First Look: In Parentheses Magazine (Spring 2020–Crowds Edition)

The Spring 2020 Issue of In Parentheses is now available for purchase on our MagCloud marketplace. This is the final issue of Volume 5 of our Anthology.

A word from the Editor:

We at In Parentheses hopes this edition finds you well. As we continue to adapt to a pandemic world, we pivot to take a look at the image of CROWDS. We believe in the propogation of discourse and art through populations. This is an opportunity to recall a time where the essence and Sublime Art of life was readily available for communication and dissemination to the masses; we swarmed to consume it. In this the second issue of 2020, hindsight will allow us to analyze ourselves as a CROWD, at a time where we are asked to be the most individual, distant. We are afforded a time to create, correct, and calm–we shall proceed poised to succeed. Thank you for joining us and urge you to continue to THINK.

Phillipe Martin Chatelain, Co-Founder (@uptownvoice)

The full list of featured submitters has been included below for your convenience. Please consider purchasing a copy of the Spring 2020 issue to support the propagation of Sublime Art.

Elizabeth Crowell / @lizbcrowell / a B.A. in English from Smith College and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Poetry from Columbia University. Taught high school and college English for many years and currently lives outside Boston with a wife and two children.Has been included most recently in Bellevue Literary Review, Tishman Review, and Raven’s Edge. An essay, ‘War and Peace,’ was the 2018 Non-fiction prize winner at Flying South.

Carla Sofia / an old Dominican soul that has begun to train her eye and discover the beauty of truly observing. Photography has such magic that it allows us too look into the unique perspective of each moment, each person, each feeling. You can find more of her work on her IG page @sunshine.yellow._

Jakub Švanda / a queer poet, musician, and a MA student of English language and literature at Masaryk’s University in Brno, Czech Republic.

Andy Betz / has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. He lives in 1974, has been married for 27 years, and collects occupations (the current tally is 100). His works are found everywhere a search engine operates.

Terry Brinkman / has been painting for over forty five years. He started creating Poems, Five Amazon E- Books. Tide Anthologies. Poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed Utah Life Poem Village, Snapdragon Poets Choice, In Parentheses, Healing Muse and the Adelaide Magazine.

Mark J. Mitchell / born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Starting from Tu Fu was just published by Encircle Publications. A new collection is due out in December from Cherry Grove. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster where he makes his meager living pointing out pretty things. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full length collections so far. Titles on request. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/

RC de Winter / @rcdewinter / writes in several genres with a focus on poetry. She is also a digital artist and sometimes chanteuse. Her only claim to fame is a decent Twitter following.

Akhim Alexis / @akhimalexis1 / a writer born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago who is inspired by his mother Simone, who also writes poetry. He is currently pursuing an MA in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. His most recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crêpe & Penn, McNeese Review, Kairos Literary Magazine, Capsule Stories and The Caribbean Writer.

John Grey / an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Hawaii Pacific Review, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Willard and Maple and Clade Song.

Phillipe Martin Chatelain / @uptownvoice / Phillipe is the Managing Editor of In Parentheses. He is a poet from New York City with a Masters Degree in Poetry from The New School. He writes as someone in the tradition of the urban troubadour or the flaneur–wandering, taking notes. He believes that poetry of our generation has taken on a much more digital definition. Furthermore, it is important for New Modernist writers like those exhibited in In Parentheses Literary Magazine to assume the forms of media available in order to carry on the history of Sublime Art. His series taking shots alone was self-published in 2012-2015. The self-published collection FACETS (2019) is now available.

Steve Gerson / an emeritus English professor, writes poetry about life’s dissonance. He’s proud to have published in Panoplyzine, The Write Launch, Route 7, Coffin Bell, Poets Reading the News, Riza Press, White Wall Review, Variant, Abstract, Pinkley Press, Montana Mouthful, the Decadent Review, and In Parentheses.

James Croal Jackson / @jimjakk / (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Pacifica, indefinite space, and Philosophical Idiot. He edits The Mantle. Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. jimjakk.com

Holly Day / @realhollyday / poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review. Her newest poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), and The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press).

R. Will / @MsB_Honest / Electric woman from The Bronx by way of The U.S. Virgin Islands with a penchant for doing a lot. Rhysa, also known as Grime artist Lady S.P.I. She keeps her hands in all artistic pots including song writing, video and photography work, painting and drawing and in this instance, poetry.

David M. Alper / a high school AP English teacher in New York City, residing in Manhattan. His work has recently appeared in Dime Show Review, Glassworks Magazine, and elsewhere.

Alex Aldred / @itsmealexaldred / lives and writes in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he is currently studying towards his PhD in creative writing. You can find out more about his work by visiting his site, http://www.alexaldred.co.uk, or by summoning him to speak with you in person, provided you have access to the necessary runes.

M. F. Nagel / born in anchorage Alaska, her love of poetry is a gift shared, from her Athabaskan and Eyak heritage. m.f. now lives and writes near the banks of the Matanuska river in the Palmer Butte, Alaska, where the moose, wild dog~ roses and salmonberries provide unending joy and inspiration.

Carolyn Lawrence / @carolynlawrence / is a professor at Chattahoochee Technical College and Southern New Hampshire University with a Masters in Humanities, a Doctorate in Education. In 2018, published their first novel, The Mess We’re In, and currently writing a steampunk western novel. Featured in Gravitas, the Georgia Writers Association’s Exit 271: Your Georgia Writers Resource and Borderhopping, an online travel magazine. Member of the Georgia Writers Association and Broadleaf Writers Association.

Steven Keene / is a 29-year-old Business Analyst from Southern Maine. When not working or writing, he can be found playing fetch with his cat Cricket. His work is inspired by strongly brewed coffee, politics, and the growing divide between how we live and how we could be living.

Emma Kushnirsky / a student currently living in the Bronx, NY. She has not previously had any of her work published. Along with writing and reading, she enjoys traveling, running, yoga, and cooking. She writes short stories, prose, and poetry, and is currently on the beginning of her first novel.

Nadia Benjelloun / from Tangier, Morocco. She graduated from the American School of Tangier in 2017. She has four books under her name and has been featured in The Literary Yard, Eskimo Pie, The Scarlet Leaf Review and forthcoming in Atmosphere Press and other journals.

Victoria Richard / a Creative Writing graduate of Jubilee Performing Arts Conservatory in McComb, Mississippi. She is currently studying English Literature at Millsaps College. Richard has received three Scholastic Awards for her work. Her most recent accomplishment is the publication of her poem “Father’s Dwelling Place” in South 85 Journal.

David O’Neill / a writer and musician from Dublin. He won First Runner-Up in the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story competition 2017 and was again shortlisted in 2018. He has been published in journals such as The Incubator Journal, The Lonely Crowd, The Galway Review, The Bohemyth, Elbow Room and the National Flash Fiction Day Anthology.

Tomas Baiza / born and raised in San José, California, and now lives in Boise, Idaho. He holds Masters Degrees from Indiana University and the University of Michigan, a doctorate from the University of Oregon, and is currently studying creative writing at Boise State University. 

Cameron L. Mitchell / @CameronLMitchell / grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. His work has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Queer South Anthology, Literary Orphans, Gravel Literary Magazine, and a few other places. He lives in New York and works in archives at Columbia University.

Nicole Leona Smith / @nicoleona / based in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada with an honours degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Guelph. As a Playwright, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, The Metcalf Foundation and the Ontario Arts Council, and this year received a literary grant to begin work on a novel. Essay forthcoming in The New Quarterly.

Jingyi Qiu / studies the impermanence of life, the thoughts of human depravity and the pain in all tangible and intangible existence. Suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, she gains inspiration from her practice in speechlessness and the insights she gains from facing various unavoidable human emotions. She studied drama, film, and literature at the Beijing Film Academy for four years before coming to America to study Fine Arts Photography and Creative Writing at California College of the Arts. She currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Patrick Breheny / an American ESL teacher in Bangkok who sold lots of stories in the former U S magazine market. More recently, Straylight Magazine published my story REVERSATOL , and Havik Press published the stories VAN GOGH SYNDROME and the novella LIKE A HUMAN—a sequel—-was published by Running Wild Press in their Novella Anthology 3, at the end of 2019.

Jason M. Thornberry / work has been published in The Stranger, ALAN Review, Adirondack Review, and elsewhere. I previously taught literature and writing at Seattle Pacific University. I am currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Chapman University.

Meredith Moore / from Nashville, TN. a student of English and International Studies who is fascinated by cultural media and production.

Michael Reginald Pitter / @pitterphoto / Michael is a writer, photographer and a PhD student in im- munology at the University of Michigan. He co-founded In Parentheses with Phillipe as an under- graduate. His contributions to the magazine range from analog photography to philosophical essays to articles regarding current advancements in biomedical research. Michael is also interested in the experimental synthesis of art and science through his writings and visuals.

Strixx Slade / @strixxslade / has been photographing people from all walks of life for 12 years. Her skill in portraiture comes from her ability to bring out the particular part that makes every one of her subjects special in their own right. She currently resides in Brooklyn and you can find her on mode social media.

Justin “Suede” Hunte / @justdasuede / an entrepreneur, photographer, and small business consultant in New York City. He is passionate about utilizing creative media strategy and tactics to bring company and personal campaigns to life in a manner that meets client goals while creating sustainable growth channels.