2018 Highlights: Reader Favorites

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

In the past year (from 2017-2018), readers have returned over and over to certain articles, essays, and poems here at Luna Luna, and we wanted to showcase some of those reader favorites. (To us, everything we publish is our favorite). We also included articles that resonated with our audience in profound ways, like generating a lot of dialogue or those that took part in a larger social conversation. We’ve included pieces by both staff and non-staff, especially those we felt greatly exemplified what Luna Luna aims to be—magical, inclusive, literary, and inspiring.

We are beyond grateful to those of you who have written for us. You make us who we are.

We are also grateful to our loyal team, our dedicated readers (there are nearly 60 percent more of you this year from last!), supporters, and fellow small mag/press editors and contributors for making this community so magical.

Let’s get to it—in no particular order whatsoever:

Dear Jesse, by Andi Talarico

Mexican White Magic by Lucina Stone

Strange Beauty: The Female Body Spectacle in Jodorowsky's, Santa Sangre by Monique Quintana

A Poet I’ve Never Heard Of: Alfonsina Storni by Tiffany Sciacca

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World by Tabitha Blankenbiller

Selections from Omotara James: 2 Poems by Karisma Price

What Being a Caulbearer Means to Me by Kailey Tedesco

A Simple Spell to Summon and Protect Your Personal Power by Minerva Siegel

3 Witchy Books to Jumpstart Your Magical Year by Trista Edwards

Wild Words: How to Get Published & Feel Good About Your Work by Lisa Marie Basile

How to Celebrate & Center the Holidays Around Death by Jacklyn Janeksela

In The Margins As A Sri Lankan Woman, Artist, and Educator by F. Asma Nazim-Starnes

Review of Christina Stoddard’s Chica/Mujer by Nadia Gerassimenko

How I Combat Shaming Comments With Sexy Self Portraits by Laura Delarato

How to be a Duplicitous Woman by Lydia A. Cyrus

Poetry by Jasmine L. Combs

Ten Movies About Witches That Will Terrify and Enchant You by Leza Cantoral

Sarah Chavez on Death Positivity, Grief, & Intersectional Feminism

Rituals to Fully Embrace the Samhain Season by Melissa Madara

Poetry by Dominique Christina

Review of 'The Mixology of Astrology': Cosmic Cocktail Recipes for Every Sign by Trista Edwards

Is It OK To Make Fun Of Instagram Poets? by Lisa Marie Basile

Poetry by Larissa Melo Pienkowski

Body Ritual: 12 Very Real Things I Learned About Chronic Illness by Lisa Marie Basile

Poetry by Cooper Wilhelm

Instagram Accounts By Goth Female and Non-binary POC by Monique Quintana

In Order To Write Poetry, Don't Treat It Like Poetry by Joanna C. Valente

Poetry by Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad 

The Text is my Enemy: Erasing the Patriarchy with Isobel O’Hare by Caitlin Pryor

4 Dreamy Stones To Keep By Your Bedside by Trista Edwards

My Interview With the Vampire: A Xicana Reflects on Claudia Fashion by Monique Quintana

Poetry by Kyle Lopez

Poetry by Fox Frazier-Foley

4 Witchy Podcasts You Need In Your Life by Lisa Marie Basile

6 Transgender & Nonbinary Activists & Artists Changing the World by Joanna C. Valente

This Is How A Witch Is Born by Lisa Marie Basile

Sacred Simplicity: A Few More Easy Witchcraft Ideas by Erin Marie Hall

This Is Why I Don’t Call Myself A Woman Anymore by Joanna C. Valente

Where My Latina Protags At? by Amanda Toledo

Happy reading! From all of us here at Luna Luna, Happy New Years!

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Gabriel Marin Remembers Ned Vizzini

BY GABRIEL MARIN of Consider The Source 

 Editor’s note: This piece contains references to suicide. We want you to know this before reading it.

Ned Vizzini was an incredible writer (read his books!) and mental health advocate whom I knew and adored. It’s painful to publish these words, but we hope this memorial by Gabriel Marin adds to the beautiful life of Ned Vizzini. 

If you or a loved one are in need of support: The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals. Call: 1-800-273-8255. You are loved. — Lisa Marie Basile

—

Gabriel Marin and Ned Vizzini  

This isn’t something I’m used to. I am certainly not a writer; I’m a musician. And I knew my friend Ned as a musician, too. He was the bass player in my first serious band.

More than that, I've never lost a friend who was close to me as Ned was. Losing him happened five years ago now, and I still find myself talking to him or wanting to tell him something—all the time.

All the time.

When someone leaves this world so suddenly, there is just so much that feels unfinished, unresolved. For example, we had made plans to hang when I came home from the tour I was on, just a week after he passed. I think about this all the time: One week more and we would have gotten to see each other. One more week.

He had reached out a few times when I was on tour, but our schedules didn’t connect, so we’d just text one another, promising to make plans to meet up. This is the way things go when you’re an adult, and busy—and yet, you never expect this.

I will never be able to shake the feeling that if we had talked, that something would somehow have been different, that somehow I could have done something.

The grief is complicated and contains many layers.

I still remember it all so clearly: Backstage in Raleigh, just five minutes until show time. I got a call from a friend telling me Ned was gone. He had lost his brave and longtime battle to mental illness.

I totally broke down, called my bass player John over to me, and cried until show time. Somehow, I still played. In the movie version of this reality, I would have played for him—and played amazingly and passionately. But no; I was just numb and lost and got through the set, hiding my emotions during the autograph signing and all the post-show banter.

And then it got very bleak. But I had to work straight through the pain to finish the tour. Even right after his funeral, I was back on the road. And so it felt incomplete, rushed.

It was all a haze.

My grief still exists, five years on, and I miss him tremendously. There are so many reasons why I miss him, and so much that I could say, but I want to focus on some of my earliest memories of Ned, and how he helped shape the person I am today. I want to show you how inspiring he was.

To start, Ned was a bit older then me when we met (which—let’s be honest—as a teenager, this was a big deal). He did all all the cool teenage things before I did: He was dating, he could drive (like a madman), he was writing popular articles for the New York Press, he played a band that was way better than my band. All of this as a teen.

In fact, we laughed for years about how during the first show I ever played, a photograph of him was taken as he stood smirking in the crowd, thinking how much we sucked. We all hated that smirking schmuck in that picture, but we knew he was right. And we loved him for it.

One year later, we played music together; he was our bassist! And somehow, with Ned, we had gone from sucking to being the cool band.

With him, we were able to start traveling around the tri-state area, playing our first shows. We had so much fun. I remember packing The Cove in New Jersey; at the end of a set, Ned would dive onto the drum set, and then our singer and drummer would just thrash and jump into it as I shredded. It was so youthful and such a rock thing.

I remember playing CBGB's with him and he wore a cardboard box with suspenders, (or a burlap onion sack) because thats how he did it onstage.

We all wore ridiculous shit while playing serious music, and thats how me and him balanced each other out. He loved great bass fills and thought all drum fills should be hooks. I remember driving with him while listening to Kyuss way way too loudly, and yelling at him to slow down.

Over time, my band had gotten very close. We learned that Ned had a side of him that always was dancing around within a personal pit of darkness, but we were young, crazy, and wildly emotional…so it all seemed normal. We were all so open with each other about things then. We didn’t consider the darkness then; things change as we grow. 

After we stopped playing together, and after he became a best-selling novelist (who wrote incredible books that saved lives), he loved hearing about my band’s tour stories and musician life. He was so supportive and proud of our success.

Even when we were both younger, when I was nerding out with guitar scales (while he was doing way cooler things) he was supportive. He’d see how much I’d practice and would tell me I was doing the right thing for me—and that it would all be worth it. He ended up being right.

One of the first big Consider the Source shows (this is my current band) was at a book release of his. He actually hired us to play!

Even as I got more and more into instrumental music, Ned was the first person to make me really listen to lyrics—being the writer that he was. He defended pop music (and teenage things in general), with an ability to understand youth and teenage culture.

He wrote about teenagehood and all the weird things that happened during that time. I think that spoke so much to his compassion and ability to observe and relate and feel. I learned a lot about vulnerable writing and lyrics through him.

Five years on and I still cry a lot this day—and other many other days. There are a lot of late-night tour drives where I'll hear or think something and my first reaction is to want to tell Ned. My second reaction is: How is this real?

But it is.

Ned had it together better than all my other artist friends. He had a family, he was very successful, and he was stable—all the things he joked would never have or be.

As much as he loved hearing about the ridiculousness of life as a touring musician, he seemed truly happy that he didn’t walk down that path, that life had brought him to where he was.

But no matter where life took us, we never stopped being very close.

As I get to the end of this, I have no idea how to wrap it up—and that seems to be a metaphor for how this is. It just is.

There is nothing anyone can do now but think about him, and all he meant to us, and feel the hole that his not being here anymore has left in our hearts.

His loss will always be an unhealed wound that hurts. Dying because of mental illness is particularly hard. The stigma attached to it (which Ned worked hard as a writer to fight against) is difficult, just as hard as the feeling of things being unresolved.

The loss just tugs at you and tugs at you, and the only thing to do now is to remember him. Positively.

I love you Ned, and I always will. Inna Lillahi wa inna ilahi raji'un. This world was brighter with you in it.

—

NOTE: Please know that if you are experiencing depression, trauma, and pain—you are not alone and you deserve love and care.

The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals. CALL 1-800-273-8255. You may hear an automated voice first, but it’ll  then connect you to a caring professional.

We love you.

A Moody, Baroque Rock Music Mix

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

A playlist for winter mornings. A playlist for tea at last. A playlist for the moment after a strange dream. For when your porch has iced over. For when nostalgia has gripped you. For the diffused afternoon light. For late night whiskey. For a walk over the bridge in the fog. For when you need a moment alone during the holidays. For the train ride through the trees. For the sea during winter. For when you feel so much love your heart aches. For when your heart is so pliable you have collapsed. For when the rain is a friend. For when your hands are cool to the touch. For when you have found forgiveness. For when you are awake before everyone else. For when you light a candle. For you.

A playlist featuring Fanfarlo, Arcade Fire, Taken By Trees, and others