but you don’t need to take my word on it. Rachel Nix, la capitana of the poetry team, interviewed Sam for our Queer Spaces issue this winter.

Then we snagged Tara Wood, who has been working furiously in the background reading prose submissions. Besides being a great reader, she’s a badass researcher working on Huntington’s Disease.

Wes Jamison, who guest edited our most recent issue on lyric essays, has decided to stay on and we’re quite tickled about having our very own Nonfiction Guru on staff. Rachel also recently interviewed him.

Chainsaw and Noodle

Chainsaw protects the apartment from wayward lizards under the steady guidance of his overseer, Noodle.

And finally, we scored Ann Bowler, who has helped behind the scenes with covers in the past and not only designed The Lyric Essay cover, but also supplied the artwork. She’s also my roommate in Baton Rouge, LA, and while I’m back in Santa Rosa, CA for the summer, she’s keeping me supplied with darling photos of her cats, who I have decided are the official mascots of cahoodaloodaling.

Another change is underway! Because so many of us are tied to the academic calendar, and because we have been so wonderfully fortunate to receive large numbers of submissions, we’ve decided to cut back to three themed issues a year: October 31st, February 28/9th, and June 30th. We’re already open for our 27th issue, Joy Sticks, guest edited by the phenomenal Alina Stefanescu. Slated for October 31st, we think an issue on Joy is the proper way to begin what promises to be a magical year. So here’s to seven! We hope you join us.

—Raquel Thorne

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