Lunch Ticket

25/07/2024

Flash Prose from Issue 25 - "Mujer de la Luna / Moon Woman" by Sarah Chavera Edwards:

"Her radiance brightens the dark places of the barrio, even the ones where boys with spray paint cans begin their work or the chingonas get into their boyfriends’ lowriders or Manuel Lopez sits on his porch with his third Modelo."

Read more at: https://buff.ly/3WFXHWE

23/07/2024

NEW in Amuse-Bouche - "Winter and After" by Jennifer M Phillips:

"Because all the birds do not fall
frozen from the trees,
and the squirrels do wake in time, most of them,
from their torpor, to the memory of nuts
under the snow lying inert for the whole bitter season..."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3WxF1bb

19/07/2024

Lunch Ticket will open for submissions starting
August 1 in Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Prose, and Poetry. We accept submissions in YA, Translation, and Visual Art all year long.

We're looking for work that speaks to the theme of "Resistance and Liberation." Lunch Ticket seeks stories, poems, and visual art that highlight how people resist oppression and fight for collective liberation.

Read more at the link in our bio.

18/07/2024

From Issue 25: "Flaws" by Jer Xiong, winner of the Diana Woods Memorial Award, selected by guest judge Edgar Gomez

Gomez writes: “A poignant exploration of grief, identity, and the weight of familial expectations, Flaws offers us the lyrical and evocative story of a daughter unpacking her relationship with her ailing father. Jer Xiong avoids easy answers, instead leaning into complexity to ultimately create a rich and deeply felt portrait of a family. Compassionate, nuanced, full of haunting imagery, I gasped when I reached the last line.”

Instagram: and

09/07/2024

Flashback from Issue 10: I Don’t Know if I’m Dealing Very Well with Everything That’s Going On Right Now by Yxta Maya Murray

"Healthily attractive productive people do not, as I have in my not long-ago past, go to Yaddo to make arte povera out of baby clothes and na**lm to illustrate the environmentally doomed prospect of childrearing."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3WfmyAa

27/06/2024

New on the blog: Midnight Snack by Kait Leonard "A Family That Prays Together"

"Much to my surprise, it seemed a lingering aversion to the Christian God’s adversary still had a grip on me. Some programming runs deep."

Read more: https://buff.ly/4ca6QMh

17/06/2024

Issue 25 is live! Enjoy our packed issue of 36 pieces, and read what our EIC, Jessica Ballen, has to say about it:

"Many of the pieces in Lunch Ticket Issue 25 grapple with the dichotomy of an unhealthy love, and with the state of the world being what it is right now, I felt like the theme of an antique store filled with worn out family heirlooms was apropos. Homes are supposed to nourish, but sometimes they eat away at us instead. Whatever pain, rage, suffering, and entitlement people have felt in their lifetimes are passed on to the next generation. How do we become better people if these are the cards that were dealt?"

Read more: https://buff.ly/3RuoVfL

13/06/2024

to Issue 1 - "Black Coffee and Skinned Pigs," a prose poem by Gabriel Cabrera:

"She had often stopped me to smell things: fresh cut cold cuts, smoked fish, all reminding her of a place she barely knew. The night carried more than honking cabs wrestling for uppity travelers."

Read more: https://buff.ly/4bWGPzk

06/06/2024

to this Issue 1 Interview with Francesca Lia Block, by Yolando Bridges:

"The inner voice should ALWAYS come first. After it has had the chance to speak, the writer can evaluate the market and come up with strategies."

Read more: https://buff.ly/453bZmr

01/06/2024

NEW in Amuse-Bouche - "Reflection Sonnet" by Kenton K Yee:

"Listen, my dog likes to stare
into mirrors. She’s not narcissistic—
she believes her reflection’s a captive
companion confined behind glass..."

Read more: https://buff.ly/4c2W5Lq

30/05/2024

to Issue 1 - "Horses in the 'Hood," a by G. Neri:

“He’s a wild one.
Just like you.”
I guess that’s how
my old man see me,
a bit wild and
outta control.

Read more: https://buff.ly/3KnHmyN

28/05/2024

Antioch LitCit Episode #47: Ana Maria Spagna is out now!

On this episode of Antioch MFA Program’s Lit Cit, Caren McDonald chats with guest Ana Maria Spagna, a writer, teacher, and former backcountry trails worker. They discuss Spagna’s newest book, Pushed: Miners, a Merchant and (Maybe) a Massacre, and the power of reframing narrative and honoring other people’s stories. They also talk about the importance of imagination for nonfiction writers, the benefits of working on multiple projects at once, and the joys of writing the MFA critical paper. This episode was produced by Ian Rodriguez and mastered by Caren McDonald.

Visit the link in bio to listen or wherever you stream podcasts 🎧

18/05/2024

NEW in Amuse-Bouche: "Migraine Abecedarian" by Therese Gleason Carr.

"Acceptance and commitment therapy, acupuncture, Advil, Aimovig (preventive monthly shot), Aleve, Allegra, allergy shots, aspartame avoidance (no diet drinks or Nutrasweet), aspirin, Ayurveda, bargaining with God, bedrest..."

Read more:

Therese Gleason shares a cleverly orchestrated fervor of terms depicting the intensity of chronic migraine headaches

16/05/2024

to Issue 1 - "Sucker" by Mark Brazaitis:

"Although traffic streamed by and horns honked, the noise faded as the blood in my temples throbbed. Something was wrong, and I knew what it was even before I opened the rear door to discover my mother’s bags, as well as my backpack, which contained my and my daughters’ passports, gone."

Read more: https://buff.ly/4ajD5GW

09/05/2024

to Issue 1 - "Knuckles" by Jenny Dunning:

"That year, the year I’m in sixth grade, I decide there are two ways of knowing: the kind that has no edges, that seems like you’ve always known it; and the sudden kind."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3UqZQD8

03/05/2024

to Issue 1, from "Poem Composed Entirely with Last Lines from Tony Hoagland Poems" by James Valvis:

"I made a word my friend
with my breathless mouth.
No one knows why"

Read more: https://buff.ly/49YjRqt

28/04/2024

Catherine Eaton Skinner in Lunch Ticket Issue 24: "Water, earth, wind, fire and ether emerge in physical form in my work: beeswax and resin; graphite and oil stick; wood, paper and cloth; glass and stone; lead sheet, wire and precious metal leaf. Paintings often reference the horizontal line between the sky and earth. The possibility of hope for our environment and ourselves as humans comes in the form of the returning light in the morning sky."

More at https://buff.ly/3xW8x0z

23/04/2024

Issue 24 YA Spotlight: "Being Goldie" by Juliana Zalon

"They are nice enough. But Goldie just never knows what to say to them. Never laughs with them. Always feels like she is putting on a performance in order to have fun."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3U74HJt

19/04/2024

NEW in Amuse-Bouche: "Christmas Eve, 1999," an essay by Hannah Utter

"We shift uncomfortably in our folding chairs, the metal legs creaking beneath us as Carol begins the meeting with a weary smile."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3w2tAOA

In this short story, Hannah Utter takes a bold and sensitive look at support group dynamics during the holiday season

16/04/2024

Issue 24 Spotlight - "We Might See Ourselves: An Interview with James Yeh" by Kevin J. Cummins:

"Fiction can have more space. But it’s also a question of the right distance to find between the author and the work. Sometimes you want more distance, and sometimes you want less."

Read more: https://buff.ly/49CJrkB

16/04/2024

New blog post! "When It's Inappropriate, Laugh" by Stefanie Paredes:

"She had a lot of hardships in life, but she knew laughing could fix a lot. Except for cancer."

Read more:

Stefanie Paredes shares a poignant and heartfelt story about family, humor, and honoring the journey at the end of life

11/04/2024

Issue 24 Spotlight - "If Tomorrow Even Comes" by Miranda Scotti:

"I bury my phone in my pocket and squeeze my eyes shut. Sure, I’ve been through changes in my life before, like the instantly regrettable decision I made to let Casie give me bangs in eighth grade. I cried for a week, then swore I’d never make another big change again."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3JfVOs2

04/04/2024

Of her paintings, "Enchanted Circle", in Issue 24 of Lunch Ticket, Kathleen Frank says, "Several times a year I travel throughout the Southwest, hiking and photographing vistas for future paintings. The goal is to catch the light and design in these scenes in all its strangeness and beauty. It is a lofty goal, but I find when the quest is shepherded with paint and brush it is a delightfully daunting adventure."

See more at: https://buff.ly/3vBofgK

31/03/2024

Issue 24 Spotlight - "Heartwarming, Bittersweet, With a Slap in the Face: C.E. O’Banion on Publishing His Debut Book"

"In South Louisiana, we have more hurricanes now than we used to have. When I got to South Louisiana, when I was 18, we had one every few years. In 2016, around the time when I was really working on the book, and it was just an old man wandering around Baton Rouge, we had a flood that impacted half the city, and Houston flooded soon after."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3IXUtpv

30/03/2024

Last call! Send us your literary translations and young adult literature for Issue 25 of Lunch Ticket by midnight PDT on March 31, 2024. Submissions for our between-issues series, Amuse Bouche, are welcome through April 1, and we are open to Visual Art submissions through May 1.

Submit here: https://buff.ly/4axXoRx

26/03/2024

Issue 24 Spotlight - "Irreconcilable Differences" by Glenn Orgias:

"Most clones are returned because of a glaring genetic f**k up by the cloneists—a six fingered hand or a moustache gone wrong. But some returned clones have no perceivable flaw. Like, for example, Jeff."

Read more: https://buff.ly/3Tz59jf

25/03/2024

Lunch Ticket #24 - Flash Spotlight

Irreconcilable Differences by Glenn Orgias

"Most clones are returned because of a glaring genetic f**k up by the cloneists—a six fingered hand or a moustache gone wrong. But some returned clones have no perceivable flaw. Like, for example, Jeff."

https://buff.ly/3Tz59jf

23/03/2024

New blog post! "Banking on the Billionaires" by Kait Leonard:

"Since I haven’t been able to find the cure for mortality in spirituality, I’m taking the only logical next step—I’m Googling options."

Read more: https://buff.ly/4cuJTDX

Kait Leonard takes a humorous and surprising look at death, resistance, and eternal life in this delightful discussion

21/03/2024

Issue 24 Poetry Spotlight: Heaven, Perhaps by Joseph Hardy

I think now of leaving something
behind without my name.

This house, with windows just replaced
to last another twenty years

Read more at: https://buff.ly/3Pr2MOk

19/03/2024

Lunch Ticket - "I wrote this book with the intention for mothers to read it, and for them to feel relief, to give themselves a moment of forgiveness, and to help mothers who don’t see the broader social structures that we’re a part of." Minna Dubin.

Interview with Ashlee Laielli

https://buff.ly/48Z1eSH