Newtown Literary issue #11 Launch Reading

A standing-room only crowd filled Kew and Willow, Queens's newest independent bookstore, for Newtown Literary's 11th issue launch reading.

Six contributors read from their work in the current issue.

Alina Shen

from her poem, "lemon as heard by a granddaughter"

"...When life gives you lemons, you don't have to take them home. You

don't have to put them in your tea. You don't have to crush their

segments—bladders of juice and oil—in your kitchen or saturate

their juices in sugar. You don't have to do anything with the

lemons, why do you ask?"

Basia Winograd

from her short story, "Civil War in the Closet"

"...the other four young men she'd brought around represented, according to Lilka's calculations, five continents, and somewhere between seven and nine nations. They were all sweet boys, and all highly improbable, with wild conceptual careers, alarming communist leanings, and unkempt hair. One of them had shown her pictures of his 'office': a hammock on the beach. And of this the young man had been proud!"

Mark Donnelly

from his short story, "Cowboy Time"

"First I want to tell you all why I don't have my cowboy boots on. I'm kind of ashamed about what I did. I was in the living room pretending it was the bunkhouse and I was sitting on the hassock and I flung my right boot off and sure enough it went sailing across the room and just missed knocking the head off one of my mom's favorite statues..."

Pichchenda Bao

from her poem, "When Cambodia is Faraway"

"...

On September 11th

I watched the towers crumble

on television in my dorm.

The day after

my poetry professor offered us

pineapple,

which I sank into,contemplating

the sharp and sweet taste of our surreal, altered world.

I still read the news

with a tight stomach and

sinking heart

But I never know what to say to my father,

I am the American he built

from his own shattering.

What wall could contain this relentless story?"

Treena Thibodeau

from her short story, "The Kids Came Back"

"..'The computer lab. The computer lab is gone. My class is gone.'

'But that doesn't make any sense.' She looks angry. 'What are you talking about?' She is doing what he did, walking to the doorway of room 402 and then back to the doorway of room 406 and peering inside, like room 404 is hiding in there. she takes it further and walks all the way to the end of the corridor. Mr. Hall watches her go, trying to calculate if the corridor looks shorter. It's hard to tell. It is a long corridor."