From the Writing Desk Of: Alina Stefanescu

1. The futon that serves as my writing space most days. Including the massive pillow I bought when I was living in a DC slum-lord owned low-rent housing apparatus that bears such beautiful memories.

2. My Macbook air, where things get typed, submitted, the formal gestures.

3. My current notebook covered in stickers from lit mags at AWP. 

4. The only pen I use to write, Uni-ball Vision Needle Rollerball Pens in 0.5mm Micro Point, black ink. Only black. I love black. 

5. An old book of poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge for no apparent reason. Maybe I should read them. 

6. A statue from Thailand gifted by an old friend who works as an asylum officer. It's missing an arm from the last time I accidentally bumped the table. All the statues in my house are missing limbs. I like that about them.

7. A $20 print by Amos Kennedy that reminds me, "We've upped our standards, so up yours." It's a mantra. Like most mantras, I'm not sure what it means or why it applies but I like it. 

8. The Shy Little Kitten pinball game which I pilfered from my kids last night when I couldn't write and needed to hear self-generated pinging noises. 

What's invisible but present:

1. The American flag cushions beneath the couch cover. I've never owned flag motif anything until this year, when I purchased a metal futon with American flag cushions. Though I still can't bring myself to look at it every day (I'm just not a flag person), I like to know it's one layer beneath whatever I'm writing. I like to probe the soft, fleshy parts of this American dream.

2. 27 other notebooks filled with stories and poems and essays I haven't gotten around to typing yet.

3. My mother's wild ghost that shows up when I least expect her.

4. "Almost Crimes" by Broken Social Scene. Also: unidentifiable aroma.

5. That succulent plant I keep killing and repurchasing only to kill again. I want it to live but maybe it's purpose is to absorb my bad karma and keep killing itself ad infinitum. Maybe it's a cosmic loop.

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From the Writing Desk Of features members of the FAM who are celebrating the release of books. Alina Stefanescu's book Stories to Read Aloud to Your Fetus is available now from Finishing Line Press. Her story "Dear Committee for the Socialization of Illegal Aliens," appeared in Split Lip's August issue.