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Volume 12, Issue 1 (2023)

Dear Readers,

How exciting it is to welcome another issue of Gandy Dancer! It was such a great first semester as Managing Editors, and we can’t thank our team enough for their dedication these past few months.

This semester has had its unique challenges, between the rattling construction on our usually quiet campus and tackling new and exciting experiences: Geneseo hosted this year’s Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors Conference under the care of our own Professor, Rachel Hall. FUSE is a national organization that fosters visionary magazine work and supports undergraduates interested in pursuing careers in writing, publishing, and editing. We had the amazing experience of meeting with our fellow editors from Wells, Fredonia, St. John Fisher, Cedar Crest, Shippensburg, and Susquehanna, and getting to know their magazines. We attended (and hosted) panels, like “What the Fuck is Up With C*nsorship,” participated in a workshop on political writing, and learned how to bind our own books. We heard from the keynote speaker Becky Tuch, the founder of LitMag News, who roused our literary spirits. Overall, it was an invigorating weekend that reminded us of the strength and creativity of the literary journal community.

There is something truly special about seeing an issue come together. The work gathered here feels connected even though the individual voices and concerns are distinctive. Family dynamics, for instance, are explored in several of the prose pieces. Heather O’Leary considers what it means to be a big sister in her creative nonfiction essay “Can’t Sleep.” The pull between duty and self is evident as the narrator considers, “I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if I had given in to sleep, told Beth to go to sleep, and pushed her to the side.” “Dish Pit,” a short story by Leah Beecher, examines Carlos’ family trauma and its long reach. Readers hope his new motorcycle will offer all he envisions: “Soon, he would never have to pedal up that stinking, long Sunnyside Hill Road to Gramma Lewis’s house again. He would fly up there.” The poetry, too, examines generational connections and disconnections. Elianiz Torres’ “as mother’s flowers rot” provides such a glimpse when we see a mother tending a garden through her daughter’s eyes: “Day in and day out she’d watch her watch them. / Wondering why she was the only one that ever held them. / Your father is allergic. She lied.” Torres asks readers to witness how a father-daughter relationship might nurture or poison a garden.

We think the words on these pages offer the opportunity for growth. Our families, our homes, our relationships–they impact who we are, but they don’t define us. As winter dawns on us, we hope you can find something here to help you navigate the cold. These stories, these poems, they remind us to stop and think of where we come from, and where we might go from here.

This semester has come and gone with incredible speed, so we’re happy to grant you a breather, a break—compliments of Gandy Dancer, issue 12.1. Cozy up and read on–

Sincerely,

Lili Gourley and Jess Marinaro

Poetry

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[OH, SEPTEMBER]
Madelyn Malgieri, SUNY Geneseo

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devour me
Kaelin Martin, SUNY Purchase

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I Got a Boo-Boo From a Car Crash
Madison Butler, SUNY Geneseo

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Lethal // Boiling Over
Mollie McMullan, SUNY Geneseo

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as mother's flowers rot
Elianiz Torres, SUNY Geneseo

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Duo
Megan Moran, SUNY Geneseo

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Streetpreacher
Antonio Cueva, University at Buffalo

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Overdose
Lauren Basile, SUNY Geneseo

Fiction

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Foie Gras
Ailie Kinnier, SUNY Purchase

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Dish Pit
Leah Beecher, SUNY Geneseo

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Curse of the Ninth
Mollie McMullan, SUNY Geneseo

Creative Nonfiction

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Sugar
Mollie McMullan, SUNY Geneseo

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Can't Sleep
Heather O'Leary, SUNY Fredonia

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Requiem in Dee Miner
Evan Youngs, SUNY Oswego

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Serenading Flesh
Zoe Lavallee, SUNY Geneseo

Art

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Chicken Nugget
Sophia Turturro, SUNY Geneseo

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The Tickler
Sophia Turturro, SUNY Geneseo

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Dirt Sock
Sophia Turturro, SUNY Geneseo

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Untitled (self-portrait)
Faith Mikolajczyk, SUNY Purchase

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Carmen Caska
Faith Mikolajczyk, SUNY Purchase

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The Excurbian Dream
Faith Mikolajczyk, SUNY Purchase

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parts
Kaelin Martin, SUNY Purchase

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The Headless Skater Girl
Makayla French, SUNY Geneseo

Postscript

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Little Eulogies
Griffen Labianca, SUNY Geneseo

Review

Interview

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An Interview With Sarah Freligh
Lili Gourley, SUNY Geneseo

Full Issue

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12.1 Full Issue
Gandy Dancer, SUNY Geneseo

Editorial Team

Managing Editors
Lili Gourley, Jess Marinaro
Production Assistant
Sara Wilkins
Fiction Editor
Nikolete Michalkow
Creative Nonfiction Editor
Juslannie Rosso
Poetry Editor
Ella Pearcy
Fiction Readers
Greta Flanagan, Brian Malgieri, Hannah Myers
Creative Nonfiction Readers
Betsy Harris, Samantha McGinnis, Jordyn Stinar
Poetry Readers
Nate D’Amato, Jake Elvers, Hannah Mower
Faculty Advisor
Rachel Hall
Production Advisor
Allison Brown
Advisory Editors
Sonya Bilocerkowycz, Dan DeZarn, Lucia LoTempio, Mehdi Okasi (Purchase), Michael Sheehan (Fredonia), Lytton Smith, Kathryn Waring
Special thanks to:
the Parry family and Sarah Freligh

Cover art: The Firebird by Sophie Mejia