Asterix Journal

27/03/2024

Our Spring 2024 issue, BENDING, launches in a few weeks! If you're in Pittsburgh on April 10, please consider joining us for an event. RSVP here: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_410AnypO27IOAsK

From Pitt's University Art Gallery:
Please join us for a special conversation with writer, Angie Cruz, visual artist, Laylah Ali and poet, Diana Khoi Nguyen. Cruz, Ali and Nguyen will discuss the nature of collaboration in their work and their artistic process.

This event celebrates the launch of Aster(ix) Journal’s Spring 2024 issue featuring a series of prose pieces written in reaction to and in conversation with drawings by Laylah Ali's Studies series. Contributors include Victoria Chang, Caro De Robertis, Jacquira Diaz, Patricia Engel, Chinelo Okperanka, and Alejandro Varela.

This event is made possible with the support of Dr. R.A Judy, the University of Pittsburgh Kenneth P. Dietrich School of the Arts & Sciences, CAAPP: Center for African American Poetry & Poetics, Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, Department of Studio Arts and Pitt’s University Art Gallery (UAG).

23/01/2024

Our new 10-Year Anniversary Issue, Part 2: Fiction & Interviews is out! Edited by Angie Cruz.

All of the pieces are available to read online for free. The print issue, available for purchase, contains additional retrospective comments and reflections from the authors on their work.

- “Drawing Maps” a conversation by Sandra Cisneros and Angie Cruz with Armando García, Clarissa A. León, Adriana E. Ramírez, Elizabeth Rodriguez-Fielder, Tanya Shirazi, and Angela Velez
Originally published in our Fall 2017 issue, Dirty Laundry

- “Still Life” by Cecca Austin Ochoa
Appeared in our Spring 2017 Issue, Best of Kweli

- “Unfading” by Nathalie Handal
Originally published in our Winter 2020-2021 Issue, The Fiction Issue
Featured in Best Microfiction 2021

- “Love Story for a Foreign Girl” by Fiona Cheong
Appeared in our Spring 2016 issue, Atravesando

- “The One-Eyed Bat!” by Yalitza Ferreras
Originally published in our Summer 2019 issue, Inheritance

- “The Past is Not Always Past: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat” by Jessica Lanay Moore
Originally published in July 2017 online at asterixjournal.com

- “Last-Last Resignation” by Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Originally published in our Winter 2020-2021 Issue, The Fiction Issue

- “The Girl With Two Brothers” by Sejal Shah
Appeared online in November 2017 at asterixjournal.com

- Selections from “The Proscenium” by Vi Khi Nao
Originally published in our Fall 2018 issue, Edges

- “Time Served” by Celeste Prince
Originally published in our Fall 2013 Issue, The Fiction Issue

- “Dalila” by Kianny Antigua, translated by Noah T. Myers
Originally published in our Fall 2014 Issue, Kianny Antigua

- “Vão / Vòng: A Conversation with Katrina Dodson” by Madhu Kaza
Originally published in our Summer 2017 issue, Kitchen Table Translation

- “The Eternal Pursuit of the Whale’s Song” by Keya Mitra
Originally published in our Spring 2016 issue, Atravesando

- “Summer of Nene” by Ivelisse Rodriguez
Appeared online in April 2014 at asterixjournal.com

- “House Call” by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
Appeared in our Fall 2017 issue, Dirty Laundry
Featured in Best Small Fictions 2018 @ BraddockAveBook

- “Earth-Language” by Katie Gutierrez
Originally published in our Fall 2013 Issue, The Fiction Issue

- “The Excavation of Identity as a Political Act: A Conversation with Helena Maria Viramontes” by Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder
Originally published in January 2017 online at asterixjournal.com

https://asterixjournal.com/10th-anniversary-issue-part-ii/

We are thrilled to share the second part of our tenth anniversary double issue, highlighting some our best short fiction and interviews.

15/12/2022

Our favorite of 2022! Featuring recommendations from Angie Cruz, Naima Coster, Dawn Lundy Martin, Patricia Engel, Idra Novey, Daisy Hernández, Stephanie Jimenez, and Carolina De Robertis. Featuring...

Nobody’s Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong
(2022, Grand Central Publishing)

The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
(2022, Doubleday Books)

Harry Sylvester Bird by Chinelo Okparanta
(2022, Mariner Books)

The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres
(2022, HarperVia Books)

Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir
(2022, Graywolf Press)

Voice of the Fish by Lars Horn
(2022, Graywolf Press)

Burning Butch by R/B Metz
(2022, Unnamed Press)

Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera
(2022, Ballantine Books)

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman
(2022, Flatiron Books)

Borderless by Namrata Poddar
(2022, 7.13 Books)

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
(2022, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
(2022, Ballantine Books)

Our favorite prose of the year with highlights by Angie Cruz, Naima Coster, Dawn Lundy Martin, Patricia Engel, Idra Novey, Daisy Hernández, Stephanie Jimenez, and Carolina De Robertis.

22/09/2022

"Humor is one of our best survival mechanisms given the compound crises our children are inheriting... It was important to me to solicit work predominantly from women of color whose traditions and legacies of historical survival allow for registers beyond anxiety. When your ancestors have survived enslavement, for example, Jim Crow, incarceration, internment, civil war, or other seemingly insurmountable odds, the climate crisis does not appear to be the first existential threat." – Emily Raboteau , co-editor of the Aster(ix) climate issue

"What drew me the most to these pieces were how the children were the loudest and most honest archivists of our times. There’s so much care and catharsis on the page. The title MOTHERS UNEARTHED perfectly sums up the movement of the pieces: they’re urgent, require an intense amount of excavation, and provoke the readers so keep digging... It’s some dark, funny, honest work." - Tanya Shirazi Galvez, co-editor of the Aster(ix) climate issue

MOTHERS UNEARTHED features work by Nimmi Gowrinathan, Belle Boggs, January Gill O'Neil, Chika Unigwe, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Deesha Philyaw, Sujatha Fernandes, Stacy Parker Le Melle, Kianny N. Antigua , Claire Boyles, Emily Stone Barton, Carolyn Ferrell, and Vanessa Mártir.



Read more and order the print issue today! Plus, don't forget to RSVP for our virtual launch event tonight with Angie Cruz & Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria! More info and links here: https://asterixjournal.com/mothers-unearthed/

21/09/2022

Join us for a virtual launch tomorrow night of our brand new issue, MOTHERS UNEARTHED!

The event will be moderated by the issue's co-editors, Emily Raboteau and Tanya Shirazi Galvez; introduction from Angie Cruz; hosted by our lovely friends at Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria. Hear from some of the issue's contributors: Sujatha Fernandes, Stacy Parker Le Melle, Kianny N. Antigua, Claire Boyles, Carolyn Ferrell, Vanessa Mártir, and Emily Barton.

MOTHERS UNEARTHED also features work by Deesha Philyaw, Chika Unigwe, Nimmi Gowrinathan, January Gill O'Neil, Belle Boggs, and Marie Myung-Ok Lee.



More info on the issue (include where to order a print issue and what you can read online for free right now!) & RSVP here:

Get tickets and support Word Up Community Bookshop / Librería Comunitaria by becoming a member

03/06/2022

Ayşe Papatya Bucak introduces THE FICTION ISSUE: "I think sometimes writers conflate short stories with small stories. Stories have to be focused and quick, critics seem to suggest. But what I love about short stories is just how big they can be within a small space. How they can implicate everybody while being about somebody. The stories in this issue of Aster(ix) are big stories told in small spaces, by writers from all over the world."

The entire issue is now available to read online for free, and is also available to purchase in print.

PS: Aster(ix) is going on summer hiatus. We're finishing up our forthcoming CLIMATE issue. Stay tuned, and we'll talk in September!

An introduction to THE FICTION ISSUE featuring women and BIPOC writers from around the world, guest-edited by Ayşe Papatya Bucak and Ivelisse Rodriguez.

27/05/2022

"You say to me, ‘Oh my gosh, Prisca, you’re such a lifesaver!’ But one small month afterwards, Madam, you forget all the lifesaving I did by lying on you to Bana Musebo, and dress me in that dirty name: thief." In LAST-LAST RESIGNATION, Mubanga Kalimamukwento shares a brilliant short story of secrets, classism, language, and more in the FICTION ISSUE: https://asterixjournal.com/last-last-resignation/

1st March 2017 Lusaka. Madam, Re: Resignation – Prisca Banda Madam, many months now, you been talking at me, saying, ‘Prisca, you need English if you want to be somebody.’ You say this last word slow, pounding it into three small pieces that come out with your mouth squeezed like this and your...

09/05/2022

"What’s wrong with returning to your obsessions? Isn’t that what makes you who you are?" Artist and Poet Jane Wong shares many brilliant, beautiful, and delicious observations in our new interview. https://asterixjournal.com/janewongconversation/

In conversation with Kiera O'Brien and Amanda Tien, Jane Wong discusses her obsession with eggs, the Asian American writer scene, and failure.

03/05/2022

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we'll embrace any excuse to read more. Here are nine works of exciting fiction, insightful memoir, and captivating poetry, all by contemporary AAPI writers for . https://asterixjournal.com/aapi2022/

Exciting fiction, insightful memoir, and captivating poetry, all by contemporary AAPI writers such as Charles Yu, Ly Tran, Namrata Poddar.

29/04/2022

"After our trial ended and we were each sentenced to 15 years, we came to our senses. Or, more like it, we lost our senses! But what could we do?"

“Duvar (The Wall)” by Sabahattin Ali was originally published in 1936 in the journal Ayda Bir and later reproduced in his second book, Kağnı (1936, Oxcart). Translated for our FICTION ISSUE by Aysel K. Basci.

https://asterixjournal.com/the-wall-in-english-and-turkish-by-sabahattin-ali-translated-by-aysel-k-basci/

For a long time, I stayed in a prison by the sea surrounded by ramparts. The noise of the waters striking those thick walls echoed through our cells, which were made of stone, and invited us to take a long journey.  The seabirds hovering above the ramparts with their wet wings looked at the iron…

20/04/2022

"Literacy is weaponized so often as a means of consolidating power and belonging, making the experience of belonging and connection scarce. Words are used to guide traditions of relating to the planet, and while the planet cannot express in bureaucratic language, the post/neocolonial tradition is to consider the planet an inert inconvenience. Words are tools that can erase the traces of symbiotic codependent relationships among humans, let alone between human and more-than-human beings."

New conversation with Kenyan-Punjabi/Anglo-American multidisciplinary artist, independent scholar, and poet Jhani Randhawa. Debut collection, TIME REGIME, out now from Gaudy Boy and Singapore Unbound.

https://asterixjournal.com/jhanirandhawa-conversation/

"Poetry, language, feels like a practice—a study—of relation. For me, ecology is the root of all relation." Jhani Randhawa and Amanda Tien discuss.

22/02/2022

"What you hold in your hands is the world; these stories allow us to traverse countries and continents, dive into familial love or love woes, and yearn for and arrive at freedom. And that is your best thing."
- Ivelisse Rodriguez, co-editor of THE ISSUE, writes in "Dear Short Story"

https://asterixjournal.com/letters-from-the-fiction-editors-dear-short-story/

It’s for you to step out of the novel’s shadow. You don’t need to stand next to anybody who takes all your shine. You have your own spotlight to bloom under that is not predicated on comparison but is predicated on your sole existence. People like to create drama: or ...

04/02/2022

"Look, hands are singing now / & making boardwalks out of / borders, you’ve built with / your mouth; healing / the wounds of your ears / will you learn to listen now?" A poem by Lydia Flores

Editor’s Note:
“Lydia Flores brings to her poems a spiritual luminosity reminiscent of Adelia Prado and Sarah Arvio. There is a tremendous boldness of spirit and urgency in her poems. Even after losing her home in a fire, stuck in a homeless shelter, Lydia keeps on writing poetry with all her being. With two other poet friends of Lydia’s, Omotara James and Sarah Kaplan Gould, we created a GoFundMe to help Lydia recover from the fire and resume her life.” – Idra Novey, Contributing Editor to Aster(ix)

https://asterixjournal.com/remedios-lydia-flores/

16/12/2021

A sort-of before we take our winter break: our 2021 Nominations! The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, holds Highest Honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in their annual collections.

Our nominations in:

- "Today I Will Bake a Cake" by Layhannara Tep
- "Your Daughter Refashions the Flag into a Crop Top" by Rosa Alcalá
- "Time Wave" by Racquel Goodinson
- "Snap This Photo of Two Good Men" by Catalina Bartlett


- "Tell me all the things you’ve missed" by Natalia Torres
- “Everything is Temporary” by Nicole Callihan

https://asterixjournal.com/pushcart2021/

Every year, Aster(ix) readers and editors review our pieces from the year, and nominate some of our best work for the annual prestigious Pushcart Prize.

08/12/2021

Cecilia Vicuña, Chilean artist-poet-activist, writes simply as an introduction to her work, “My work dwells in the not yet, the future potential of the unformed, where sound, weaving, and language interact to create new meanings.”

Her 1972 “Amaranta” painting was “lost and reborn” when found in 2021. We asked writers to respond to the work as part of our WINTER 2021 In-Residence Project, generating 11 works of and :

6 featuring micro-fictions (in English and in Spanish, all translations by Kianny N. Antigua):

“Awake” by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
“Germinates” by Kianny N. Antigua
“Answer” by Jennifer Croft
“Your Daughter Refashions the Flag into a Crop Top” by Rosa Alcalá
“Unfading” by Nathalie Handal
“Feedback Loop” by Nelly Rosario

5 poems:
"Time Travel" by Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene
"brunch with ama, the teacher & the imp" by Radhiyah Ayobami
"a guitar made of telephone wire" by Alicia Bauman Morales
"Unfading" by Thea Matthews
"Don’t Spread Mustard Seeds On My Grave" by Bushra Rehman

Read them all here: https://asterixjournal.com/amaranta/

Featuring 6 micro-fictions and 5 poems inspired Cecilia Vicuña’s 1972 “Amaranta" which was "lost and reborn" when found in 2021. The Chilean artist-poet-activist writes simply as an introduction to her work, "My work dwells in the not yet, the future potential of the unformed, where sound, weav...

09/04/2021

Those who know me also know that poetry is my first passion. Without it, I couldn’t be a writer.For years, I began every writing day by reading an hour or more of poetry—sometimes randomly, sometimes focusing on the poet(s) I suspected I needed most. An image, a word, an unsettling phrase … po...