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This Zine is a Spaceship is the collaborative publishing effort of John Mortara, writer, and Anna Reser, printmaker. It began as a much smaller personal collaboration, born of similar interests and a mutual appreciation for one another’s work. What it grew into was something far bigger than either of us, that continues to grow every day. Our aim is not only togenerate interest in and provide exposure for young artists and writers, but to utilize the community-building engine of the internet to manifest real change in the real world. We hope to publish as many young artists and writers as we possibly can, and through our growing network of distributors, friends and cohorts, spread the work of these talented young people as far across the globe as we can.

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us in this endeavor, but espcially the artists and writers we have come to know through this amazing project.

Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us.

On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and estroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

- Carl Sagan

when anna contacted me to “collaborate” i really had no idea what the hell we were going to do. i think i was so wrapped up in myself and my own writing and “career” that i was a bit short-sighted at first. i really liked anna’s artwork a ton, even way before i really knew her. so i was completely surprised and flattered that she would ever like my voice and outlook so much to want to work with me. but really, i had no clue what kind of collaboration it would be and i just sat on it for a while. we have never met each other in person. anna’s studying in new mexico and i am working on my creative writing MFA at school in north carolina. i just kind of thought about how awesome that all was. the internet gives us such a fantastic ability to connect with one and another. in an age when everyone talks about the death of print and physical media, we really got to think about the new tools we have. i believe this is just another step in how art and writing evolve. i was thinking so small at first, at the zine’s inception, and it has already become way bigger than the two of us. we appreciate everyone’s excitement and participation and are extremely honored to have you all along on this adventure. i am so very excited to see where we go from here.

john mortarawriting editorjohnisdead.tumblr.com

without anything to go on but being quite taken with john’s poetry as it showed up on my tumblr feed, i popped the question, and all of a sudden we were collaborators. at the time this magazine was born, i was entrenched in a personal re-discovery of the american space program, through my art. john shared my interest, and my rejection for the cynicism offered to enthusiastic young people, to print media, to being at all excited about anything. you have before you only the first issue, and as i take the last steps to ready it for printing, i feel less a sense of completion and finality, than an overwhelming excitement for what lies ahead. it is amazing what we can accomplish together, even though we live in different places and lead different lives. i hope that everyone involved in this endeavor experiences the sense of community john and i are trying to foster with this project. i hope one day john and i will get to meet in the real world, but there’s nothing trivial about our relationshop now. in him, i have found a passionate collaborator, a spectacular poet, and a good friend. my deepest gratitude to john, and everyone who helped make this issue a reality, and who will continue to make this publication as amazing as i think it can be.

anna reserart editorannafeather.tumblr.com

‘BLISS’ART TITLE

by victor romero[info]

[website]

When first asked why he did it he would have no real answer, no

apology, no regret. They would accuse him of being a pervert. They

would call him pathetic. They would grimace at the revelation of his

crime. They would shake their head in shamed acknowledgement of

his existence. The news among his neighbors would vary in scope and

ferocity. Some would speculate that he was going to rape the wife;

others, that he intended to murder the husband. Most would

believe that he was sexually depraved and got off on the entire affair.

Eventually, sex factored into every opinion of him, and they would insist

that he be removed from the neighborhood for fear of what he might do

to them or to their children. Even those who had some vague feeling of

compassion would fall in line with the general opinion of his character.

They would say he was unremarkable. Brown hair, brown eyes,

pale skin that showed promise of a tan but was never in the sunlight

enough to attain one. He shaved every morning and always dressed

in button-down shirts, slacks, wing tips, and ties. The police would

report finding twenty-three ties when they searched his home for

evidence of photography or other keepsakes that were typical in such

cases. He remarked on unremarkable things, like the weather, and the

state of his car, or the cars of those he spoke to. He mowed his lawn

regularly and cleaned the gutters every six months, or more frequently

if the rains had been heavy. He was forty-three years old, owned a

home, earned a good wage, and was in the phase of his life when a

man should have a wife and begin having children. He went on dates

and accepted good-natured ribbing from his married neighbors when

they told him he needed to get himself a family. When questioned

by police and, later, a single reporter from a national magazine they

had never heard of, they would say that he was nice, always agreeable

and in good spirits, but that it did seem strange that he remained

unmarried, as he was a good-looking and successful man by all accounts.

After he was gone his every past deed would be questioned. The

assistance in Mrs. Foster’s garden would become reconnaissance

of the house next door, where the Bellfields and their three young

daughters lived. They would feel ill at the realization that the potato

salad that he brought to the Fourth of July block party could have

been laced with something intended to pacify them and keep them

unaware of his presence. No one knew what he could have been

planning when he joined the Christmas carol troupe that covered every

house in a three-block radius. From then on they would make sure

that their doors were locked, that the curtains and blinds were drawn,

and that all sounds from the outside were immediately investigated.

His former neighbors would read an account in the national

magazine of his life before the arrest, his experience with the

police, and his life afterward. They would become confused by his

reasoning, doubtful of its veracity, and sickened by the

twisted nature of the article. Their opinions of him would remain

unchanged, even when they read of his “lonely upbringing in a

stern household.” They would not care for the passage about him

being “nestled among the bushes outside the living room

window where he found his peace,” nor the “moments of bliss that

for one reason or another eluded him elsewhere.” They would not

understand witnessing “the thrill of the wife’s promotion; the pain of the

husband’s father’s death; the comfort of footsteps from the carpeted

hallway; light from the television on their tired faces; the hum of

the garbage disposal unit in the kitchen; the sense of a complete life

found at last by peering into the window and watching it all unfold.”

Victor Romero didn’t read, write, or love much until recently.He is making up for lost time. Victor writes and confesses at fictionz.tumblr.com.

‘SMIRCH’ART TITLE

by harley foxwall[info]

[website]

The twist over your shoulder,a coffee ring,a sullen stare on theroofof my mouth.Carvings on the tableleg.

Plaster cracks,skin on your fore-head crinkles down my neck ticklingmy sanity, your handstrokingpeeling paper walls.

Video jam,one crease in the bed linenwith jawscurled around the curvesof conversations,between limbs.

Treading on the dark,china in yourtoes, breakfast on the floorlicking milk from the woodwork.Crawling tongue.

Hanginglike laundry on aline you crossed,stitched, weaved,moaned,crumpled on the floor.That’s going to stain.

A 19 year old student who spends time playing piano and writing, Harley Foxwall lives in England and stereotypically likes tea and complaining. Her blog can be found at: fourtanu.tumblr.com

HOME/\LESSart title

by sebastian lubbers[info]

[website]

The dog actively sniffs out the sunlight, curling up in the spotlight of yellow glow and licking his nose at the shadows that accompany him. There’s an anarchy of sunspots in this house that are selective about the windows they choose to pass through, blinding the dog who lies down on the shag carpeting, in the living room, waiting for someone to come by and clip his sleep with the promise of a leash or treat. His furry eyebrows hide his eyes as he dreams of the thunder created by rolling iron against the sedentary iron bloodlines that smile with plank teeth. The smell of hay bale affairs and the idolization of knife fight scars brand us as children of a house where beds are made of dead leaves and Sterno heat replaces any hugs and kisses you may miss.

My home has metal gums and plank teeth.It has a boxcar legacy.

He makes a fence out of loose branches and surrounds the jungle gym in an impenetrable border powered by old, hobo magic. The yellow tube under the slide makes for a good nest, just hide away the holes on either ends with jackets and sweaters, insulating the cylinder of loneliness you never thought you could fit into. The caress of the swing’s black seat is like an arm that would raise you up and carry you around, high above the things that intimidated you until you got older and outgrew them. You wish the slide would take you to the Big Rock Candy Mountains instead of a giant pile of wet dirt, where the rivers of alcohol trickle down the rocks, you can swim in a lake of gin, everyone dresses with a grin and never changes their socks.

My home is a metal enclosure that kids jump off of.It has a scraped knee legacy.

Sebastian Lubbers is a 15 going on 20 year old student enrolled in Clayton State University’s Creative Writing program. He is known for very little but he has been published in Zine Writers Guild and the Hyperborean Literature Review. His blog can be found at: whenwewereheroes.tumblr.com

I do not believe in homes. There are dwellings and there are memories; so far I have never found anything that has woven the two together to build a nest worth forgetting how to fly for. But I am not a bird. I am the earth already exploded. I am the moon; hardened up, crusted over, born from the dust of a nuclear war thousands, and thousands, and thousands of deaths ago.

For I do not measure things by time but by something real like lives lived and lost. My story begins with love; I the moon rolled over and the womb of a woman created a human baby, a place for me to hide in. Emerging into earth I found my skin was still dry and scaly with ashes of extraterrestrial ancestors, with them I grew, with them I walked amongst cities and streets and rooms, I began to measure things with time, I grew old and I forgot from where I had come.

The closest thing I have found to that distant memory is the place between asleep and awake. When my eyes are half opened, glazed over with a membrane of dreams warm and liquid like velvet space, anything is possible and I build houses I have never had. Poetry comes to me with the ding dong rise and fall of adjectives. I am standing on the outside and I am ringing to come in. I have boxed all my intentions inside and the only way I can reach them is through words and letters.

It is alright because I do not believe in homes. I believe we are travellers, we will move through space and time as a never ending series of numbers expanding into infinity. In this forever we will belong, we will be; we are the refugees of beyond.

Isobel Frances-May is 17 years old and lives in Lincoln, England. Her blog can be found at: shimmery.tumblr.com

Refugees of Beyond

Mama, there are wolves in this house. Mama, I hatedwhen you let the motor die in the driveway. Mama,bring me back to when things were like what the moon is like,when we woke up, stiff-eyed and dry-mouthed,sunlight punching holes in our new friends’ skins.Mama, I already miss what I haven’t lost yet, andyou’re an expert on loss, and I am scaredand stuffing myself with memories. I almost forgotthe reckless display of clothes across bunk beds andthe impermanence of joy. I almost forgot that morningwhen we, barefoot and brilliant, reconvened on the terracefor cigarettes. Mama, don’t let home re-ruin me. I wasa snowflake then; I used to be a day planner without a pen.Don’t let me (lass mich nicht vergessen) get swallowedby the teeth in these walls again.

Upon realizing that snow melts and so good things end

A 21-year-old writer with constantly-chipped fingernails and insatiable world hunger, Suzanne Highland lives, works, and goes to school in Tallahassee, Florida. Her blog can be found at: aprettywar.tumblr.com.

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