Todd J. Donery is a Minneapolis-based freelance photographer, photo assistant, camera operator, and stagehand. He earned his degree in photography and digital imaging at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. He has also attended Minneapolis College of Art and Design and studied film at Minneapolis Community College. Todd has had numerous solo and group exhibits of his photography and published photos in online journals and print publications. Todd has worked with musical acts to create album cover art, promo photos, event captures, and visuals for live performances. He enjoys working with start-ups and small businesses, photographing their products and personnel to help them establish their presence and grow their business. Todd also donates his time and talents to nonprofit organizations and fellow artists and is also a founding member of the Homewood Photo Collective in the Twin Cities. The submitted photographic works by Todd, Empty Night, and Quiet are examples of his taking a new look at what he sees almost every day in the world, capturing a moment in time that will never be seen the same. This persistence of vision allows us to understand in a new way that what we see every day looks different each time we see it.
The leather jacket boys hung out at George’s Texaco and could put away
a six-pack of Iron City, Duke or Schlitz in record time, but Rolling Rock,
on the other hand, was considered a queer beer that was lifted or purchased
as a last resort when a Saturday night binge involved Candy or Franny
and the profane prayer of a little girly action in the ravine down by the tracks
where mile long box cars crawled through every Tuesday and Friday on their
way west laden with smoldering virgin steel from the 48-inch rolling mill that
supplied George’s boys with enough pocket money and rubbers, when they
remembered, to kindle sly and secret grins with the knowledge that the army
or the Federal pen would never cage them
Laurence Carr
Laurence Carr lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. His book of poems and short essays is Strides: reflections on 6 acres, with images by artist Edward M. O’Hara. Other books include Paradise Loft (CAPS Press and Lightwoodpress); Traverse, a collaboration with artist Power Boothe. Pancake Hollow Primer, winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award for first novel. This and two poetry collections, Threnodies: poems in remembrance and The Wytheport Tales, are published by Codhill Press. As anthology editor at Codhill, he edited or co-edited five anthologies, including A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley (Winner of the USA Best Book Award for Fiction Anthology). Laurence is currently the publisher of Lightwood, an online arts and culture magazine. www.carrwriter.com and Lightwoodpress.com
genius source, one brilliant astral scientist who saw
the stunning in all creation and said, I think I’ll
leave them symbols of their innate connection
to one other, hide them in plain sight.
Make it special when they close their eyes and lean
toward the light, like sunflowers. Maybe this is why
people hugs trees, smell roses, ground themselves
barefoot on grass—to know we are in this together.
Still, I ask Big They why we wreck the very things
that sustain us, cut off our noses to spite our faces.
Still, I admire trees more than ever: their grandeur,
elegance, fierce giant magi always pointing up
at the stars. And stars, stardust! We are made of that too—
carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms created in previous
generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago.
We forget how much earth we contain, how much
space we hold. Like right now, I’m sitting on my bed
watching the oak outside my window house two sparrows.
She is me, spirited but strong. I am her, hopeful and still.
Marina Carreira
Marina Carreira (she/they) is a queer Luso-American poet and artist from Newark, NJ. A Pushcart Prize nominee and 2024 Luso-American fellow in the DISQUIET Literary Program, Carreira is the author of Dead Things and Where to Put Them (Cavankerry, forthcoming 2025), Desgracada (Bottlecap Press, 2023), Tanto Tanto (Cavankerry Press, 2022), Save the Bathwater (Get Fresh Books, 2018), and I Sing To That Bird Knowing It Won’t Sing Back (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She has exhibited her art at the Newark Museum, Morris Museum, ArtFront Galleries, Monmouth University Center for the Arts, among others. Carreira works in higher education and teaches Women and Gender Studies at Kean University. Find her on Instagram at @savethebathewater.
Featuring:
Issue 115, published July 2025, features works of poetry, flash fiction, short nonfiction, and visual art by Christina Borgoyn, Cyrus Carlson, Laurence Carr, Marina Carreira, Kimmy Chang, Lisa Delan, Todd J. Donery, J.M. Emery, Louis Faber, Mathieu Fournier, Veronica Scharf Garcia, Alaina Hammond, Marcy Rae Henry, Bethany Jarmul, Joseph Landi, Mary Dean Lee, Madeline Eunji Lee, Zoé Mahfouz, Juan Pablo Mobili, Arthur Pitchenik, Timothy L. Rodriguez, Jim Ross, Susan Shea, Dave Sims, Rome Smaoui , Lisa Lopez Smith, VA Smith, Dana Stamps, II, Angela Townsend, Lucinda Trew, Thomas Vogt, Holly Willis, Dylan Willoughby, Stephen Curtis Wilson, Jessie Wingate, and Jean Wolff.
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