Quit my newspaper job, cleared my head and right away began scratching out a surprise rash of scattered subliminal claptrap. I don’t plan or draft in pencil first. I blank my mind and get started. If I feel stuck or interrupted by a coherent thought, then I turn on some dry news radio and drop the volume way down until the murmur is barely audible. What results is what results: puerile salvos launched against whatever comes into the mind’s focus that are as surprising to me as they are to anyone else. Maybe the abused scraps of card stock and paper board bear dark globules of subconscious truth that are dying to be interpreted. Or maybe not. My earliest memories include years of disapproval and corporal punishment at the grey hands of the nuns at Saint Anne's Elementary. Seems like any outpouring of monsters, demons and sick jokes -- however delayed -- is probably the most appropriate mutiny against the mean old crones who swatted at me for drawing in class when I should have been listening.

Benjamin Ricker​

Lisa Wells

Matt Conklin