Leanne Grabel

Brontosaurus Illustrated is the story of a rape that is now fifty years old. Nina Gold was a 19-year-old Stanford sophomore riding a full math scholarship to the American dream. But her avid quest was trampled one spring break-like an ant by a boot- due to kidnapping and rape, a trauma the size of a brontosaurus. Two armed Mexican men in black ski masks slithered out of the shrubbery on a Baja beach as Nina and her friends were enjoying the sunset. They were tied up and stowed in the back of their own van, then raped on the sand. Of course, everything was different after that. Or was it? How could she know? Brontosaurus Illustrated is a graphic rendition of this story and Nina's consequent spin-out that lasted for decades as she searched for reasons, meanings, antidotes. And a way forward. Is Nina Gold a lucky victim, rife with muscular resilience, because she turned her life around? Or is she warped and ruined forever? Is she a better person for having been raped? Stronger? Tougher? Brighter? More empathetic? More poetic? Kinder? Or is she worse? Meaner? Colder? And much more detached? There is no way to know. But with a rape occurring every minute of every day, there are millions of stories that need to be told. Brontosaurus Illustrated is one of them. With drawings. And jokes.

"Naked Athena" leads off Theodore Van Alst Jr.'s 2020 Portland Protest Portfolio in this 2021 volume of Gobshite Quarterly.This issue also contains: Essays by Catalunyan Cristina lvarez Lopez & PDXer Josh Lubin. Poems by Croatian poets Tomislav Marijan Bilosnic & Croatian Marija Dejanovic & Monika Herceg, New Yorker poet J. Randall Brett, Greek poets Phoebe Giannisi & Thanos Gogos & Vasileia Oilonomou, Lithuanian poets Ausra Kaziliūnaite & Rimas Uzgiris; Estonian poet Triin Paja, & Washingtonian poet Armin Tolentino. Stories by Slovenian & Russian & Oregon writers Andrej Blatnik & Andrej Sen-Senkov & Joy McDowell. Graphix & Comics by Lithuanian artist Migle Anusauskaite (profiled in the Dec. 23, 2019 New Yorker Talk of the Town), Melbournian artist Michael Fikaris, multimedia PDXer Leanne Grabel, & Croatian artist Miroslav Nemeth.Parallel text languages in this issue include English, Bulgarian, Spanish, Croatian, Chinese, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Greek, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog.

Comin' at you multilingually, local news that stays news from everywhere... Featuring the best local writing & translation from Oregon, Washington Nebraska, Russia, Croatia, Slovenia, Korea, Lithuania, Switzerland. featuring such authors as Jennifer Robin, Poe Ballantine, Leanne Grabel, Andrei Sen-Senkov, and Tomica Bajsic

Gobshite Quarterly Summer/Fall 2018, #31/32 features: Every Edge a Centre is an ongoing series of mythopoetic reasoned rants and essays: Nebraska novelist & O. Henry nominee Poe Ballantine looks back at a 1960s relationship with a legend in "Every Edge A Centre: Another zucchini bar, Ken?" (in Eng./Sp./Croat.); Adelaide-based poet & essayist Judith Steele writes about escaping the age of Trump, even in the Outback, in "Every Edge A Centre: Travelogue Monologue, Flinders Ranges, So. Oz." (in Eng./Sp./Croatian); Germ. film scholar Janina Bocksch & Barcelona-based Oz essayist & cineaste Adrian Martin write about Charles Laughton's classic noir & chess in "Night of the Hunter: Black is to Move" (in Eng./Span./Croatian). We have two comics: Award winning Little Beirut, Oregon poet & artist Leanne Grabel graces us w/a life of Dorothy Parker for children of all ages, "A Sad Story About a Big Brain: Illustr." (in Eng./Span./Icelandic/Croatian). Rotterdam-based illustrator T nia Cardoso collaborated w/ writer Joana Vardona for the comic book "Garandinha"--excerpted (in Eng./Portuguese). & we have an Indonesian Dragon fr. Japanese artist Midori Oki, & Croatian illustrator Dusan Gačic has a very pictoral "Diary" (in Croat./English). Bestselling Swiss novelist Christoph Keller, who divides his time betw. St. Galen & N.Y.C., offers us 5 Jazz flash fictions inspired by jazz classics & the lives of the musicians who wrote them ("Solo Flight"/"Blood Count"/"New Rhumba"/"My Friend Mindy"/"Sound Seekers"). Fr. Bowling Green Ohio, Michael Lohr gives us orig. bad boy & eternal rock-'n'-roller Edgar Allen in "The Ghost of Poe" (in Eng./Icelandic/Finnish/Sp.). Little Beirut writer Davis Slater observes a very very very angry carney in "9 Kinds of Sucker" (Eng./Span./Croat./Japanese). & we've got poets fr. all over: Greek poet & editor Dinos Siotis ponders paradoxes of "Faith" (in Greek/Eng./Lithuan./Span./Japanese). Croat. editor & poet Ivan Herceg visits "Limbo" & thinks "About Impossible Faces" (in Croat./Eng./Span./Lithuanian). Award winning Croatian poet Lana Derkač comes to a "Conclusion" & makes an appointment with "Doctor January" & enters a "Covenant with Dust." Also fr. St. Galen, Clemens Umbricht visits "The Room of False Things" & hangs "Untitled" on a wall & gets lost in "Rain-washed Amsterdam" & then takes "A Stroll in July" (in Germ./Eng./Croat./Spanish). Award winning Slovenian poet & E.R. doctor Veronica Dintinjana goes to midnight mass to visit the "Cathedral Lions" & then loiters "Outside the City Gates" (Slovenian/Eng./Lithuan./Russian/Croat./Spanish). South Oz expat Jan Herschel has lived on the Left Coast since 1982, & makes a wistful wish in "Add to Cart" (Eng./Span./Russian/Icelandic/Finnish). Adelaide poet Judith Steele, winner of the Red Earth Poetry Award discovers "Quiet" (in Eng./Russian/Croat./Spanish). Little Beirut drive-by poet Pecos B. Jett tells us the one about "Snoring Beauty" (in Eng./Jap./Russian/Finnish/Spanish).