Issue Three

SUGAR RASCALS I S S U E

T H R E E

SUGAR RASCALS I S S U E

T H R E E

Sugar Rascals is an international literary magazine for teenagers.

Staff Editor-in-Chief Farah Ghafoor Poetry Editor Farah Ghafoor Prose Editors Almas Khan, Farah Ghafoor Contributing Artist Rachael Chen

Website http://sugarrascals.wixsite.com/home

> > > > > TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S < < < < < Farah Ghafoor

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Note

1

Koshka Kash

Fiske Fiske

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Jacqueline He

Model

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Rachana Hegde

Self-Portrait in Translucence

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Threads

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Featured

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Sarah Feng

Flush

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Savanna Hillhouse

Evergreen

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Rachael Chen

Evergreen

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Cindy Song

Eye Contact

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Power Lines

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Cate Freeborn

Illegitimate

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Margot Armbuster

Vellum

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Rachael Chen

Vellum

Chelsea Ashley

How to Flee the Heat

18 19

Madeika Varcella

Hedonism

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Joy Xie

Blank

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Betsy Jenifer

The House

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Stephanie Chang

Death Buys a Coffee

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Rachael Chen

Death Buys a Coffee

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Contributors

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>>>>> EDITOR ’S NOTE <<<<< Farah Ghafoor

As always, the work in this issue is magical, important, and honest. Our cover artist Koshka Kash has dazzled us with “Fiske Fiske”, which means “Fish Fish” in Swedish, just as Jacqueline He and Rachana Hegde have startled us with their beautiful yet brutal depictions of friendship and youth, respectively. The rest of the work in this issue explores concepts around time and devotion — whether time slows for a moment or an eternity, allowing narrators to reflect, observe, or perhaps fear the world around them, or how our narrators find themselves devoted to their partners, families, hometowns, or to themselves — in poems, stories, and paintings that Sugar Rascals is honoured to publish.

We are also proud to showcase the work of our contributing artist, Rachael Chen, whose compositions, “Evergreen”, “Vellum”, and “Death Buys a Coffee”, are named after the poems or stories they were inspired by.

Our apologies for the wait, dear readers, and thank you for returning for another issue of impressive work by teenage writers and artists. Happy reading!

Yours, Farah Ghafoor Editor-in-Chief, Sugar Rascals

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>>>>>>FISKE FISKE<<<<<< Featured Artist: Koshka Kash

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>>>>>>>>MODEL<<<<<<<< Featured Writer: Jacqueline He

In this photograph: you, reclining belly up on an ocean of sand grits. Bare toes. Rain haloed over your spray-swept bangs. That neon blue bikini you wore all summer, the nubby fabric discolored from constant wear. That day, the lens was focused on the set of your eyes, a hard juxtaposition against the blur of your mouth. I can still feel your anger pulsating quietly as a bruise, tender past this clouded overlay of glass. You were fourteen. I was twelve.

That summer we raced through dewed grass until our toes turned green, played checkers on your unmade bed. The pieces were slick with salt and grease from all the caramel popcorn we licked but would not eat. Sometimes we hitched on your mother’s fancy crocodile heels and teetered tippy-top high as if we’re film girls: our coltish tendons slim, in suspension. Our breathing, breathless.

You would have liked this snapshot. How the wan light cups the slant of your shoulder, the indigo shadows bisect your torso into symmetrical shapes. The geometric cleanliness. Your father once brought home a large photo book to adorn the bare coffee table, and we would spend hazy afternoons flipping through the glossy prints. You picked out your favorites: the twin lines of trapezoidal purses; pine trees shifting in jeweled gloom; a Chinese girl with grinning red lips, all shini-

ness, rainwater streaming down her pale moon breasts. Later you cut the girl out and stuck her onto to the left angle of your bathroom mirror.

(I want to be incorporeal, you used to say, as your fingers skittered over the patterned checkerboard. Intangible. Like some angel from the sky.)

Later you told me, with feigned nonchalance, that you were too dark-skinned, too sunpeppered to be beautiful. We were idling inside a San Francisco drugstore, surrounded by peanut cheese strips and tropical fish calendars and gallons of water. I said I did not know what you meant. We were the same shade of Asian yellow.

Come here, you said. You took my arm and dragged me to the cosmetics aisle, to the bins of skinny lipsticks with dangerous names like ‘Night District’ or ‘Plum Choked.’ Snatched up a rubyhued tube and held it to the inside of your wrist, under the fizz of incandescent lighting.

Look at how garish I am, you continued, and then you held the stick up to your own sunburned cheeks. How the red makes me even muddier. Blotchier, as if river silt is clumping beneath my veins. Understand? You asked, and I nodded quickly because you were always, always right.

Understand?

The colors in your picture are faded and overexposed, as if the print was developed in hot

milk. Someone has switched the aperture dial too far right, and so the silhouette cast upon the triangle of your jaw is soft and diluted. But you preferred it this way, how your body floats, a hazy

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>>>>>>>>MODEL<<<<<<<< Featured Writer: Jacqueline He

outline against the white-washed sand. Only your scrutiny remains sharp, and here you look straight at me with wide minority eyes, as if guiltless, guileless.

There is a package of double eyelid tape concealed cleverly in the space between your mattress and the bed slats. You told me about this as we microwaved frozen spaghetti and dumped

lemonade powder into sugary water. It costs $4.99, you said, almost proudly. I bought a set just to try.

Afterwards I watched you swipe a fold above your eyelid with the blunt of your thumbnail, peel back the lid to reveal a pale oval gaze. You inserted a sliver of sticky plastic onto each fold and smiled at your mirrored reflection. The Chinese girl in the photograph was simpering as well, her lined stare just as white and round and wide, like an angel, like a ghost.

One day when the sun had thinned into a ring of frozen light, you suggested we go to the beach. It’ll be fun, you promised. Just a short trip.

You wore your mother’s heels and your favorite swimsuit and your secret eyelid tape. Your father’s Nikon camera slung around your neck almost too casually. Wind’s cracking our faces yolk pale when we stepped outside, and I wanted to grab my jacket, but you told me the cold doesn’t matter. Outside, the city folks are all walking fast and talking slow. The colorful flags planted along the empty beach flapped dismally as we kicked off our heels and sank toe-first into the whorls of frosty sand.

The rain nudged our shoulders first, and when we turned around it started to slap. I’m going back, I said, but then you pinched the fleshy crook of my elbow hard until the skin split pink and yellow like an overripe apricot. Take my picture first, you said. Press the shutter button when I say so. Blood oozed from my arm, thick as nectar.

You sank into the sand and combed handfuls of soaked hair over your breasts like patterns of black water. Flashed me a stiff, pigmented smile.

Go on. Take the fucking picture, you said. Your hard gaze at the camera lens, two glimmering vectors aiming straight, carried an emotion I would later identify as hatred.

I pressed the button. Click.

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>>>>SELF-PORTRAIT IN TRANSLUCENCE <<<< Featured Poet: Rachana Hegde

i live doused in the blue of a bright forgetting. each day is gunmetal gray pressed to the

soles of my feet,

i gather souls into a thick bouquet. my life writhes in the space left behind & i wake to slot myself into another's story, body unwinding like fresh papaya. today, seedless fruit pelt the windows & i spume, body frothing a brilliant white as i watch the dye dissolve my clothes. today, i slay my metaphorical dragons & walk home barefoot if only to know how sharp, how crisp the darkness can taste before sunrise. & water beads on my thumbs if only to sway in the silence before i am unmade. i am slimming the fat of last year's hope from my thighs so I might feast on a series of remnants.

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>>>>>>>THREADS<<<<<<< Featured Poet: Rachana Hegde i. my hair, a gaping wound, i sip the saliva from a drooling house. the gutter folds into

my lap & burns. ii. i stir the folds of a wedding dress. i am a lure, a scabbed over wound

threatening to unhinge in the middle of the marriage rites. i aspire to be an empty eyesocket, a girl fluted & trespassing in that mannequin's body. ii. the streets are flocking to my window, brushing against my window. i am undressing and tossing out the salmon, their fins sewn into glass. iii. a needle sucks my skin dry, recoils into a weeping handgun, bullets sloughed off.

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>>>>>>>THREADS<<<<<<< Featured Poet: Rachana Hegde iv. everything is light: the maw of my sunken bed yawning. while I wait, a hurricane

visits in mama's stead. v. all is the steady drip, drip of thumbtacks limping down the steps. vi. she never comes home.

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>>>>>>>> FLUSH<<<<<<<< Sarah Feng at the start we asked our dads. then we begin to evolve. i buy tarot cards from the store. 12-pack. you draw a card & won’t tell me what it is. we go stargazing,

then buy a ouija board. eventually, you start plucking the peonies out of your mouth. they now taste like piss, apparently. later we go to the doctor’s office & he prods our tongues with a popsicle stick. liar, you call him. who needs our spit? i tell you maybe it’s to tell some fortunes.

ghosts like that kind of stuff. the peonies aren’t dead, only they grin out from between your legs now & a boy from the football stadium decides to pluck a petal. the card you grabbed was the fool. now when we play tarot cards, we shred them into curtains of faith.

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>>>>>>EVERGREEN<<<<<< Savanna Hillhouse i watch outside of the small window my prized window of the world where trees sway to the sounds of the city

my back to the mirror or my hands to the tile my nails picking away at paint left from seasons before august rolls away with thunders of the storms and i am soon left alone alone with autumn her pose unreadable

and her song inaudible with northern winds in the fields my distaste for the country almost dissipates and autumn leaves. winter is bestowed and the world turns white and gray whether a city of lights or my suburbia of roads my body shrinks as my mind returns to a state of disconnect the winter winds outside wail while i long for the burn of the summertime sun on my skin and if my lovers dare fail me or my blood dare deceive me if my hands do not create what i treasure and if nothing made of gold is conceived in my mind

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>>>>>>EVERGREEN<<<<<< Savanna Hill i do not know who i will become but through every winter and every summer, spring, and fall i will remain forever evergreen

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>>>>>>EVERGREEN<<<<<< Rachael Chen

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> > > > > E Y E C O N TA C T < < < < < Cindy Song Friday morning and everything’s yellow outside, wind blowing so sweetly it can tip over secrets.

Spilling my milk on the table, I scrub until my eyes go numb.

Breakfast, dry as usual. Glass of milk and basket of bread sit like dumb vintage dolls. I tilt my head back to taste the sun rays instead— sunlight I think is the only thing here still rich. Sound of fluttering wings makes me open my eyes. A blue jay

perches on the trash can, small head pivoting. We trade stares hard like iron.

Black at black, man at nature, gazes piercing. I almost look away but then remember it’s only bird eyes. I wonder if the blue jay ever gets lonely and he wonders if I ever get hungry.

Breaking contact, he turns his head and

escapes into the slow morning mist.

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>>>>>POWER LINES<<<<< Cindy Song You thread through every inch of my body like a spool of tightly woven black thread.

I am carried into your maze, binded and searching for a smile, a memory, a soul.

I trace the spidery lines mapped on your impenetrable skin and cotton heart to find my way out.

Wherever I go, you surge alongside like majestic power linesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; electrifying, sturdy, tall, threading through you and me and the city which never stops to rest or sleep.

I feel powerful and free and freely alive journeying through you in this eternal circuitry, round and round and round again.

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> > > > > I L L E G I T I M AT E < < < < < Cate Freeborn on mondays, my mother is a concubine in copper jewels, her fingers the paring knives that splice steaming loaves of bread into meagre fifteenths. her mouth is arched and desert as she compresses serpentine limbs into fitted cloth sheets and curls numb in the hollow of her bed, the icebox breeze tearing like sandpaper at a pellucid ribcage.

an uncle with a silk patch over his displaced socket slumps intoxicated on the front deck of a ship bound for nowhere human, bottles of spirits and gin collecting in a spidery heap on the peeling driftwood. he leans over the splintered railing and slips quietly into the monochrome waves, losing himself in the current as it pales softly to plateau.

a cousin trails through a small town in Turkey, a torn red ribbon tapered to her ruptured soles,

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> > > > > I L L E G I T I M AT E < < < < < Cate Freeborn begging with cupped palms at the corner of an infected street. a lone oxidized coin spills in her lap, and she smooths it gently beneath her tongue, shadows dancing as the lead condenses into wistful oblivion. a minister prays over her stillborn body.

a moon asphyxiates daylight, like a fragmented mirror it scatters hope into quiet diaspora. my father holds a gun to his temple in a field of bleeding poppies, and blinks vacuously as he lodges a bullet with precision through his brain matter.

on tuesday, there is mourning. he is buried in a sandalwood casket with a bullet hole in his skull. many years later, a marble statue of his likeness will be erected in the town square, and I am left on the brass doorstep of a cathedral, clad in the rag dollâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dress.

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>>>>>>>VELLUM<<<<<<< Margot Armbuster in the distance I see calves being led over hills to water. soft and careful hooves, but the ground thrums with their moving. the last man I loved used to talk about dreaming like it could spare him from himself. and now I am no longer dreaming.

I am tensed, taut as calfskin, as vellum, as some gory hide ripped hot from the fresh carcass, hysteric in death.

I remember we gripped each other in the back seat of a taxi in Boston as indigo flooded the sky. is it true that he loved me then, that he wanted to leave his tongue flashing inside my mouth like a black leather whip? if my body were less like my body and more

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>>>>>>>VELLUM<<<<<<< Margot Armbuster like vellumâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;paper-thin, deathly smoothâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;maybe I would know. maybe I could be led to water and allowed to drink.

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>>>>>>>VELLUM<<<<<<< Rachael Chen

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> > > > H O W TO F L E E T H E H E AT < < < < Chelsea Ashley Our burnt skin crisps on cement as the sun chases us street to street, too sweltering to run from each other.

AC invites us in, the TV room a gift from Helios.

Reruns run back and forth.

Uncle Phil never gets any smaller, Carl Winslow never relaxes Mr. Huxtable never ages; we pretend we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t either.

Floridian fresh prince, southern Lisa Bonet, we wait for the swamp to swallow us up

so we can emerge in Bel-Air. A boiling brown stone in pixelated New York City next to gnawing next door neighbors, as the heat beckons us back outside.

Waving to us from the screen door, like a postcard just begging us to stay.

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>>>>>>HEDONISM<<<<<< Madeika Vercella an interim a suppressed discipline saccharine desires La vie en rose Cherry Kool-Aid flowing from the kitchen faucet like an accelerated rollercoaster honeyed memories a viscid, sickening aftertaste

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>>>>>>>BLANK<<<<<<< Joy Xie

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>>>>>>THE HOUSE<<<<<< Betsy Jenifer The house stood dour and uninviting, much like an old, vicious-looking butler, at the end of a long line of merry-looking houses with lush green lawns and neatly parked cars. In a neighborhood that screamed of color and modernity, it stood alone and segregated, reeking of black and white; bleeding darkness and memories of some past horror onto the leaf-strewn streets like blood.

The house's facade was like an angry, brooding face. Deep cracks ran along its grey, weatherbeaten walls, resembling frozen veins and broken windows glared and glinted in the sun, posing like broken teeth. I eyed the inky darkness behind those windows; it was so black that I could've scooped off a handful and used it to summon the Devil.

There was a small parched yard in front of the house that mirrored the house's eerie dreariness spectacularly. The sunlight seemed out of place as it streamed all over the yard, drenching it in a useless attempt to shoo away the inevitable feel of gloom that hung about it. A couple of dead Sycamore trees waved their bony fingers in the breeze, beckoning me to come closer like an alluring enchantress. I obeyed, almost scared of what might happen if I didn't.

I approached the heavily rusted, ironwork-laced gates that guarded the old house like exhausted bull dogs. They were unlocked and were slightly swinging to and fro in the fickle wind gusts. Their rasping creaks shrieked at me to stay away, to leave them untouched. But I wasn't threatened.

I stepped onto the front yard of the house, past the screeching gates that now sang in a hellish chorus: You want to play with fire? Then get ready to burn. My shoes crunching the coarse sand of the yard (which really sounded like dry bones being crushed to me), I viewed the house and it seemed suddenly as though I had somehow wronged nature itself. A scene that would've served well in a lowbrow horror movie unfurled itself forebodingly around me: the sun dimmed itself as

thick ribbons of cloud swam in front of it, shrouding it. Fallen twigs that lay scattered around the dead trees rolled as dry, gritty winds grazed them, and whorling ravens cawed menacingly as if to warn me something bad was about to happen right away. The house looked down at me with a moue of extreme distaste. I wasn't sure if what I saw was real or if they were the after effects of the various sleeping pills I'd devoured the night before - a stupid attempt to break my insomnia.

I started feeling very weird suddenly. My head rang as if I'd been standing too close to a resonating gong and my palms grew cold and sweaty. I had difficulty keeping my balance and my mouth was almost sandpaper-dry. I should've gone back into my car and driven away but instead, I went forward almost as if in a swoon.

My mother had always taught me to ask four questions to myself every time something scared me: Why am I scared? What is scaring me? Do I really have to be scared of it? If yes, what can I do

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>>>>>>THE HOUSE<<<<<< Betsy Jenifer about it?

A pang of remorse severed my heart as I remembered my mother. I wished she were there with me, holding my hand and warmly rubbing it in hers to help me calm down. I wished to see her winsome, uneven smile, her bright freckles and her deep hazel eyes. I missed her so very much.

Forcing my mother out of my thoughts, I studied the house in front of me. Its ancient, decrepit appearance and how it still had an ambiance of old money and a rich stateliness about it. They said it was heavily haunted, the people of the neighborhood but I didn't believe them. All sorts of stories had evolved about what had happened here. Distorted canards and dark rumors all far from the truth, but they all had one thing in common: Years ago, a man had murdered his wife in this house, and their eight-year-old daughter had unfortunately been there, witnessing it.

I started walking towards the front door thinking the answers to the four questions my mother had taught me: Why am I scared ? I'm scared because of the house.

What is scaring me? That I have to walk into it.

Do I really have to be scared of it? Maybe. I don't know, do I? What can I do about it? Reassure myself that that there's nothing to be scared about. There's nothing to be scared about. It's just an old house.

I climbed up the front porch steps, ready to kick open the front door. The wooden steps squeaked at the touch of my feet; I moved fast. Spiders had formed families at the door's edges and were living in thick-white gossamer mansions. I forced myself to not look at them. I also forced myself to not think about the fact that this was my first time seeing this house in fifteen years since that horrendous Wednesday night my father had murdered my mother here.

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> > > > D E AT H B U Y S A C O F F E E < < < < Stephanie Chang

Death goes to buy a coffee, but inside the café, everyone is too preoccupied to notice. At the doorway, he leaves his scythe propped up against the wall and drapes his cobwebbed cloak over the coat hanger.

He eyes the menu scrawled overhead with chalk, the frame of his jaw parted in perpetual uncertainty. The barista taps her foot from behind the counter and makes a face.

“Sir, are you ready to order? We have customers waiting, you know,” she huffs. Death glances over his shoulder to meet the glare of a wrinkly-eyed woman.

“Ah–my bad. Just give me a moment.” He pauses. “I’d like a regular, hot, organic caramel latte with mocha drizzle–oh, and make it gluten-free, please.”

“Your name?”

“Death,” says Death. He reaches into his pocket for spare change, though it’s mostly made up of wadded five-dollar bills and quarters. He makes sure to drop a dime into the tip jar as he nods sheepishly at the barista. She rolls her eyes.

“That’ll be $4.39.”

Another worker slides his mug down the countertop, and Death curls his bony fingers around it, taking a whiff. It’s sweet.

He wanders into the back of the room, searching for a vacant seat. Death finds an armchair near a window overlooking the street. From outside, figures dart down the sidewalk with faces tucked into mufflers. A red-nosed woman passes and catches him staring. Death smiles, but she turns away.

As he is settling in, the door springs open and wind rushes in. He spills a bit of latte. Death winces, then glances up at a little girl with a wide, toothy grin.

“Hi!” she says. “I saw you through the window. I like your costume!” She takes a seat next to

Death, waving at her mother who’s ordering.

“Really,” Death muses. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

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> > > > D E AT H B U Y S A C O F F E E < < < < Stephanie Chang

The little girl frowns. “I would be, but Mama’s going to see Kitty at the vet’s next door.”

“Kitty?”

“That’s our cat. She’s being put down today.”

Death takes a slow sip. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. Mama says that means everything is going to be okay again. You see, Kitty’s been sick for a while.”

He sets his mug down, watching the steam spin into sinewy tendrils. Death tilts his head to the side and peers at his scythe, still balanced against the wall undisturbed. He ruffles the hair of the little girl and she giggles. A sad smile creeps onto his face. “…I see.”

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> > > > D E AT H B U Y S A C O F F E E < < < < Rachael Chen

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>>>>>>> CO NTRIBUTORS <<<<<<<< Stephanie Chang is fifteen and lives in Vancouver, BC. She is currently a blog contributor for Minute Magazine and can usually be found hiding in museums.

Rachana Hegde is an 18 year old Indian writer from Hong Kong. Her poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from DIALOGIST, Hypertrophic Literary, Diode, and The Blueshift Journal. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Hollins University. She

serves as a poetry editor for TRACK//FOUR, a literary magazine for writers and artists of color.

Find her at www.rachanahegde.weebly.com.

Cate Freeborn is currently attending grade 10 in Vancouver, at a small school focused on the literature and arts. She is an aspiring young author and student with a love for dark and thoughtprovoking poetry, Harry Potter and vegan ice cream. Her work has been previously published on KidPub, a creative writing website for teens, and she has served as an editor on her school newspaper. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, yoga, dancing, listening to music, and watching true crime documentaries on Netflix.

Sarah Feng is a freshman who attends Pinewood School (Los Altos, CA). She is a 2016/2017 American High School Poets Just Poetry!!! National Winner and the author of two self-published novels, Beneath (2014) and Chiaroscuro (2017), the latter of which is out in paperback as well as eBook and recently earned Sarah a publishing contract from Pulsepub. Her works have been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Write the World Novel Writing Prizes, and the California Coastal Commission, and have been published or are forthcoming in the Los Angeles Times Insider, TAB: A Journal of Poetry & Poetics, the Rising Phoenix Review, Black Napkin Press, the Blue Marble Review, and Moledro Magazine, among others. She has worked for or currently works for Write the World, Glass Kite Anthology, the Los Altos Town Crier, and L'Éphémère Review. Additionally, she has an appearance scheduled on CCTV, China’s largest TV broadcaster, for her writing this summer.

Madeika Vercella is an avid reader and writer living in Utah. As a trilingual, she enjoys learning languages and speaks English, French, and Haitian Creole (and is currently learning Spanish).

Her favorite food is fried plantain, a typical (and delicious) Haitian side dish. Madeika hopes to pursue bioengineering, as well as creative writing in college.

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>>>>>>> CO NTRIBUTORS <<<<<<<< Jacqueline He is a rising senior from the Harker School in San Jose, California. Her work has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation, Bennington College, the Columbia College in Chicago, Princeton University, the Adroit Journal, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She is the Editor in Chief of the Icarus Anthology, and was nominated for Bettering American Poetry.

Betsy Jenifer is a seventeen-year-old writer and artist from Vellore, south India. She is tall, lanky and obsessive. Her works have been published or are forthcoming in Canvas literary journal, Polyphony H.S, Élan student literary magazine, The Claremont review and Skipping Stones, among others. She is also the first place winner of The Daphne Review's inaugural Web art competition.

Savanna Hillhouse am a junior at Gretna High School in Gretna, Nebraska. It's my dream to become a recognized writer/author, and I strive towards bringing more awareness to mental illness/ heath through my writing. I am also an illustrator and would love to one day create a webcomic.

Cindy Song is seventeen years old and attends Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland. She writes in order to transform and transport people. Her poetry has appeared in Cadaverine Magazine, Words Dance, and Blue Marble Review, among many others. She also loves to draw and paint.

Joy Xie is a junior at Mountain Lakes High School and lives in a small town in northern New Jersey. She enjoys painting and reading in her free time, developing a passion for these hobbies as a young girl. She has been published in Celebrating Arts, Aerie International, Blue Marble Re-

view and AIPF and has received awards in Scholastic Arts and Writing.

Chelsea Ashley is a senior creative writing major at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She’s been writing for as long as she can remember and has just recently realized that no matter what she’s writing about, there is always some part of herself in it. She will attend Fordham University in New York City in the Fall. When she is not writing, she’s baking or watching Netflix.

Margot Armbruster is a high school student from Wisconsin. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming inDIALOGIST, Rust+Moth, and The Best Teen Writing of 2016, among others. She participated in the Adroit Journal’s 2016 Summer Mentorship and has been recognized by Princeton University, the Poetry Society of the UK, and Hollins University.

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>>>>>>> CO NTRIBUTORS <<<<<<<< Koshka Kash is a 19 year old illustrator from Cape Town, South Africa. She matriculated from high school at the end of 2016 and has spent 2017 living in both Europe and NYC. She is influenced by ancient culture and misplaced, accidental or anti-aesthetic moments and images. Her style is new and still in its rudimentary form, she is very excited to develop it further and to learn what else she is capable of.

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