August 2011

Amidst a spell of stifling heat along the shores of Lake Michigan, Ryan and I are pleased to swab our sweating brows and share our 31st issue with you. Our August offering features new work by Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine, a new manifesto by Elaine Sexton, and the final installment of Alan Drew’s novella, In the News. This month also finds us streaming an album and exclusive studio session from the very gifted and intensely passionate Oklahoman songwriter Samantha Crain, an interview on mortality and music with Starfucker frontman Joshua Hodges, along with much, much more.

Benjamin Evans
Executive Editor, Fogged Clarity

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• Alan DrewAlan Drew‘s first novel, Gardens of Water, was published by Random House in 2008. To date, it has been translated into eleven languages and published in eighteen countries. In 2004, he completed a master of fine arts degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was awarded a Teaching/Writing Fellowship. He lives with his wife and two kids in Philadelphia, and teaches fiction writing at Villanova University. He is hard at work on a second novel. In the News (Part 4 of 4)
• Ashleigh EisingerAshleigh Eisinger is in her second year of creative writing PhD study at the University of Houston. Weight

• Brendan ConstantineBrendan Constantine is a poet living and teaching in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, The Los Angeles Review, The Cortland Review, RUNES, and The Underground Guide to Los Angeles. His collection, Letters To Guns, was published by Red Hen Press in 2009. The Ultra Sound
• The Dark Crowd
• Elaine SextonElaine Sexton‘s poems, art and book reviews have appeared in publications as wide-ranging as American Poetry Review, Art in America, Oprah Magazine, Pleiades, Poetry and The Massachusetts Review. Her two books, collections of poetry, are Sleuth (2003), and Causeway (2008), both released by New Issues (Western Michigan University). Poetry & Smoke: A Manifesto
• Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr.Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr. is a Communications Officer in the Middle East and author of A Fistful of Moonbeams, his first poetry chapbook published by Kilmog Press in April 2010. Although foremost a poet, he is also a fictionist, an essayist and a playwright. Somoza hails from Siquijor Island in the Philippines. His writing has been widely published in his home country (Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphics, Ateneo University Press, Cultural Center of the Philippines, etc.) and internationally (Moria Poetry, Troubador 21, Gloom Cupboard, Haggard & Halloo, Barnwood International, etc.). He received a degree in Bachelor of Mass Communication from the University of the City of Manila and masteral units in Creative Writing from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.Miss May’s Predicament
• Ode To This My Undead 2
• Donal MahoneyDonal Mahoney has had poems published in print and online publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. His most recent appearance is in the current edition of The Moronic Ox Literary and Cultural Journal. Whole and Steaming
• Marc PetersenMarc Petersen is a poet and photographer living in Santa Clara, CA. His work has appeared in Narrative, The Nebraska Review, The Georgia Review, The Sun, and elsewhere. What You Remember

• Andre KohnAndre Kohn‘s work is represented by premier galleries in the United States and he is a regular contributor to invitational exhibitions. Kohn is a frequent subject of highly regarded art publications, and his unique ability to communicate the expressiveness of the human form has kept him a mainstay of private, corporate and permanent museum collections worldwide. Paintings
• Lou RosLou Ros is an artist living and working in Paris. Faces
• JKB FletcherJKB Fletcher is a fine artist from Redditch UK, now living and working in Melbourne, Australia. In The Flesh

• Samantha CrainSamantha Crain is a singer and songwriter from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Since 2006, Crain has released three albums: The Confiscation EP, Songs in the Night, and You (Understood). Her music has been featured on NPR, and she has toured with the likes of The Avett Brothers, Kaki King, and Ben Kweller, among others. You (Understood)
• The Fogged Clarity Session

• Joshua HodgesJoshua Hodges is the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland band Starfucker. Since 2008, his band has released 3 EPs and 2 full-length albums, including their most recent, Reptilians. Starfucker’s lead singer talks death and music
• Samantha CrainSamantha Crain is a singer and songwriter from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Since 2006, Crain has released three albums: The Confiscation EP, Songs in the Night, and You (Understood). Her music has been featured on NPR, and she has toured with the likes of The Avett Brothers, Kaki King, and Ben Kweller, among others. discusses literature, Oklahoma, and touring

• Scott HightowerScott Hightower is a poet living with one foot in New York City, one in Texas, and one in Madrid. His third collection, Part of the Bargain, received the 2004 Hayden Carruth Award. His translations from Spanish have garnered him a Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. He teaches at NYU, and has taught poetry, non-fiction, and translation at Drew, F.I.T., Fordham, and Poets House.Michael Walsh’s “The Dirt Riddles”
• Sam WoodworthSam Woodworth is a writer and musician living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With the band Woodworkings, he recently toured the Midwest, Toronto, and the Northeastern United States.The anthology: “American Tensions”