by Karen Breen Volt(a)/aic/age after Anne Marie Rooney’s “Overture” The lighted blue. Swell. The third return. The locals croqueting at the park. No one in gazeboes w/o cigs. Bright-finding & heat. I have not withdrawn. When I remember, I smack against square hoops. Mallets that sent me: their sphere. Bent fingers pinched between two of …
by Clara Silverstein Trespassing at the Homeplace I know every invasive, every bulb with ruffled purple fisted in its center, the rock wall’s shine of poison ivy, and the willow, a spangled cathedral for remains of our pets. Someone else is taking shelter under the forsythia, its splinters of yellow each dreary March, and the …
Snow Revelationby Yuan Changming Every winter we are remindedAll gaps and cracks can be filled upAll dirtiness and ugliness can be buried deep, andAll viewing difference can be harmonized into one single color Muted in white, as the land unfolds itself to show us howTo make a new start in spring
Erick Brucker’s short story, “Dank,” appeared in Backchannels Issue No. 2. 1. Your piece, “Dank,”has an unusual format. It felt like I was climbing the staircase of the story as I read. What role does form play in the piece for you? I think that what’s unusual about it is that the title comes in …
Tell us a bit about your childhood/young adulthood. I was born in Robbinsdale, Minnesota just outside of Minneapolis and lived in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota until I was six. My family relocated to my dad’s hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. My mom was from Cedar Rapids, Iowa and so we spent many weekends on B Avenue in …
Sandy Coomer’s art was featured in Issue 2 of Backchannels, is the cover for upcoming Issue 4, and can also be found in Issue 5 this summer. How did you become interested in art? I am a very visual and detail-oriented person. I notice things – texture, line, movement, perspective, color. I notice differences between …
Ever watch the TV show Impractical Jokers? It’s a hidden camera show with four lifelong friends who challenge each other to take part in embarrassing situations and showcasing people’s reactions. If you haven’t yet indulged, it is definitely worth a watch! You will laugh, a lot! The four friends (Joe, “Murr”, “Q”, and Sal) met …
Editing is sort of a secret skill. Every book we’ve ever read, every movie we watched, every textbook, description of an art piece, play program… all of them were written, then edited likely over and over again, often by teams of people, until they become the polished work we’re used to. We don’t talk about …
Early Life Eric Baysinger grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. He went to school at Iowa State and the University of Iowa, studying German, teaching, and Russian. He has taught for over 25 years in Iowa and Pennsylvania. His first teaching experience was with K-6 grade students in an enrichment program. He reflected on this work …
The past six months have been amazing. Anyone who knows me knows that I deplore hyperbole. Nothing is really awesome. Few things are fantastic. And, the amazing only happens once in a while. The past six months have been amazing – on the personal and the publishing fronts. We launched Backchannels Journal January 2019 after …
It’s Pride month! Diversity is an important concept in every system from microbiomes to our society. In the U.S., we used to think it meant “not just white,” which was a start. The dialogue in our country progressed from being ethnically- and racially-minded (I’ll use the race concept since it still holds a lot of …
Write a response to a prompt: a poem, a thought, an essay, a story, some flash fiction – anything is fair game! Post it in the comments. Then, click on “comments” to read and respond to others’ work here. Keep it cool. Abusive posts will be removed. Featured Prompt 21: A Challenge Prompt 20: Indifference …
My mom is a Virgo, which is the perfectionist of the zodiac. Supposedly, Virgos have a perfect version of themselves that they hold in their minds, and they are very self-critical by nature. Growing up in my household, I would have to say that my mom definitely fits these traits of her astrological sign. She …
I really hate writing sometimes. Maybe I should back up. I do love writing, those moments when I can’t not write anymore, after the idea’s been going around and around in my head for too long. After I carried it and it scratched at me while I sorted laundry into piles and decided not to …
“Do I know you?” “I feel like we’ve met before.” “You look exactly like my sister-in-law.” These sentences or some variant of them are words I hear every week. And they are usually followed by the person telling me a story. At the gas pump. In line at the grocery store. After a workshop. I …