Lions-on-Line Fall 2017

Lions-on-Line (in print)

Fall 2017

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Table of Contents The Truth You Feed Yourself, Artwork by Patrick Zopff……………………...Cover “How You Know,” Poem by Emma Sule………………………………………...…4 “Amor, Confianza, y Sonrisas,” Fiction by Skyler Houser…………………………6 “Hush Little Baby,” Poem by Natalie Puening……………………………………...9 “In Produce,” Fiction by Leila Jaafari……………………………………………..10 Red Focus, Artwork by Becca Sule………………………………………………..12 “Clay,” Fiction by Carolyn Kesterman…………………………………………….13 “Seas and Lakes,” Poem by Ariana Spencer………………………………………18 The Gate, Artwork by Carolyn Kesterman………………………………………...19 “Waiting for Her,” Fiction by Katie Schmelz……………………………………...20 “If You Ever Did Believe,” Poem by Emma Sule…………………………………22

Submission Guidelines…………………………………………………………….23

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How You Know Poem by Emma Sule You know something is seriously wrong with you when the doctor comes in and struggles to look you in the eyes.

Her brows pushed together with a mixture of confusion and sadness.

Offering a half smile, before her soft voice speaks words you can’t even spell liver failure.

You stop listening to her scientific explanation focusing only on the words that hold any meaning to you, liver failure.

The doctor holds your hand trying to offer some last form of comfort, but her hands are ice cold which is fitting as you’re frozen in shock.

You know something is seriously wrong with you based on the way the hospital staff treats you.

It’s as if you’re suddenly very fragile, I imagine I’m a delicate China doll with painted rosy cheeks instead of a sad girl with yellow skin and bruises up her arms from the IVs. You tell yourself that these looks of pity and sadness are meant to be empathy.

Perhaps they don’t notice the way that they stare at your yellow eyes and sunken cheeks.

You’re thrust into a spiral of tests and lab work as if you’re some kind of science experiment.

You know they’re only trying to make you feel better, solve the mystery, fix what’s wrong.

But nothing changes the way you feel when doctor after doctor delivers the news, that nothing has changed for the better.

You think things that you can’t say aloud for fear of scaring your mother.

You hear the whispers of the nurses when they think you’re asleep, so sad, so young, 4

she’s dying, it’s a shame really so much life left.

Every night you have nightmares, even though your mother is watching over you, you’ve never felt so alone.

You don’t realize how sick you are, the situation is serious.

You do realize.

You do understand.

But you had never thought about death so seriously before that’s how you know something is seriously wrong with you.

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Amor, Confianza, y Sonrisas Fiction by Skyler Houser They say that those early years of your life are always the easiest. But, if I must be honest, my life has never been that simple; differing circumstances and obstacles spattered throughout my memories in an impossible pattern. There are the fuzzy recollections of holding my mamá’s chestnut-colored hand as she struggled to talk to Mercedes’s teacher in choppy “Spanglish.”

“No, no. The grades of mi daughter muy bueno. What you mean she no good?

Dios mio, esta escuela…”

Of course, then there were the problems at home. My parents, papá especially, would roll their eyes and barrage us with rapid-fire Spanish about how the three of us—my two sisters and I, the lone boy at the time—had no respect for our heritage.

They would call out our names, always in the order of our birth, “Isa! Mercedes!

Mateo! No más inglés en mi casa, ¿claro?” They only meant the best for us, I understand that now. They didn’t want us to become like Señor y Señora Ortez and their children across the street, who had all but completely forgotten their Mexican background and become honorary Americanos.

And as much as I would’ve liked for the immigrant struggle to be the greatest of our worries, it was only so for a limited time. When I was 16—Mercedes was 17 and Isa was 19—culture and linguistics only set the water boiling beneath our troubles. Isa had always been different than my mother would have wanted her to be: dirtying her dresses in the dust, refusing to use makeup except to cover bad acne, and even buzzing her long hair to nothing more than stubble in the 8 th grade. To me and Mercedes, all those things were just a part of how our older sister was. We never saw anything as being wrong with her or her head. That’s why it hadn’t made much impact on our relationship when she first told the two of us her secret.

We were all sat in a circle in the middle of our shared bedroom—our house was too small for any other arrangement—and it was late into the hours of a Texan summer night. The windows were open and welcomed in the dry air, and I remember beads of sweat rolling down my spine as I tied my hair back into a short tail at the base of my skull. My sisters were passing one of papá’s Cuban cigars back and forth between the two of them while they gossiped about the attractive gringo who worked at the gas station two blocks down. Even though they wouldn’t let me smoke the cigar with them because I was still their hermanito, they enjoyed my say on the latest in the neighborhood.

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Isa took one last inhale from the sickly sweet cigar before standing up and tossing the stub out the window with an elegant flick of the wrist. Mercedes and I fell silent as she exhaled a great plume from her nostrils and ran a hand over her hair. I spotted the tattoo on her wrist that she’d gotten on her 18th birthday, scrawling script that read “No tu chica.”

“Dime. I know that look on your face,” Mercedes said, using English since our parents were fast asleep.

Isa turned her head to look at us. She wore a large t-shirt that went down to her knees. She always told me that “If a girl is wearing a baggy shirt, it means she wants to hide her chest. Girls don’t like to be noticed for their breasts, Mateo.” This was usually followed by a whack on the back of my head and being called cerdito, or little pig. Although I would never dream of looking at either of my sisters in such an unholy manner, I couldn’t help but think of those words as we waited for Isa to respond.

I won’t tell you exactly what words she told us, for those words will always be the secret that binds the three of us together in a union of love, trust, and smiles. But, I will tell you this: by the end of the night, our sister Isa ceased to exist. As much as we loved her, we could only smile with joy as she disappeared in a swirl of stardust and was reborn as the brother that was always there, but never seen: Angél. The process of finding the perfect name was somewhat of a collaboration between the three of us, but in the end it was Angél’s say in which one would be his. I personally thought it was the perfect choice. After all, Angél Rodriguez sounded much more beautiful than Isa Rodriguez. Plus, we were able to play it off as a nickname whenever we were around our parents, who would be devastated if they found out that their hija was actually their hijo.

For two years we kept Angél a secret in our home and, honestly, I think the only thing that made him feel okay with that was his natural affinity for acting, so it was easier for him to play the dual role of Isa and Angél. When at home, he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, and even told mamá that he would start wearing dresses to church again if she would stop pestering him about growing out his body hair. And when he went out, ay Dios he looked sharp. He told me that he learned all he knew about men’s fashion from his college professor, Señor Smith, and the two of them even helped me find the perfect suit for my senior prom, which we’re convinced is the reason Sophie Wilson agreed to be my girlfriend.

So by the time I was 18—finally old enough for midnight cigars—the one good spell in our lives came to an end. It doesn’t matter how they found out only that they did. For the first time in 10 years, papá started drinking again and, unlike last time, mamá did nothing to stop it. I remember the tense dinners around the kitchen table, 7

Mercedes prodding at her pollo con arroz until we were excused. Since our parents made no attempt to shun me and Mercedes, we suddenly had an unspoken contract to speak English in their presence. On our mother, the results were just what we’d hoped for: the loss she felt for our Español, mimicked our loss of a loving household.

In our father, nothing got to him anymore. By the time I would get home from school, he would be halfway through a case of cheap Mexican cervesa and not even his native Spanish would’ve made sense to him at that point.

Things spiraled quickly downhill from there. Angél had to drop out of school so he could take more jobs. Mercedes stopped talking to mamá and papá completely.

I…well everyone seemed to forget about me. I busied my mind by burying it in my studies and going to the park until late at night. The days of smoking cigars and talking about gas station workers were over.

I remember that late summer night, so much like the one two years ago, when Mercedes and I sat silently on our phones, the arid breeze rustling the trees outside.

It had been a quiet day and for hours, the night was exactly the same. Suddenly, there was a harsh screech outside the window and I jumped to my feet to look for the source. My eyes widened as I spotted the motionless figures outlined by the headlights and without thinking I rushed out of the room, down the stair, and out the door, shouting “Mamá! Mercedes! Ven aquí rapido! Someone was hit by a car!”

With Mercedes right behind me, we rushed barefoot to the street, quickly spotting a hunched over figure knelt by the side of the car. “Mateo, go check on the driver,” Mercedes told me. Doing as I was told, I stopped by the man by the car and touched his shoulder.

“Señor, are you alright? What happened—” I froze in horror and fell back onto the pavement. “P-Papá? Papá what happened?” There was no point in asking; I could smell the drink on his breath. I glanced over to Mercedes, who was collapsed on the ground next the still figure, mamá standing behind her with tears in her eyes as she uttered the Ave Maria. A deep anger boiled up within me and I grabbed onto my father’s shirt, forcing him to look me in the eye as I shouted, “What have you done, papá?!”

He shoved me away and stumbled into the dust. I looked desperately over to Mercedes, sweat from the hot Texan air making my whole body go cold as her eyes met mine and she said one word, “Angél.”

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Hush Little Baby Poem by Natalie Puening Don’t you cry, No one’s gonna sing you a lullaby.

And if you die before I wake, Your cash and your drugs is what I’ll take.

And when I leave and go back home.

No words from your lips only foam.

I’ll run back to the dealer’s arms, Where I always find comfort in his harm.

The needle and poison rule my life, I don’t remember I’m a mom or wife.

Because I chose to leave you there, A burden on my soul I cannot bear.

So hush little baby don’t say a word, Momma’s gonna find her a frayed rope cord.

And if I die before you wake, I pray the lord, a fine woman you’ll make.

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In Produce Fiction by Leila Jaafari It started like any other Sunday afternoon. Then I look up, past the Gala apples and see her. Ex-Girlfriend Number 3. Suddenly I’m transported back to hot summer days on the beach, the salt water drying our skin, forgetting to wear sunscreen so our skin burns to the shade of a cooked lobster. She was beautiful then, and now.

We met at seventeen, when I was lifeguarding over the summer at the beach.

She was sunbathing next to the lifeguard chair the weekend after Fourth of July.

She wore a black bathing suit with a pattern of daisies. A freak rainstorm forced everyone off the beach. She hopped up like she was on fire, raced to her pumpkin orange VW bug after seeing that she’d left the windows rolled down. I hopped down off the chair and ran to help her. She cursed while pawing through her gigantic leather bag for her keys. The upholstery is ruined. She sobbed. I motioned that I’d be right back, quickly ducked into the lifeguard’s bathroom and grabbed a handful of beach towels. When I returned she had successfully rolled up the soft top of the Bug and was trying to dry the driver seat with paper napkins. I offered her the towels, arranging them on her seat. She slides in and smiles. Thank you so much.

She said shyly while running a hand through her hair. I waved it off, instead asking her out to the beach party the following night.

We had our first kiss at that party. Surrounded by a crush of other drunk teens enjoying the summer evening. She tasted like bubblegum and salt. She shivered when I put my hands on the small of her back, my hands were cold from rooting in the cooler for drinks. I’d play with the ends of her blond hair as the sun set. She laughed, using my chest as a pillow to watch the orange, purple, and navy bleed together over the ocean. Her green eyes sparkled, in awe of a phenomena that I took for granted.

Attention shoppers! Mega mart has a special sale this week on cherries. Buy two get one free! An automated chipper voice cuts me away from my memories and back to the present. I see she has moved on to cantaloupes. I look around to see if anyone else saw me staring. Everyone else was engrossed in checking their produce for imperfections, or deep into reading their cell phones. I breathe a sigh of relief. I wander over to watermelons, on the opposite end of the store. I glance back seeing the purple rope bracelet was still around her wrist. I remember the day I gave it to her, we’d been together for two months an eternity in high school. It should’ve sent off red flags when she wrinkled her nose before giving me a hug and thanking me.

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Later when all we seemed to do was argue she snapped at me, HOW ABOUT YOU SHELL OUT FOR SOMETHING BETTER THAN SOME ROPE! I drove her home; we didn’t speak to each other for a week.

After carefully examining a gash on the watermelon that bisected its green stripes I notice she has moved to the peaches, so I move to the nectarines. I’m trying to muster up my courage to say hello, but I just feel like a creepy stalker. I’m about to take the leap when a man with bronze skin and clad in a suit that costs more than my house comes over and hugs her. He whispers in her ear and they laugh. He takes her basket in one hand and her hand in the other. They stroll to check out like some stroll on the beach. I smile, not only out of relief, but out of the simple fact that we are both were we want to be.

Attention shoppers! With your Mega Mart card you can save 10 for 10 on Campbell’s soups now until October 31st! I pick up two nectarines and a bunch of bananas before choosing an opposite checkout line. As I’m leaving, out of the corner of my eye she offers me a tiny wave. I nod and wave back. We head our separate ways to our separate lives, and all I can think is that I’m glad I got to see her by the apples.

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Red Focus, Artwork by Becca Sule

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Clay Fiction by Carolyn Kesterman My eyes glanced at the figure approaching me, my neck stationary on the hospital pillow. It was that nurse again. The one with the masculine smile and the white ink tattoo of someone’s death date on her collarbone that she thought no one could see. I thought that maybe I liked her, or that I would have before.

“What’s up, Tiff?” she asked like she always did. I sometimes wished I could tell her that I liked her nickname for me. It made me sound cool.

She had a tray with some mozzarella sticks and marina sauce on it. I looked away, bored. My mouth didn’t water for food anymore. I ate what they hovered in front of my mouth, but I didn’t taste it. I sometimes worried that maybe it was because I didn’t want to.

The nurse set the tray down to take my vitals. I was a little more animate than a ragdoll, but not by a lot – I kept the saliva from dripping out of my mouth as she waited for the thermometer to read, but that was my action for the day, unless they tried to move my limbs around to exercise them. Then I’d swat and kick. The one day they tried it, I overheard the doctor say that at least it got me moving.

“Everything looks fine,” the nurse said. The fact that she thought I might care made me want to care.

She sat down beside my bed and checked her phone before setting it on the table to get the tray ready.

“Do you like cheese sticks?” she asked.

Sometimes I wanted to respond. She knew that. They figured that if they asked me enough questions, one day I’d accidentally answer.

“I like them,” she said, dipping one in the sauce and holding it near my lips.

“There’s a restaurant in Florida that has the best.”

I stared at her with my mouth closed for a few seconds before taking a small bite.

She gave me a crooked smile.

“I thought you might like them. You seem to like tomatoes and cheese. Pasta, pizza, breadsticks.”

I stopped chewing and looked away. She’d figured out something about me. I vaguely remembered a time when I used to go to this pizza place that was still decked out in 80s décor when I was growing up in the late 90s. I remembered the 13

breadsticks they had, parmesan sprinkled on top that would fall off onto the front of my shirt as I ate them. I remember I used to be able to taste those breadsticks when I thought of that place, but I couldn’t make it surface. There was a label on the memory that read “happy,” but it was two dimensional and faded. Someone else had put it there, too long ago.

A gentle bop on the nose brought me back to the present, and I looked at my nurse who was now chuckling at getting a small reaction out of me. I averted my eyes again and took another bite of the stupid cheese stick.

“Have you ever been to Florida?” she asked.

I had, once. There was a “happy” label on that memory, too.

“I lived there when I was in high school. It was a nice place to live. The humidity could kill you and the rain could drive you mad, but when it was sunny, there was nowhere better.”

Another bite.

“There was this one time that I got a cold – ironic in Florida – and my mom took me to the beach,” she said, pausing to laugh. “My mom was such a hippie. She thought that a day at the beach could cure anything. It did make me feel a little better. I could barely breathe, my nose was so stuffed up, but I still remember it being one of my favorite days.”

There was something odd about her voice, suddenly, like she wasn’t saying everything. I turned my head to look at her again and saw that she was carefully watching my face with sudden concern.

“What was your mother like?”

Her little trick almost worked. I wanted to scream at her to shut the hell up.

There was a reason I didn’t want to speak, a reason they had to wheel me away from the crash even though I only had minor lacerations. I thought hospital people were supposed to be nice. I thought she was nice. But they were all trying to hurt me.

I turned my head away and refused the cheese sticks when she put them in front of my mouth. A couple minutes passed with her asking me to eat more, but I only stared at a spot on the wall with my mouth firmly shut. She finally sighed and put the cheese stick back on the tray.

“I’ll come back in a few minutes,” she said, sounding disappointed. I didn’t care.

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I continued to stare at the spot on the wall after she’d left, trying to clear my mind of everything. The short burst of frustration she’d brought out in me trickled away with my focus, and my eyes started to feel heavy. I was exhausted. I was always exhausted. I let my head fall further into the pillow and closed my eyes, fading back into nothing.

My eyes flickered open at the sudden sound of music in the room. I looked down at the table and saw the nurse’s phone sitting in the tray, now lit up with a call. I sank back into the pillow again, knowing what it was, but then my ears perked up. I recognized the song.

“Spread your wings and fly away, fly away, far away,” Freddie Mercury pleaded over electric guitar. His voice, grainy through the phone speaker, was familiar, a faraway friend from another time in my life. The bold, commanding beats of the drums spiraled out from the table and punched my heart, drawing out a memory, tucked away in the mundane folds of my sophomore year of college, just two years before.

I was sitting on a wooden stool covered in clay dust, this song pulsing through my headphones and holding me in a separate world from the chatter of my classmates. My brain focused as I concentrated on the dense lump of gray in front of me, putting my weight into the heels of my hands as I willed the substance into a new shape. I felt alert and content.

“Pull yourself together, ‘cause you know you should do better. That’s because you’re a free man,” the song continued before the phone went to voice mail, turning off the light and leaving me in silence.

The piano chords echoed through my core, though. The hospital room walls fell easily away, and I was sitting in that classroom again with a snowfall fresh outside the windows, casting white light on the jagged metal edge of a tool as I scraped at the side of a coil. I could almost feel the cool and thick wet clay as I recalled scooping it out of an old yogurt cup and onto the side of the coil, placing another one on top and manipulating the sides until they became one, another ring of a pot in my hands.

The blood rushed through my hands on the hospital sheets. The memory was so real. I could almost feel the dryness of the air in my lungs, see the tiny imperfections of the pot as I ran a tool across the surface to smooth it over.

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I was scared for a moment as I realized how different I was feeling. I felt focused, like I was waking up from a dream.

I pushed the song from my mind, willing myself back into apathetic silence, but the nurse’s caller wouldn’t give up. Her phone lit up on the table again, and Freddie reached out to take my hand.

“Spread your wings and fly away.”

My muscles stiffened, my eyes widened.

I could smell clay.

The earthy, deep scent of clay entered my body with the song, and without thinking about it, I was sitting up in my bed for the first time in I didn’t know how long. I craned my neck, holding onto that smell. It was real. I felt alert. I felt like me.

I didn’t want it to go away.

The door to the hospital room opened, but I wasn’t there anymore. I was walking into the university art gallery, pointing to a case that held my pot. I looked back at two faces beaming with pride. My parents’ faces. There was no label on this memory; it was too recent. But I felt happy.

Too soon, the feeling was replaced with a splitting pain through my sternum.

Those proud, loving faces were gone. Gone.

Run away, I told myself, trying to swallow it all. Be nothing again. Nothing doesn’t hurt. But the song was stuck in my head, the clay wouldn’t wash off my hands.

Slowly, I unclenched the muscle on the back of my neck and let the memories drip back. There was the day that had started off frustrating when I went in without realizing that it was a snow day, and then I’d spent half a day content in the studio by myself, listening to old rock and making a teapot. There was the day I spilled red slip all over a favorite pair of jeans and got so angry that I kicked a broom, making the teacher snort tea into their nose. There was the day I brought my dad in on a weekend to help me put together a big ceramic house, and we made clay puns for an hour. Memories too insignificant to be remembered every day, and yet they were suddenly the most beautiful moments I’d ever known. I let them stay for a moment, cradling them in my heart. I didn’t want them to leave again.

It was at that moment that I realized I could taste the cheese sticks in my mouth, and that my limbs ached to move. I was coming back.

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I became aware that the nurse was calling my name, her voice shocked and wary. She called down the hall to a physician’s assistant.

“She’s sitting up and crying,” she said. I felt the dampness on my cheeks for the first time.

The PA came in as the nurse looked at the monitors.

“Her heart rate spiked a minute ago,” she said, and both of them approached me.

“Hi, Tiffany,” the PA said, bending down to be more at eyelevel. “Can you tell us what’s on your mind? Why are you crying? Is anything wrong?”

The part of me that wanted apathy shook me by the neck, reminding me that there would be no going back if I answered. But I could still smell the clay, and the part of me that ached to sink my fingers into what was left of my life and mold it into something worthwhile sang louder.

I unfurled the walls closing me off and met their eyes, taking the leap.

“I’m okay.”

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Seas and Lakes Poem by Ariana Spencer The Sea is bigger than the Lake.

The Ocean is infinite, but the Lake is not.

Lakes are small representations of The close-knit relationships we form throughout life, however, Oceans are the broad view of our lives.

At a first glance at the Sea, it seems calm and friendly, Then it’s harsh, choppy, frightening.

Just as the violent waves mellow out as they hit the shore, The bitter people in our lives can become friends.

The waves, whether rough or calm, also represent infinite emotions.

We forever experience emotional highs and lows, though forever is fleeting, And infinity can be subjective.

As infinite as the big Ocean seems to be, It has an end somewhere.

Somewhere we can’t see from where we stand.

We don’t actually have a forever- not on the Earth, Not with the Sea. Our forever will be in the clouds with the One Who created the Sea we stand by.

Just as the seemingly endless Sea is finite, Humans are finite on Earth.

One day, the Lakes and the Seas will wither up.

All life will cease to exist.

All humans will either be lifted to the Heavens, Or tossed into the fiery pits of Hell.

And no one will be left on this planet to remember The Vastness of the Lakes and Seas.

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The Gate, Artwork by Carolyn Kesterman

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Waiting For Her Fiction by Katie Schmelz He waited for her. He waited until the sun dipped down and the station became barren. Her smile never was seen. He knew in that moment she was gone forever. His knees clicked as he pried himself off the park bench. The faint moon light casted a soft flow on the remaining faces. His eyes squinted, trying one last time to find his wife’s. But it was no use and he knew it. Shoulders sagging, he walked over to the bus stop to go home.

The bus ride was a blur, with his thoughts consumed by memories of her bright smile, loud laugh, and how she captured a room simply by walking into it.

He could still remember the way her tiny hands fit perfectly in his much larger ones. Suddenly he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Glancing up, he noticed the bus driver. The driver seemed to be saying something, but the sounds never registered in his ears. He must have forgotten his hearing aid earlier that day. Seeming to notice the issue, the driver pointed to the street sign. It was his stop. He gathered his newspaper and cane, and got off.

“Three houses down and to the left,” he mumbled to himself. The lights were on inside and he could tell someone was awake. He slowly walked to the door and stepped inside. Waiting for him was his son with frustration on his face.

“Father! Why did you leave?”

“I was waiting for her to come home.” The answer seemed to soften his son.

A far-off look came across his son’s face and would not look in his eyes.

“She’s gone Dad,” his son said softly. “She left us ten years ago.”

Tears welled up in his eyes and he quietly excused himself then hobbled to his room. He walked to the bed and sat down. Forcing himself to remember, he tried to picture that day. Briefly, he saw an image of her boarding the train. She looked back at him and smiled. But that is all he saw. She had promised to come back that night, just like normal, and just like always, he was waiting for her. That’s why he was at the station. But it couldn’t have been ten years ago. She left that morning.

Didn’t she?

Sometime later, he fell asleep. The next day he woke up, with a smile on his face. He spent the day doing his normal routine. Looking at his clock, he realized he needed to leave to go pick up his wife from the train station. As quickly as his 20

weathered body would allow, he grabbed his coat and walked out the door. He waited at the bus stop for several minutes, thinking about getting her flowers. Then he realized he got them for her yesterday. When the bus pulled up, the driver was ready to help him in.

He knew he would be slightly early but he was okay with waiting for her.

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If You Ever Did Believe Poem by Emma Sule I was ten years old when I watched the birth of a star on the Omnimax screen at the museum.

Surrounded by the atoms of light and gas squeezing together under immense pressure while spinning around like a vinyl record on my grandmother’s player.

Suddenly, without any true warning, the spinning cloud of hot stardust collapses.

Falling in on itself as the particles leap away from one another to form a star.

At that moment I felt closer to magic than ever before.

As the theatre screen darkened and the lights flicked on I imagined the radiating light from the bulbs as individual stars illuminating the previously dark room just for me.

I spent months trying to capture the way the colors mixed together in those nebulas.

I slid fresh boxes of crayons in my mother’s shopping cart only to find that the kind of colors I needed weren’t contained in a 24 pack.

I was thirteen when my father left for the first time watching from my bedroom window tear stained cheeks and a bitter taste in my mouth I looked up at the sky for hope.

Sometimes when things collapse they create something even more beautiful.

I played Stevie Nicks on my grandmother’s record player, as I hid under my tie dyed bedsheets pretending as the colors engulfed me that I was a part of the Milky Way. Falling in on myself just in time for the magic to begin, if you ever did believe.

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Submission Details Initiated in January 2005, Lions-on-Line is a literally collection of works by the students and alumni of Mount St. Joseph University published online with the cooperation of the Liberal Arts Department.

Lions-on-Line is published online twice yearly, during the fall and spring semesters.

When our budget allows, Lions-on-Line goes “in print”. We take submissions during all twelve months of the year.

If you are currently a student or a graduate of Mount St. Joseph and you would like to see your work published, you may submit your work to LOL simply by emailing poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction or artwork to LOL@msj.edu. For full submission guidelines, consult our website.

Lions-on-Line is always looking for new staff members. If you’re interested in joining LOL, please contact faculty advisor, Elizabeth Taryn Mason, Ph.D. at the following email address: elizabeth.mason@msj.edu.

Editors and Staff President/Fiction Editor:

Megan Simmermeyer

Poetry Editor:

Lindsey Potzick

Creative Nonfiction Editor:

Brittany Hein

Club Representative/Treasurer:

Carolyn Kesterman

Assistant Editors:

Rachel Fairfield Nick Groh Leila Jaafari Carolyn Kesterman Tiffany Nascimento Emma Sule Danielle Watkins

Faculty Advisor:

Elizabeth Taryn Mason, Ph.D. 23

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