Apex Magazine: Issue 48

By Lynne M. Thomas

Issue 48 features the following content:

Table of Contents
Fiction
"Ilse, Who Saw Clearly" by E. Lily Yu
"The Binding of Ming-tian" by Emily Jiang
"Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy" by Douglas F. Warrick
"Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back" by Joe R. Lansdale

Poetry
"The Busker, Broke and Busted" by Shira Lipkin

Nonfiction
"Kicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional" by Sigrid Ellis
"Interview with Joe R. Lansdale" by Maggie Slater
"Blood from Vellum: Words from the Editor-in-Chief" by Lynne M. Thomas
"Words from the Publisher" by Jason Sizemore
Cover art by Carrie Ann Baade

Edited by Lynne M. Thomas

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Book Company
• Release date: Jun 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301144174

Book preview

APEX MAGAZINE

ISSUE 48, May 2013

EDITED BY LYNNE M. THOMAS

Smashwords Edition

Copyrights and Acknowledgments

Blood on Vellum: Notes from the Editor–in–Chief Copyright © 2013 by Lynne M. Thomas

The Binding of Ming–tian Copyright © 2013 by Emily Jiang

Ilse, Who Saw Clearly Copyright © 2013 by E. Lily Yu

The Busker, Broke and Busted Copyright © 2013 by Shira Lipkin

Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy Copyright © 2013 by Douglas F.Warrick

Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back Copyright © 1986 by Joe R. Lansdale (Originally published in Nukes, Maclay & Associates, 1986).

Interview with Joe Lansdale Copyright © 2013 by Maggie Slater

Kicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional Copyright © 2013 by Sigrid Ellis

Words from the Publisher Copyright © 2013 by Jason Sizemore

Publisher/Editor—Jason Sizemore

Editor–in–Chief—Lynne M. Thomas

Senior Editor—Gill Ainsworth

Managing Editor—Michael Damian Thomas

Slush Editors—Sigrid Ellis, Deanna Knippling, Kelly Lagor,

Eileen Maksym, Michael Matheson, Maggie Slater, Fran Wilde, Jei D. Marcade

Graphic Designer—Justin Stewart

ISSN: 2157–1406

Apex Publications

PO Box 24323

Lexington, KY 40524

Please visit our website at http://www.apex–magazine.com.

Each new issue of Apex Magazine is released the first Tuesday of the month. Single issues are available for $2.99. Subscriptions are available for twelve months and cost $19.95.

About Our Cover Artist

Carrie was born inside a house made from a riverboat that had caught fire and was brought ashore. Moving from her early and detailed memories of magical New Orleans to rural Colorado when school began, she worked to save up money and escape the incomprehensibly boring place. She traveled the world exploring art museums and pondering ancient civilizations. Years of experimentation later, Carrie became enraged by a world where it seemed all the great paintings were painted and nothing new remained to add. Out of this egregious dissatisfaction, she attacked her library of art books, mercilessly tearing off their spines and releasing the pages from their bindings. Out of this sea of pictured paper she cut new characters for herself and stuck them on to other painting’s backgrounds, repainting these collaged articles into new masterpieces that she found far more entertaining than the old paintings from which they came.

Carrie Ann Baade was awarded the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs Individual Artist Fellowship in 2010, the Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowship for Established Artist in 2005, and was nominated for the prestigious United States Artist Fellowship in 2006 and the Joan Mitchell Grant in 2012. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions: the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville Florida, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, the Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia, Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles, and the Ningbo Art Museum in China.

She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her masters from University of Delaware. Currently, Carrie lives and works in Tallahassee where she is an Associate Professor of Art at Florida State University where she teaches the materials and techniques of the old masters.

The Ecstasy of Madam Dolorosa, egg tempera and oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches, 2007.

(In the collection of Billy Shire)

In the tradition of the Madonna Dolorosa, this painting is a self–portrait and that plays off Christian symbolism of the pain of love and loss. Have not nearly all of us felt as though we may die for the pain for losing a love?

Table of Contents

Editorial

Blood on Vellum: Notes from the Editor–in–Chief

Lynne M. Thomas

Fiction

The Binding of Ming–tian

Emily Jiang

Ilse, Who Saw Clearly

E. Lily Yu

Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy

Douglas F.Warrick

Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back

Joe R. Lansdale

Nonfiction

Interview with Joe Lansdale

Maggie Slater

Kicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional

Sigrid Ellis

Words from the Publisher

Jason Sizemore

Poetry

The Busker, Broke and Busted

Shira Lipkin

Blood on Vellum: Notes from the Editor–in–Chief

Welcome to issue 48 of Apex Magazine.

Emily Jiang’s The Binding of Ming–tian sketches the tension of between art and family expectations. E. Lily Yu’s Ilse, Who Saw Clearly takes us on a journey of perception, love, and struggle. Shira Lipkin’s epic poem The Busker, Broke and Busted, is, in her words, a Gilbert–and–Sullivanesque patter song for an obsolete robot.

Our classic revisited this month is a post–nuclear apocalyptic tale from Joe R. Lansdale, Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back, originally published in Nukes (Maclay & Associates, 1986). We also have a bonus story about memory and loss by Douglas F. Warrick, Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy, from his forthcoming Apex Publications short fiction collection Plow the Bones.

In nonfiction this month, Maggie Slater interviews Joe R. Lansdale, covering his lengthy career, killer plants, Batman, and his proclivity for novellas. Sigrid Ellis provides a new twist on the sometimes problematic trope of the kick–ass strong woman in film in her essay Kicking Ass, Taking Names, Bubblegum Optional.

Our stunning cover, The Ecstasy of Madam Dolorosa, is the work of Carrie Ann Baade.

Thank you again to all of our subscribers and supporters. You make our magazine possible.

It’s convention season, too! If you will be attending WisCon this year, please do say hello.

I hope that you enjoy this issue of Apex Magazine.

Lynne M. Thomas

Editor–in–Chief

What Makes You Die

Tom Piccirilli

The first act of his latest screenplay is their ticket back to the red carpets. If only Tommy could remember writing it. Trying to recapture the hallucinations that crafted his masterpiece, he chases his kidnapped childhood love, a witch from the magic shop downstairs, and the Komodo dragon he tried to cut out of his gut one Christmas Eve. The path to professional redemption may be more dangerous than the fall.

…This is what makes you die.

ISBN: 978–1–937009–12–0

www.apexbookcompany.com

The Binding of Ming–tian

Emily Jiang

Little

Hush, little baby, little kumquat, little bird. Ming–tian is sleeping. She has pruned the bitter melon vines and swept the porch while dancing with a broom. She has chased away the good luck fishes in the pond, where she has lost her shoe. Soon it will freeze over. Now Ming–tian is snoring. She is exhausted from hours of practicing embroidery, of practicing calligraphy, of practicing a love song on the er–hu. Her fingertips have started to bleed. Her hand has been bandaged, yet while she dreams, her feet move as if she were still dancing. She scratches her face, leaving red lines on her cheeks.



Hush – Wash — Massage

Mother, Ming–tian is wiggling her toes. Again.

Hush, little kumquat. Hold them still.

Why do you want to bind her feet?

It will make her beautiful.

She is already beautiful.

It will make her marriageable.

Someone wants to marry her?

Only if her foot can be held in the palm of one hand.

But your feet are not —

Hush. Keep massaging her feet.



Ming–tian Dreams

Ping–an is an er–hu master, renowned in all of China for his skill with sustaining the highest, sweetest notes without breaking its strings. But his secret dream is to wield the calligraphy brush as expertly as he holds his er–hu bow. A master artist can draw a koi with only one brush