Child/Chocolate
Kathryn holds an English M.A. from UC Berkeley. Her poems have twice won Honorable Mention in the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, and have twice garnered Special Merit for the Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Prize. Her work appears in The Sun, Atlanta Review, and New Ohio Review, among others. She takes pictures when she’s not hiking and writing. Find her work at http://kathrynjordan.org
Swallow
John M. Blodgett is an editor, reporter, and photojournalist based in Southern Maine. He most recently was an editor at The Boulder Monitor in Boulder, Montana, and has staffed on or contributed to publications that include The Western News, The Press-Enterprise, The Daily Bulletin, The Sun, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Center for Investigative Reporting, Daily Herald, Daily Inter Lake, Utah Business, Utah CEO and City Weekly. Blodgett has a master’s degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. Learn more at johnmblodgett.com.
Gray Zones
Tunnel Vision
Larena Nellies-Ortiz is a freelance photographer from Oakland, California. Her photos have been featured in Sun Magazine, Barren Magazine, Indianapolis Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Local Wolves Magazine, Stonecoast Review, and 3Elements Review. She loves to color, texture and shadow hunt in the early morning hours. You can find her on Instagram @lalifish and at www.larenaortiz.com.
Under Pressure
Teresa Hyoju Chang is a South Korean artist who was born with a love for art, reading, and writing from an early age. Currently a student at Seoul International School, she takes a particular interest in the subjects of history and Spanish, and also participates in the swimming varsity team at school. As someone who always strives to create a medium for self-expression, Teresa loves combining her passion for writing, art, and design to convey a sense of truth. She has showcased her virtuosity by winning the Logo competition held for the 60th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between Israel and Korea. Her major inspirations include shifts or changes in one’s life, as well as the feeling of being directionless and lost.
Emptiness
Seojin Ahn Is a Junior attending Chadwick International School in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea. His art practice is to create photo-based images. He developed and harnessed his skills in photography and the utilization of tools such as Illustrator and Photoshop. Through his ventures beyond the borders of his home country, Korea, he travels abroad to encapsulate moments that depict a profound sense of void. His work reflects the solitude and introspection within the objects or the composition of everyday objects and scenes. His art is also a pursuit of moments that convey emptiness that subtly blends in within our lives, inviting viewers to a space where uneasiness coexists with the feeling of comfort and peace. With the idea that he seeks beauty and narrative within isolation, his work is like a meditation of the spaces that rest between the perceptions of space and solitude through the lenses of his vision. His exploration of the void spaces in our day-to-day lives allows a deeper appreciation for the serene beauty and unsettling tranquility of the “absence within the presence,” making his work a compelling journey into the overlooked emptiness we hold in our lives.
