NEW READER MAGAZINE

Selfie
December 2021 | Vol. 4 Issue 16


The drape is about to close for 2021 and as we approach the dawn of a new year, NRM brings you another collection of art, prose, poetry and other oddities in this brand new edition, Issue 16: Selfie.

Read on and let's dive into our little worlds and observe how much of ourselves is tethered to the reality behind us.


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Bill Arnott’s Beat
Bill Arnott

Author, poet, songwriter Bill Arnott is the best-selling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga, Dromomania, and Allan’s Wishes. His Indie Folk album is Studio 6. He’s received awards for poetry, prose, and songwriting. When not writing, performing, or trekking the globe with a pack and a journal,...

Tales of Roots & Wings
Olesya Volk & Toti O’Brien

Olesya Volk is a Los Angeles-based artist/writer. Toti O’Brien is the Italian accordionist with an Irish last name. This is a conversation between two artists.

Chasing Butterflies in the Days of War
Muhammad Nasrullah Khan

Muhammad Nasrullah Khan is a Pakistani-Canadian writer. His short stories are well recognized internationally for his unique prose style, and really naive innocence of rural life of Asia. Enlivened by the stories of great English and Russian writers, he has taken a pinch of fact and a cup of fictio...

The College Man
Ciaran McLarnon

Ciaran J. McLarnon is a writer from Northern Ireland. He lives in Ballymena, a town close to the North-East coast. He has written on many subjects, and is currently interested in Dark and Personal Stories. His stories have recently been published in AHF (Alternative History Fiction), Gold Dust magaz...

The Worst That Could Happen
Hannah Smart

Hannah Smart is a recent graduate of Middlebury College, and she writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction has been published in Vocal’s affiliated magazines, and she has had her fiction published in The Corvus Review and Pif Magazine. She currently lives in the Boston area.

Sasha
Avital Balwit

Avital Balwit is a Portlander currently living on the East Coast. She studies political and social thought and cognitive science at the University of Virginia. In her spare time, she practices karate and writes short stories and essays.

The Birthday Boy
Raymund P. Reyes

Raymund P. Reyes currently lives in Ottawa, Canada. His fiction and poetry have been published in Your Impossible Voice, Dappled Things, Carbon Culture Review, The Transnational, and in various literary journals and anthologies in his native Philippines.

Uptalk and Vocal Fry
Matt McHugh

Matt McHugh was born in suburban Pennsylvania, attended LaSalle University in Philadelphia, and after a few years as a Manhattanite, currently calls New Jersey home.

Beneath This Noise, Another
Dave Barrett

Dave Barrett lives and writes out of Missoula, MT. His fiction has appeared most recently in Doubleback Review, Hobart, and Quarter After Eight. His novel—GONE ALASKA—was published by Adelaide Books in August of 2019. He teaches writing at Missoula College and is working on a new novel.

Featured Contributor: Siaila Jagroop
Joi Villablanca

Siaila Jagroop, a creative writer from Tonga, shares how Isabel Allende's approach on Magical Realism and Tonga’s superstitious culture and traditions all influence her writing.

Featured Contributor: Evelyn Benvie
Jazie Pilones

Poetry and prose writer Evelyn Benvie shares with NRM a part of herself in her poetry, and putting her heart into things she loves to do, and at the same time help her grow.

The Middle Ground
Aira Calina

NRM visits and experiences the world’s most-visited multi-sensory exhibit, and discovers several concepts and modern ideas to bridge the art world’s polar opposites.

Going Visceral
Kyla Estoya

Portrait photographer Justin Rosenberg talks to NRM about lessons he's learned in taking photos and dealing with life's everyday struggles.

AUGUR
Toti O'Brien

Toti O'Brien is the Italian accordionist with the Irish last name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a selfemployed artist, performing musician, and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in Really System, Colorado Boulevard, Thin Air, and ...

Her Blue Dress
Siaila Jagroop

Siaila Jagroop was born and raised in Tonga, a small island nation in the South Pacific. Currently, she is working in the Embassy of Japan in Tonga. Siaila lives on a small farm with her husband, her three-year-old daughter, seven dogs, one cat, and a few pigs. She writes in her spare time.

The Eyes Have It
Stephen Fox

After thirty two years in the classroom, Stephen Fox retired to devote more time to his writing. He has published numerous stories in anthologies such as Cover of Darkness, The Pettigru Review, The Rabbit Hole, and Nothing to Dread: A Niteblade Anthology. Other stories have appeared in Beyond Centau...

Next to the Snap Peas
Mark Tulin

Mark Tulin is a former family therapist from Philadelphia who lives in Santa Barbara, California. A poetry publisher once likened his work to artist, Edward Hopper, on how he grasps unusual aspects of people and their lives.

Stranger
Emilia Amodio

Emilia works in TV drama development in the UK. Her daily job is to read, critique, and develop writers’ works. After years of being too nervous to allow others to do the same to her own, she’s taken the plunge in letting her own stuff out there.

The Empress’s Hairdresser
Annina Claesson

Annina Claesson is a researcher and freelance writer currently based in Paris, France. She makes a point of participating in or setting up a creative writing workshop wherever she goes. So far, that has included Scotland, France, the United States, and Japan.

Shining of the Eternal Light
Hareendran Kallinkeel

Hareendran Kallinkeel lives in Kerala, India, after a stint of 15 years in a police organization and five years in Special Forces. He writes fiction, mostly short stories. His works have been published in online/print media.

Emmitt’s Homecoming Runs Into Second Act Problems
Jim Snowden

Jim Snowden placed fiction in Pulphouse, Mind In Motion, The Seattle Review, The King’s English, and MAKE. His two novels, Dismantle the Sun and Summer of Long Knives, were published by Booktrope in 2012 and 2014.

Spark of Life
Sharon Frame Gay

Sharon Frame Gay has been internationally published in many anthologies and literary magazines including Chicken Soup For The Soul, Typehouse, Lowestoft Chronicle, Crannog, Thrice Fiction, Literally Stories and others. She has won awards at Women on Writing, Rope and Wire Magazine...

Listless
Alan Irid Fendi

In Listless, an inexperienced girl visits a city and feels lost with her vertiginous lust for things.

Rubber Daisies
Jack Cooey

Jack Cooey is a washed up actor living in bitterness. He lives in Keene, NH.

Hunt
Claudia Spiridon

This is a short story that combines elements of realism with those of surrealism. In it, Claudia explores tense familial relationships and venture into blending the lines between imaginary and real, all fueled by the main character's internal conflict.

Showdown at the DA
Mike Sharlow

A story about the clash of two groups of young men. One group is hoping to avoid a fight, the other is committed to impose violence.

The Quicksand Around Her Feet
Christine Fair

This story is about a meeting between an abandoned daughter and her father who has summoned her because of his ostensible impending death from cancer.

Little & Wolf
Avra Margariti

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. This story a fictional recount of the Stanford Prison Experiment.