Those brows, like a prayer on her face. I’ll become a tiny thing; I'll walk her brows like a bridge.
Read MoreBeauty Mantras by Jacklyn Janeksela
jacklyn janeksela is a wolf and a raven, a cluster of stars, & a direct descent of the divine feminine. she can be found @ Thought Catalog, Luna Magazine, Talking Book, DumDum Magazine, Visceral Brooklyn, Anti-Heroin Chic, Public Pool, Reality Hands, The Feminist Wire, Word For/Word, Pank, Split Lip; Civil Coping Mechanism anthology A Shadow Map & Outpost Rooted anthology; & elsewhere. she is in a post-punk band called the velblouds. her baby @ femalefilet. she is an energy. find her @ hermetic hare for herbal astrological readings.
Read MoreFavorites of 2016: Poetry, Lit Journals, Magazines & More
BY LISA MARIE BASILE
There is no real way to round up all the amazing work that has been birthed in 2016. There is too much good, too much power, too much beauty. Instead, here are the books and publications I have come back to time and again this year.
Favorite poetry collections:
Night — Etel Adnan
Chelate — Jay Besemer
The Performance of Becoming Human — Daniel Borzutzky
Flowers Among the Carrion — James Pate
My country, tonight — Josué Guébo
Take This Stallion by Anaïs Duplan
When the Ghosts Come Ashore — Jacqui Germain
Andes — by Tomaž Šalamun, trans. Jeffrey Young & Katarina Vladimirov Young
Six — Julie Marie Wade
Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
The Hermit — Lucy Ives
Sad Girl Poems — Christopher Soto
Favorite literary presses, journals and publishers:
The Atlas Review
Tarpaulin Sky
Sibling Rivalry
Timeless, Infinite Light
Black Ocean
Lit Hub
Volume 1 Brooklyn
Witch Craft Magazine
Electric Lit
Switchback Books
Favorite reads:
The Establishment
Slutist
Ultra Culture
Broadly
Autostraddle
A Woman’s Thing
WEIRD SISTER
The Offing
Witch Craft Magazine
Queen Mob’s Teahouse
Quail Bell Magazine
Sabat Magazine
Bloodmilk Jewelry
Feminine Inquiry
For Harriet
St. Sucia
The Numinous
Dirge Magazine
Lumen Magazine
Blavity
Berfrois
Favorite magical reading twitter accounts:
@AstroPoets
@guerrillafem
@cultofweird
@DeathSalon
@deadmaidens
@mask_mag
@TheSilentMother
Lisa Marie Basile is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and moderator of its digital community. Her work has appeared in The Establishment, Bustle, Bust, Hello Giggles, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is also the author of three poetry collections, including Apocryphal from Noctuary Press. She holds an MFA from The New School. @lisamariebasile
Magick Mirror: A Few Places You'll Find Fairy Tale Fashion Relics
...a feverish quest for youth and beauty.
Read MoreBeautiful Resistance: A Tiny Altar for Mia Barraza Martinez
She always looked for beauty. She looked for beauty everywhere.
Read MoreYes, You Should Be Scared for Your Son — On Body Autonomy & Consent
How do we define sex when one partner is risking her health, her life, and her future for the enjoyment of the other?
Read MoreThe Love Witch is the Kitschy, Hedonistic, Feminist Film You Need to See
BY KAILEY TEDESCO
*Please note that there are some scene descriptions here, which may constitute a spoiler for some.
I found out about The Love Witch nearly a year ago. It all started with a still of Elaine Parks’ heavily shadowed eyelids and a tea dress with ruffles too glorious for words. The still became a fascination which led me to interviews with the film’s feminist auteur, Anna Biller, which eventually led me to a trailer, then back to some interviews, and so on for about nine months. It took until just yesterday for the movie to come to one of my city’s indie theaters. Usually, and in my personal experiences, a build-up of anticipation that long often results in disappointment. I remember thinking several times that this 1960’s B-Horror pastiche could not possibly live up to the hype which I, myself, have ascribed to it.
Well, dear readers, let me tell you it was worth every moment of the wait.
The film follows Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson), a newly inducted yet gifted, member of a Wiccan coven who is quixotically obsessed (or, in her own words, “addicted) to love. After suffering years of gaslighting and emotional abuse in a previous marriage, Elaine is quickly scouted by a coven while dancing in a burlesque nightclub. From there, she quickly learns to transmogrify “sex magic” into “love magic,” but ultimately leaves each of her dalliances for dead.
The Love Witch is an open allegory with a feminist agenda. While the film’s aesthetic and score set the viewer up for the typical supernatural tropes of 1960’s technicolor horror, we are instead greeted with a more realistic sense of witches which somehow opposes and aligns with our own world’s cultural conceptions. This is because the “witch” is ostensibly equated to a sexually liberated woman, and the townspeople treat Elaine and her coven members as such. In a scene where Elaine meets up with her friend and coven member Barbara at a Burlesque show, men can be heard having discussions about how witches used to hide, but now they seem ubiquitous in society. The attitude towards witches and Wicca is mostly one of bigoted tolerance — as though witches have been publicly granted rights that the anti-intellectualist bar-dwellers can’t override, despite their disdain (sounds familiar, right?)
And the allegory grows stronger.
Elaine herself, after losing weight and gaining empowerment after her husband “leaves,” willingly codifies herself according to the male-fantasy. In the beginning of the film, she sits down to tea with Trish, a self-proclaimed feminist who has been married for ten years. After hearing that Trish will often refuse her husband of some of his fantasies, Elaine scolds that women should always give men what they want. And this is exactly what she does… or so it would seem.
Throughout the film, Elaine creates a world for herself that is heavily influenced by male-perpetuated ideas of femininity, ultimately masking herself in layers of Bardot-esque eyeliner and Audrey Hepburn LBDs. She is often cooking decadent cakes or donning renaissance gowns while riding horseback. She speaks politely and is never seen without make-up. When it comes time for intimacy, she seduces her lovers with elaborate dances in intricate lingerie. She makes herself, essentially, the embodiment of male fantasy. However, she is not quite the Stepford Wife that one might think.
She uses her beauty and sexuality as a bait for men who describe themselves as libertines or unhappily married, aka sexists. From the start of the film, she can be seen batting her eyes in what one initially assumes might be a call-back to the Bewitched nose-wrinkle. Yet, these two are largely dissimilar as Elaine is not using magic at all, simply her own sexual prowess. The men she baits are already ignobly piqued by her as they often catcall and grope. She invites herself into their lives, feeds them a philter, and suddenly they become madly (in every sense of the word) in love. What begins as a dalliance quickly turns into a literal sickness that causes these men to become hysterical with love to the point of death.
The hysterics are played for laughs and ultimately reminiscent of the ways in which women have been misogynistically portrayed in film for the past century. Elaine has none of it, immediately becoming disinterested in her own subjects and proclaiming “what a pussy.” She buries the body of one lover ritualistically, yet ultimately remains un-phased. To top it off, she places a witch bottle containing her own urine and a used tampon over the shallow grave. Her Kardashian dead-pan narration asks viewers to consider that most men have never even seen a used tampon. What she calls an addiction to love is evidently an addiction to power. Elaine exemplifies the culturally normative ideas of masculine aloofness while patronizing her dying lovers in her ruffled mini-dresses.
Anna Biller flips the typified romantic narrative while also giving the protagonist her cake and letting her eat it, too (quite literally). Elaine hedonistically enjoys all of the pleasures associated with sexist romanticism without letting the male stick around long enough for her to suffer the consequences. She flits from man to man like this in perfectly polished composure while her own paintings of liberated goddesses cutting the heart out of a man line the walls of her bedroom a la Dorian Gray. She has polarity and unity of her being, and all of her empowerment lies in her willingness to appear submissive.
Biller constructs this narrative through a carefully cultivated 60’s lens that sometimes alludes to even older Hollywood, yet the inclusion of a smart-phone at the end grounds the viewer in a phantasmagorical contemporary. The film is a world that already exists. Kubrick and Ashby and Argento are all carefully woven into it. Yet, it is not their world. Nor is it Tate’s or Hepburn’s. It is all Biller’s – a world which re-writes over a century of misogyny with one unapologetically empowered witch.
And it is fantastic. Please see it for yourself.
Kailey Tedesco is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical. She received her MFA in creative writing from Arcadia University. She’s a dreamer who believes in ghosts and mermaids. You can find her work in FLAPPERHOUSE, Menacing Hedge, Crack the Spine, and more. For more information, visit kaileytedesco.com.
The Alice Aesthetic & What It Actually Is
I can recall a kaleidoscope of Alice.
Read MoreHow to Honor Her Body When She Menstruates
Don’t ask a woman to not talk about her period...
Read MoreThe Utah Vote: Why It Matters That Mormons Went For Trump
Political commentator/comedian Bill Maher may have been right when he announced, about a month or so before the election, on his show Real Time with Bill Maher, that the Republican Party can no longer consider itself the "Socially Conservative Party." Republican candidate and, now, President-elect Donald Trump has been caught on tape agreeing with Howard Stern that his own daughter Ivanka is a "Piece of ass," has been quoted saying that pregnancy is an "inconvenience" and, finally, was recorded in 2005 bragging about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it because, as he put it, "When you’re a star they let you do it." It strikes me as a contradiction that, despite all the evidence excluding Trump from the socially conservative category, 88 percent of evangelical voters, notorious value voters, backed him as their nominee.
Read MoreWhy You and I Still Need Feminism: A Partial List of Reasons
BY CESCA WATERFIELD
Those who speak loudest against feminism usually offer an opinion festering in ignorance and oozing misinformation. Feminism does not demand special rights. Feminism demands equal political, economic, and social rights.
1. You and I need feminism because women still earn 79 cents for each dollar men earn, even taking into account education level, even when they’re in the same job, and across industries. In pink collar jobs traditionally dominated by women, women earn less than men. In jobs traditionally held by men, women earn less there too. That is a pay gap of 21 percent. Considering that women are more likely to be single parents, it’s clear that implications of such a pay gap are exponentially harmful to society and especially to the poor and working classes. Equal employment opportunities are meaningless if women can’t fairly earn for their labor. The pay gap is an injustice that hits women in daily, practical, hand-to-mouth ways, and because of the pay gap, you and I need feminism.
2. In Britain in 1918, women were granted the right to vote, but many stipulations were placed on them to ensure that women voters never outnumbered male voters. In that country, it took a decade longer for equitable voting rights. In the U.S., women were granted the vote in 1920. Currently, women comprise more than half the population, and in all demographics, women vote at higher rates than men. We need feminism because in spite of these facts, women still hold fewer than 20 percent of seats in Congress. Not surprisingly, then …
3. We need feminism because women’s bodies are still legislated and controlled. From long before the force-feeding of suffragettes; to the ease with which we pass judgment on or confront a pregnant woman drinking coffee or smoking a cigarette; to 2012 when Virginia Republican leaders sought a law that required a “transvaginal” ultrasound in abortion procedures; to Donald Trump’s avowal to “punish” women seeking abortion; to sweeping closures of health clinics in wide swaths of the country that already rank as the poorest and least educated, women do not have bodily autonomy, or equitable access to reasonable health care. President-elect Trump plans to appoint activist judges to the Supreme Court, and said last year, “I’m pro-life, the judges will be pro-life.” This plan defies the Constitutionally endowed “right to privacy” protected by the 14th Amendment on which Roe v. Wade was decided 44 years ago. It also invokes a strategy that conservatives have long decried as wrong, that of appointing judges who will bring their politics to the bench instead of interpreting the Constitution with traditional intent and public value. Growing obstacles to reasonable care impact all women, but most perniciously, the poor and working classes. And it follows …
4. You and I need feminism because the frequency of assault and murder of women in this nation alone does not elicit an equivocal movement to address it. In the United States since 9/11, more women have been murdered by domestic partners than all the Americans who were killed on 9/11, and Afghanistan and Iraq combined. That statistic has been analyzed, accounted for, and shown as statistically sound. Where is the outrage? There is more controversy over a football player who chooses to sit during the national anthem than there is interest in why the cultural trend of the murder of female American citizens is acceptable. Moreover, when women are assaulted, they are often blamed. In sexual assault, it often results in “slut shaming.” Anecdotal evidence: In 2005, when the man from whom I briefly rented a room in Richmond murdered a teen girl and dumped her body in rural Virginia, people approached me repeatedly to ask, “Why was she there with him? What was wrong with her?” In related news …
5. We still need feminism because our culture places the onus of blame on women who are attacked, raped, catcalled, etc., instead of brokering discussions about such ingrained aggression and the objectification inherent in these behaviors. Indifference to these behaviors exists on a continuum of violent acts and we need feminism. Need evidence? Here are a few examples.
6. We need feminism because Female Genital Mutilation is practiced in 29 countries. More than 200,000 million women now living in 30 countries have survived FGM, which is the barbaric act of cutting off a girl’s external genitals. It has no health benefits to her, it has numerous dangers, it complicates childbirth, and it is done solely to control her sexuality. Specifically, it is done to deny her any sexual pleasure in her life. It is practiced on girls as young as five months old.
7. We need feminism because heterosexual male pleasure is still presented pervasively across media as “universal sexuality.” Mainstream film ratings can receive a higher explicit rating simply for a scene that depicts a woman taking “excessive pleasure” in sex. Women are generally placed in an impossible role that demands she enjoy this limited and exclusionary “universal sexuality,” but not too much, lest she be shamed outright and in pernicious and insidious judgment. We need feminism to empower women to create their own sexual identity and make their own discoveries.
8. We need feminism because more than 120 countries have not passed laws against spousal rape. As of 2014, the most recent data I found, eight states in the U.S. offer exemptions in certain cases of spousal rape.
9. We need feminism because child marriage is still practiced in many countries. Even in countries that outlaw child marriage in their civic code, when the state recognizes Sharia law, it overrides civic law, and those nations comprise the world’s top five practitioners of child marriage. Child brides are not likely to receive education and they are at greater risk of partner violence and sexual abuse. The leading cause worldwide of deaths of girls 15-19 is pregnancy complications and childbirth. Child brides are at greater risk of contracting HIV. In sub-saharan Africa, girls ages 15 - 19 are 2 to 6 times more likely to contract HIV than boys their age.
10. We need feminism because in several countries, including but not limited to Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iran, Pakistan, and Colombia, acid attacks are on the rise resulting in a woman’s permanent disfigurement, usually for “crimes” like going to college or seeking divorce. We need feminism because female infanticide is still practiced in some countries worldwide because of the “low status” of females, and it results in millions of fewer girls than males. (You must have a strong constitution to view these images. If you have a strong constitution, Google “breast ironing,” “honor killing,” “dowry death,” and more.).
11. This is only a partial list. We need feminism because women’s rights are human rights. Anyone who professes to caring about human rights should have clear understanding of the need for feminism, regardless of whether he has a sister, wife, daughter, etc. to relate the cause to him. Women are human.
Cesca Waterfield is a third-year candidate in the MFA/MA program at McNeese State University. She is a vocalist and songwriter with two EPs and one full length recording available on iTunes. Her graphic memoir, “The First Time She Strayed” is forthcoming in the spring of 2017 from Vulgar Marsala Press. She loves classical ballet and the Radical Brownies.
An Election-Day Reminder That You Are *Literally* Making History Right Now
BY LISA MARIE BASILE
When my grandmother was young, she emigrated to the United States from Sicily, where she was surrounded by the squadristi, or Blackshirts. She came from a place where beautiful lemon trees pocked the land but poverty was real and oppressive. Speaking no English, she made her way to America's East Coast and eventually joined the Women's Army Corp as an X-Ray technician. I can't imagine how difficult that may have been, but I do know that my grandmother had a choice. And she chose to come to America. And she took advantage of it.
Likely because of the extreme prejudice Sicilians faced at the time, she felt it pertinent to change her name - from Concetta Maria to Mary, to adjust to American customs, to become part of the whole, to be less...Sicilian. But despite all of this, she was after opportunity, a new life, freedom. It's the sentimental story we hear time and again about America and its open arms.
I think of the many today who would like to come here but cannot. And the many who, as law-abiding, good people, come here to face struggle and assimilation shame and prejudice and deportation. I think of how we could, tonight, potentially see a man in power who would truly further thwart that opportunity and shirk the very idea of unity and acceptance. Who could even further destroy what America was supposed to stand for.
As an American with a great deal of family and friends from different countries, I have had the pleasure to travel and experience many other cultures. I have always been welcomed and embraced. But when I think on the way we treat certain foreigners — and the way we treat our own people — it is a devastating blow. It is appalling. And today — literally today, November 8 — we are living in a time in which many people think it's perfectly okay to say we should ban peaceful Muslim individuals from entering, to say we should build a wall against Mexico, that it's okay to behave as if women are objects, where it's reasonable to be embraced by the KKK.
Thinking back on my grandmother's life (and the lives of millions of others), I am certain that what this country wants to stand for, is, at the very least, opportunity and diversity. This, I think, is the real American dream. But it doesn't seem to be a reality. From colonialism to Donald Trump, hatred has been on tap since the get-go. It seems we really are divided. It seems the American Dream is only available to the privileged, to the predisposed, to the hard workers who were born in the right skin color, with the right sexuality or religion. It feels like an illusion. And for many, it seems that this is the right way to function.
In one day, we vacillate back and forth — we go from feeling nauseated by reality to existentially energized by hope for the future. We have been on a roller coaster for almost a year. And it's not stopping anytime soon.
But I want to remind people that today we came together and voted for our future in one of the most important elections in modern American history.
Supporters of Hillary and protesters against Trump: We worked hard, didn't we? We really, really tried. We rallied. We shared our stories and created million+ member Facebook groups and took sticker selfies and asked our family to register and vote. We made it known that bigotry and hatred is not okay. We are a wild engine of hard work and resilience, despite being objectified and hurt via media and Donald Trump. Lots of us tried. We had opposition — from Trump supporters, from our own kind, from third-party supporters, from our own families and our own cognitive dissonance. Many of us didn't like our choices. But we still fought for the future and for what is decent. Conviction was not in short supply.
And while we know that no candidate is perfect, today we got to do what we have never ever done before: we voted for a woman — for President of the United States. We got to say no to the man who wants to build physical and metaphorical borders. We did that.
Through all of the madness and frustration and endless, grating, painful Facebook debates — and through all of the traumatizing rhetoric we've heard coming from a presidential nominee — we have still managed to get to an important place. It should seem like just another day, because in other parts of the world, women are already leaders. It should seem like no big deal. But it is a big deal. It's a big deal and we are witnessing it.
96 years ago, women got the right to vote. That means it took 96 years to see a woman on a Presidential ballot. And that's why taking a moment to appreciate this day is so important — to remember that, even though change occurs at a sloth's horrible pace, it is happening. It is a fight that will continue years and years after Hillary Clinton (assuming she wins) leaves office. And many of you pushed for it.
But we know the racism, sexism and division in this country isn't over. We know it all so well by now. It's loud and clear and in the streets and you can taste it. We know it's not stopping tomorrow. Which is why we're going to keep pushing for change. Like we did during this election season.
Take a moment to remember how hard you worked to support your values and beliefs, even if you don't support Hillary. And especially if you do.
Lisa Marie Basile is a NYC-based poet, editor, and writer. She's the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine, and her work has appeared in The Establishment, Bustle, Bust, Hello Giggles, The Gloss, xoJane, Good Housekeeping and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is the author of Apocryphal (Noctuary Press). Visit her at www.twitter.com/lisamariebasile.
Halloween Wishes — From Luna Luna
BY LISA MARIE BASILE
Happy Halloween, dear readers! Our little digital coven hopes you have a magical evening.
Halloween completely embodies Luna Luna's vision — we love when the dark mixes with the light, when the veils come undone. On this day, we're vulnerable and curious and empowered by the night. And on this day, we are free to practice magic without a second glance. But really, we're making magic all year — witchcraft isn't always lavender and candles and alters. Sometimes it's being a strong woman without apologies. Sometimes it's manifesting so hard that reality changes.
The witch has always been such powerful symbol for me. Right now, she's a popular figure...and that's great. But she's eternal, regardless of trend or clever PR. For me — and probably for a lot of us — she's a symbol of strength, resilience and autonomy. Being a witch means honoring the women (either witches or just everyday women) who had no choice but to admit their "sins" or die refusing to lie. This is powerful and haunting. We should never forget that women throughout the world have been prosecuted for what essentially boils down to men/society's fears of what is different or strange or powerful. I embrace the label because I *do* live in world where I have a choice and because I live by the teachings of powerful, magical women who manifest their dreams.
And I am consistently inspired by the amazing people who write and edit for Luna Luna. It's magical, and we invite you into our coven....
We hope you have a safe and spectacularly spooky Halloween night. We love you!
Femmequerade: The Witch Ball Recap
BY LIZ VON KLEMPERER with PHOTOS BY LEAH BANK
On October 25, Greenpoint’s Good Room was transformed into a femme haven for the second Femmequerade Ball. The mission of the gathering was to both rally against toxic masculinity and honor the divine feminine through music, dance and revelry. In keeping with this philosophy, admission fee was $18 for cis straight white men, and $15 for everyone else.
By 8 p.m. a smog machine puffed ample smoke onto the dance floor, which was illuminated by a glittering disco ball. Pointed witch hats bobbed in the throng as femmes swayed together. Organizers Raechel Rosen and Coral Foxworth flitted around the room, setting the tone by lighting incense and candles.
“Everything came together around the full moon,” Foxworth, also known as FXWRK, says of the planning process. The success of first Femmequerade Ball, which was held on August 18, attracted artists such as Anna Wise, Latasha Alcindor, and more to join forces for the second installment.
Raechel Rosen, who doubles as the lead singer and keytarist of her band Mima Good, got on stage after Yatta Zoker. Raechel beckoned for the crowd to come closer, and began to sing her witchy brand of rock and roll. Her final song, American Finger Trap, featured her signature onstage move: slowly peeling a banana and circumcising it with a pair of scissors. Much of Rosen’s artistic practice is dedicated to combatting rape culture and empowering survivors by through voicing trauma.
“Politically I think it’s fucked up the way that we’re taught to deal with sexual assault in our culture,” Rosen explains. “The victim has this secret to bear. She has to go be in support groups, get therapy and deal with PTSD. People treat it like you’ve caught this sickness and you can’t say who gave it to you. It’s as though it’s your personal secret, where in reality it’s the secret of the assaulter.”
Attendees seeking a brief respite from the high-energy dance floor could dip into Greenroom’s second smaller room. The space was occupied by Catland, a Brooklyn bookstore which supplies spiritual goods such as candles and crystals. Books about the occult were for sale, along with other memorabilia. Catland practitioners were also available to give tarot readings.
Next Latasha Alcindor, also known as L.A., took the stage. She began with a ritual in which she splashed water around the stage and then launched into a spoken word piece about the power of witchcraft and her Caribbean heritage. L.A.’s last song was about her neighborhood, and the all too prevalent phenomenon of gentrification.
“I’ve never played this in front of anyone before,” she confessed to the audience.
“To be honest, it feels odd to sing this song in front of a group of white people. But it’s important, so I’m going to do it.”
The rap was raw and authentic. L.A.’s face knit with a palpable anguish as she sang about the displacement her hometown has had to face. The crowd erupted in applause.
Headliner Anna Wise prefaced her performance by affirming the intention of the event.
“I’m all about this cause,” she said, addressing the crowd.
“This period of time is marked by the uprising of the oppressed,” she continued. “That includes femmes, and it also includes racial minorities.”
Wise’s awareness is in part influenced by her experience working with Kendrick Lamar on his latest album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which she described as one of the most pro black albums of 2015. Wise then launched into her hit songs BitchSlut and Precious Posession. During her last song she hopped off the stage and danced amongst the crowd.
The DJs that spun after the live music portion of the event included FXWRK, DJ Dylan Sparkle, Abyss X and WWIII.
What can we expect of the next Femmequerade? The goal for the series, Foxworth says, is to, “create a space to imagine interaction outside of previous oppressive contexts. It’s also a place to play, because play is a really important and underutilized aspect of social change and activism. That’s why we dressed up. It’s a ball, it’s a spectacle, it’s tapping into an almost childlike energy in all of us, and I think that’s the kind of energy we need to heal.”
Liz Von Klemperer is the author of the unpublished novel Human Eclipse. Liz is a staff writer for Art Report, and has work featured in Autostraddle, Bust, Electric Literature, Luna Luna Mag, Hooligan Mag, and Breadcrumbs Mag. Visit her at lizvk.com.
Leah Bank is a Brooklyn based photographer, possibly from Mars, who enjoys late night cupcake baking and climbing rocks. She has work featured in BUST Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, and American Photography. Find her at www.leahbank.com.
Get Out & Vote — How Many Have Died For This Right?
It was several years later I learnt black South Africans didn’t get their right to vote till 1994. I remember seeing photos on TV, photos of people lining for up to twelve hours at times to cast their ballots, a first for many, an experience Joyce’s parents never got to have. Imagine, that in 1994, the rest of us were watching Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction. This was not that long ago.
Read More