by Greg Santos
For our first issue of 2024, the carte blanche team and I are proud to present twenty-four creative works of fiction, comics, photography, poetry, translation, and creative nonfiction which make up our outstanding open-themed issue 48!
Read Moreby Audrey Larson
Audrey Larson is an artist and writer who lives in Bellingham, WA, USA. They are known for their love of dreary beaches, public libraries, and old bicycles.
Read Moreby Jordan Penland
Jordan Penland is a 27-year-old, half-Black, half-Ecuadorian artist/cartoonist from Los Angeles, CA. He predominantly works with watercolor markers and gel pens on paper to create brightly colored drawings with a strong doodle aesthetic.
Read Moreby Jessie Carson
First, finish watching Mister Ed on TV at your sister Pearl’s house. Give her a hug before you leave and walk the short distance home. Pass the man who would soon murder your family as he passes you in your yard.
Read Moreby Samuel Freeman
On a cold, rainy, April morning, Catherine called to tell me our baby was coming. Her gynecologist was sending her straight from the clinic to the hospital. The baby—our first—had stopped growing and needed to come out, even though her due date was a month away.
Read Moreby Robin Gow
We are the earring collectors. We are goblins. We are hungry. We are queer. Our most recent pair are stained glass windows. A wooden frame with thin colorful glass on the back.
Read Moreby Katherine Li
Take, for example, my family. We are a closed system. The sum of our energy remains constant, even when it takes on different forms: over time, rage turns into bitterness; happiness dulls to a slim sense of satisfaction.
Read Moreby Jonathan Bessette
Steven trips through the front door at 5 a.m. with Kim in tow. He swears the Blundstones on top of the other piled shoes had grabbed him. Carla slinks into the hallway wearing the silk red pyjamas he bought her in Singapore—he promised not to make noise when he got back.
Read Moreby Megan Callahan
When she wakes on Tuesday morning to the prickle of smoke in her nose, Janie’s first muggy thought is that her father has come home, miraculously—has simply walked in the door like he never left. Her second is that her mother has picked up smoking again.
Read Moreby Michaela Di Cesare
Nothing feels better than someone else’s mother saying she’s proud of me. I instantly regress to a blissful embryonic state, suspended in warm amniotic admiration.
Read Moreby Elliott Gish
Ella wants to have a baby. She tells Maddi this while they are both drunk, crushed together in the throes of awkward and slightly unsatisfying sex.
Read Moreby Miriam Richer
In August I feel dark and stretched and translucent, like a shadow inching across a bedroom floor. I’m living out of a suitcase in a sublet I found on Craigslist: a two-bedroom apartment swirling with Keith Haring squiggles and earth-toned arabesques.
Read Moreby Eleni Zaptses
When Baba asked me to come to her annual eye exam, I should have been suspicious. My mama and Teta Maria typically handled all health matters concerning Baba. I wasn’t the first, third, or even seventh person who was called for help.
Read Moreby Mischa Jakupcak
Raised in a log cabin on a goat farm in Montana, Mischa Jakupcak is a writer, photographer and filmmaker. With a BA in Creative Writing from University of Arizona and an MA in Filmmaking from London Film School,
Read Moreby Grace Wang
It was one of those perfect summer days. A beautiful home-cooked meal on the patio overlooking the river with produce freshly picked that morning. The next day, in the sunshine, we walked down the stairs from the backyard into the river, and just played.
Read Moreby Amanda Yskamp
Amanda Yskamp is a writer and a collagist. Her artwork has appeared in such magazines as Black Rabbit, Riddled with Arrows, and Stoneboat.
Read Moreby grace (ge) gilbert
If the villain is absence, I write over and over again, then all we see are reactions to it. / Villain once meant peasant, low-born. / It’s easy to mislay the villain if the villain is negative space.
Read Moreby Sophie Hoss
And this is what it is: / A hand up my shirt in the quickening violet, / a caul of dusk holding galaxies of night. / It isn’t honest, but it’s all I have.
Read Moreby Dani Janae
I have yet to meet a snake in South Carolina. / My brother tells me a story of his front yard, / a hole in the ground. His neighbor charges
Read Moreby Dana Murphy
We met on opposite sides of a door— / swift as a kiss of steel splits fresh wood / our smiles unbridled a careful follow me, / returning our fingers to their pastmost forms:
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