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YOUR CART

September & October
​2020

Women :: Nonbinary :: Art :: Fiction :: Poetry

Moth on leaf
On Thursday / Kim Shuck
Acrylic painting of a sad woman with a half bright red and half stark white, clownish, face holds an infant while a devil figure lurks over her shoulder.
Celebration of Chaos / Interview with Artist Cierra Rowe
Sugarcane
Moongazer / M. Saida Agostini
Acrylic painting in browns, grays and golds, woman's head with flora growing out of it.
Fairlies: Tala (Ode to the Girl Palm) / Majda Gama
Looking up at a yellow building with bright laundry hanging from its windows.
Hanging Laundry / Sandra Cimadori
Illustration of pink winding roads through green land below cumulus clouds and wires.
After Moving Back to Alabama / Alina Stefanescu
Painting of woman's face in a gray hat in foreground. Background is a woman-shaped figure in black, smudge of white blue land and low circle of sun
Heels / Kolbe Riney
Colorful wall with small barred window and dog peeking out.
Canine / Susan Cohen
Collage: background red and with paper overlain with an image of a hairy fly. A woman's hand, in black and white, rests over the fly. She wears a large wedding ring.
Arrivals Lain / Amrita Chakraborty
Collage. Black and white photo of octopus tentacle with a red heart nestled in its reach.
Life and Limb / Jenny L. Davis
Acrylic painting. Woman with a red dotted face above an assortment of gray heads, and a fish leaping from water.
Lemon Flavored Tears / Michelle Johnson-Wang
Painting of a Black woman's face, swirled and dripping
Granny Speaks to the Dead / M. Saida Agostini
Hand holding finch
Flight Behavior Along the I-44 Corridor / Jules Jacob
Meteor falling through a dark sky beside an observation station and electric lines.
Long World / Amanda Chiado
Acrylic paining of brown flowers in a blue vase on a table beside a cigarette and glass of blue liquid.
Poem Written after Purchasing Cane by Jean Toomer / Valentine Pierce
Collage, black and white portrait of woman's face with a color image of a cliff and waterfall where the face would be.
Miss Underhill's Chair / Sonja Johanson
Acrylic paintings by Cierra Rowe
Collage by
Molly Dunham

Editor's Note

Dear reader, 

Thank you for being here.

It's not easy to show up in literary spaces, or any space at all these days, with the immense weight of the pandemic and climate chaos burdening so much that was already heavy. It seems that even the old comfort TV and tunes remind me of days when we could all be in the same room and hug our hellos, and that makes me sad, so the desire to shut out the world is overwhelming and at times irresistible. Even my usual coping mechanism of reading doesn't provide the solace it once did 
— with a few exceptions.

I hope that you have not lost the ability to lose yourself in a good read, but if you have, I hope WTR will be one of your exceptions. This issue is chock full of brilliant writing by poets and writers who've been fantastic to get to know: Alina Stefanescu, Amanda Chiado, Amrita Chakraborty, Jenny L. Davis, Jules Jacob, Kim Shuck, Kolbe Riney, M. Saida Agostini, Majda Gama, Michelle Johnson-Wang, Sonja Johanson, Susan Cohen and Valentine Pierce. We're also fortunate to pair some of these pieces with stunning acrylic paintings by Cierra Rowe. Be sure to read Olivia Joyce's interview with Rowe for a glimpse into what drives her art.
 
If you appreciate what you find here, please reach out to these folks, via social media, their web pages, or the WTR contact page, and let them know you're a fan. Sometimes being a writer or an artist feels like calling into a night cavern and hearing only the lonely sound of one's own voice echoing back. I would love for West Trestle to be a conduit to building personal connections among these days of distance. 

Again, I am grateful to my co-editors, Annie Stenzel and Olivia Joyce. We are thrilled that Olivia will be stepping into the role of art director at WTR. We are also grateful to Molly Dunham, as she's agreed to be our resident artist and to produce a few collages for each issue. See if you can spot Dunham's work alongside Rowe's. 

May this issue be a bright spot for you during these dwindling summer days. It certainly has been for me. 

With gratitude, 
Patricia Caspers
Founding / Managing Editor, West Trestle Review
  
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