Issue 6 Nonfiction

Get Back Better On - Eleanor Leonne Bennett

In our nonfiction for this issue, we’re excited to feature Breakwater’s interview with Mark Pawlak and Dick Lourie, the editors of Hanging Loose Press. On the narrative nonfiction side, check out Alicia Hilton’s discomfiting dissection of the types of predators who are drawn to naive young girls.

Hanging (Loose) with Mark Pawlak and Dick Lourie

By Peter Picetti

We editors, individually and collectively, are constitutionally opposed to hierarchies of status (such as whose poem gets to be on page one) and in favor of creating a sense of community among writers.

The editors of Hanging Loose Press hold forth on poetry, history and literary endurance.

Canis Too Familiaris

By Alicia Hilton

As we lined up to start wind sprints, one of the popular girls told me that I looked pretty. I was so happy. The P.E. teacher blew his whistle. I ran as fast as I could across the slippery wood floor. I was near the finish line when the safety pin that had been cinching in my waistband popped open. I was so intent on running that I didn’t notice until my pants were all the way down at my ankles. Everyone saw. All the boys, all the girls, and our P.E. teacher, an ex-Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle. I yanked my pants up and tried not to cry. It didn’t matter that I’d won the race; everyone was laughing at me. I wanted to run out of the gym, but I knew I’d get in trouble. The teacher pulled the end of his pen out of his nose, wiped a booger on his black polyester coach pants, and said, “Nice panties. I like pink flowers.”