I make my language crafty. I mold words into worlds and pretend all I did was add an L. Nobody will know that I've been here for hours, days, years, curled over my notebook, my back a question mark casting curved shadows on the page. How cunning language is. How fake its face. How tricky it is to wrangle the wishes of the letters that skip across the page. How artfully we writers must craft our words, how precisely, how deliberately, with the intricacy of a paintbrush swept across a canvas. How lovely language is. How sickly sweet its smile. A place for every word and every word in its place. I shape myself into an artist with careful eyes and careful hands. I make my language artful.
Erica Larsen (she/her) is a writer, student and gymnastics coach. She splits her time between her hometown in Idaho and her college town in Massachusetts, where she aspires to one day live full-time. You can find her on Twitter at @ericawrites_, and she hopes you will.
Dave Emmerson (he/him) is a punk who enjoys creating music and cut & paste zines at Visions Press. He is a lover of his neuro-diverse family, follower of Jesus and believes in local community. His creative work is influenced by the hardcore punk DIY ethos, emphasises collaboration and seeks to reveal beauty in unexpected places. He also helps to run indie publisher & distributor Beyond Cataclysm.