AUR LitPut III Spring 2023 - From Now To Then
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria. The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced). The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta. Rome, May 2023
"When I found out about my father’s diagnosis, my first impulse was to light up,” Nalu Gruschkus writes in the opening line of Abnormal Whites and Excessive Blues, her striking piece about her father’s cancer and her own addiction to smoking. In A Bit of Extra Fun, Delaida Rodriguez is
having an unpleasant lunch at a restaurant with her boozy mother. Over a chicken sandwich she has barely touched, she peers into her mother’s jade eyes only to realize with dread that she is more like her than she would care to be. Sam Geida looks back in Friday Night Dinners to the glorious family get-togethers at his grandmother’s house – now it’s only a few of them around the same table, with paper plates and the flat blue and white cardboard boxes of Gino’s Pizzeria.
The stories in last year’s issue of Lit/Pub were mostly about making sense of things as we emerged from our Covid isolation. The mood is more assertive this year. Isabela Alongi’s vibrant cover design brilliantly evokes a world in movement and young people going places. It is a thread we pick up again in Josephine Dlugosz’s delicate musings (Work of Art), and in the short fiction of Scott Cameron and Raegan Peluso (A Song for Mr Solomon and Two-Faced).
The poetry section is especially strong with Gina Carlo’s compassionate trilogy about love and loss and Scott Cameron’s haunting poem about his return to the bleak post-Katrina wasteland. On the lighter side, Lit/Pub spoke to Professor Bruno Montefusco about campus fashion. In the new memoir section, D.P. gives us a tender account of a childhood road trip with her father to Arizona (Snow). And students are traveling again! Emily Chow takes us with her on her intrepid solo trip to Malta.
Rome, May 2023
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Travel<br />
of the tours I’ve been on. It's true: Isaiah has a way with storytelling and his love of the city is infectious.<br />
I can’t help wondering why an attractive, likable guy would want to give a tour to a random<br />
American but I try to push those worries down.<br />
We round a corner to a street full of shuttered, green window boxes and Isaiah tells me they<br />
are called muxrabija. It’s an Arabic design, perfect for people watching. Malta’s central location in the<br />
Mediterranean has made it a melting pot of cultures crammed onto an island ten times smaller than<br />
Rhode Island. Just past the window boxes, we hear live jazz music ahead and we follow it until it leads<br />
to a small bar covered in neon signs. We order beer and a platt malti. The plate has bites of goat cheese,<br />
olives, dates, artichokes, and pastries stuffed with curried peas. Our waitress has a bright green scarf<br />
tied through her hair and she gives us shots of limoncello next to the check. Isaiah puts his card down<br />
before I can say anything.<br />
Our last stop is Isaiah’s favorite. It's a bell tower that hovers precariously over to the sea. He<br />
holds out his hand so I can clamber up onto the cement platform. We sit and look out across the bay.<br />
The sun is starting to set behind us and the sky is a cloudy orange. I have a feeling that if I turn to face<br />
him, something will happen so I stare straight ahead and ask as many questions as I can about the<br />
cities across the bay.<br />
The moment eventually passes and he walks me back to my hotel so I have time to meet Sofie<br />
at the airport. Isaiah gives me a big hug at the front door. I thank him for a great afternoon and invite<br />
him to visit me.<br />
“No really I mean it, you should definitely come visit me in Rome!” I insist. He tells me he<br />
would love to.<br />
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