Editor Bios
Brenna Cariker
Brenna Cariker is a full time student, reader, writer, and daydreamer. When she’s not busy with her novel, you can find her chasing her cats or debating Game of Thrones theories. She’s currently finishing up her Associates degree and will head to Sacramento State University to get a masters in English Literature. You can watch her either become a cat wrangler, published author, or master of English Lit through her Twitter: @BrennaCariker and her lonely, but not unloved blog: Brennacariker.blogspot.com
Kristina Heflin
Kristina Heflin is an Arizona State University English major, based in Northern California. She currently serves on the editorial board of the literary journal Flumes. She has been published in Flumes and Canyon Voices, and is the author of the website Sagas and Mythos and the forthcoming novel, Sigyn’s Saga: Burdened with Love
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society without the anguish of being “other” due to my skin color, my clothing, or my religion. For me to experience suffering I had to come alongside the people who suffered daily. Indeed, since adolescence, I prayed that God would give me eyes to see and ears to hear. One of my heart’s deepest desires is to see with God’s eyes and ears.
But as I drove daily into South Central and saw and heard the pain of the students, of the other staff, of the parents, it became too much for me to bear. I was becoming numb from the enormity of the pain ordinary life held for these teenagers. To this day, I hold the story of one young woman, LaTonya: in a class session with a social worker the students drew the pictures of what their life would like ten years in the future. Most of the young men drew tombstones with their names on them or themselves behind jail bars. LaTonya drew the stereotypical American dream–a house with a picket fence and a flower garden, kids, (she wasn’t sure about a spouse though) and told me how she was going to go to college, graduate and attend law school because she wanted to get out of South Central. Then LaTonya pondered her picture a while then scribbled all over it.
“What am I talking about? My life is chaos. I have to take care of my little sisters and sometimes my cousins and my life is crazy. I never know if I’m gonna make it home from school. This is crazy,” she said, then LaTonya crumpled up her paper and stared out the window, refusing to talk again, lost deep within herself.
I felt her hope then her despair. And I knew that unless something miraculous happened, she would be right about her life. The odds were against LaTonya to maintain the level of ambition and drive necessary to make such a significant change in her life.
These were the stories I carried with me in prayer as I commuted back and forth.
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