As the U.S. lurches toward the tail end of 2020 and a referendum to define the next four years (yes, yes, every election is important, but this one has us wanting to snap that “I Voted” sticker into a bicep tattoo), we here at Rabid Oak would like to light the mask-less effigy with these 27 works of phosphorous sulfide and potassium chlorate, these words of strike-anywhere match heads.
May these 18 authors keep you lit through the night, and remember: every story is a ghost story if the verbs appear in past tense.
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Ken Anderson: “Swim at Your Own Risk” and “Haiku Like You”
Jace Einfeldt: “Benihana”
Camille Ferguson: “funeral flowers,” “We Are Nowhere and It’s Now,” and “Molly”
Valerie Frost: “A Tale of Two Births”
Naoise Gale: “Doctor, Doctor”
Sophia Georghiou: “Dinner Party” and “Heathrow is the sexiest airport”
Anita Goveas: “I want, I need”
Rebecca Harrison: “Against the Winds”
Stella Hayes: “Ode to Strunk and White”
Nate Hoil: “Zoot Suit Zombies,” “Feelings Toward Events and Other Experiences,” and “XXXXX”
D.R. James: “Variations in Present Perfect Continuous”
Craig Kittner: “makers of fine labels since 1915,” “that summer it seemed,” and “signal-to-noise ratio”
Courtney LeBlanc: “How to Find Joy During a Pandemic”
Halim Madi: “What song do you listen to when you want to remember a certain time in your life?”
James Miller: “Perry & Joe’s Uranium Sitting Pavilion”
Will Musgrove: “The Animals Among Us”
Carson Pytell: “Regret”
Ajise Vincent: “the search for cadavers of father’s ghost” and “answers”
Rabid Oak 