1. QUIZ&quill
OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT LITERARY MAGAZINE | VOL. 93 | SPRING MAGAZINE 2012
SPRING MAG 2012 | 1

2. QUIZ&quilL
OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT LITERARY MAGAZINE | VOL. 93 | SPRING MAGAZINE 2012
table of contents
8
16
38
nonfiction
The Zen of Fortune Cookies – Tony DeGenaro
On the Southern Accent – Vian Yohn
Heart of Atlas – Emily Swank
MANAGING EDITOR Tony DeGenaro 52 Uncovering My Dad’s Secret Past – Mike Cirelli
72 Wordless – Tony DeGenaro
PAGE DESIGNER Mike Cirelli
COPY EDITOR Whitney Reed
advertising COORDINATOR Jeff Kintner
fiction
12 That Burning Ring of Fire – Emily Swank
faculty advisor Dr. Shannon Lakanen 22 Miss Austen – Jennifer Rish
29 Soft Cell – Andrew Miller
46 For Anita – Brittany Ivy Dorow
Staff 61 Color – Jennifer Rish
Mackenzie Boyer
Emily Clark
Kayla Forshey poetry
Meg Freado 7 Don’t Go Out! – Jordy Lawrence Stewart
Alyssa Mazey 9 Dead Write – Alyssa Mazey
Brittany Peltier 10 Highway Prayer – Tony DeGenaro
Kathleen Agnes Quigley 28 Choke – Meg Freado
34 Chewing Water – Boris Hinderer
Jordy Lawrence Stewart
39 About a Color. – Brittany Ivy Dorow
42 The Full Moon’s Suicide – Meg Freado
JOIN OUR STAFF 43 This Writer – Lindsey Rowland
Q&Q is always looking for students to join our staff. All 44 Oranges – Tony DeGenaro
years and majors are welcome. We meet every Thursday 58 A Blue Jean Wax Poetic – Jordy Lawrence Stewart
from 5-6:30. Email quizandquill@otterbein.edu for more 76 The Lighthouse, the Tree – Tony DeGenaro
information. 88 As the Clock Claps Its Hands – Vian Yohn
SUBMISSION POLICY DRAMA
Q&Q prides itself on publishing the highest quality 13 Monsters – Whitney Reed
creative work. Therefore, every precaution is taken to assure 78 The Kite – Brittany Ivy Dorow
a writer’s anonymity during the selection process. Only the
advisor of Q&Q knows the identities of those who submit
work to the magazine until after staff members’ selections
art
6 Spring Wonderland – Marisa Rence
are finalized. 11 Yin and Yang – Brittany Ivy Dorow
21 Bobcat – Katie Zaborszki
CONTACT US 33 Entrance to a Dream – Brittany Ivy Dorow
Send all inquiries to quizandquill@otterbein.edu. 40 Four in Charleston – Marisa Rence
51 Heart – Katie Zaborszki
60 City View – Marisa Rence
66 Drawing with Skull – Hannah Farley
74 Common Ground – Brittany Ivy Dorow
4 | QUIZ&quilL 90 Author and Artist Bios SPRING MAG 2012 | 5

3. Don’t Go Out!
JORDY LAWRENCE STEWART
The deepest isolation is to suffer
separation from the source of all
light and life and warmth.
–Dante’s “The Inferno”
i took a candle through the snow
dragging trenches with my feet
craters no one had driven before
and whispers of unhappy years
came to mind with no one to listen
what would i say …
i could see the black birds waiting
for me to die of something cold
waiting for a reply and my decay
and my laughs made them wait miles
flying reapers of the hollow timbers
what would i say …
in a cave i made fire of icicles
left my candle there to rest calmly
away from the mountain shadows
of the black birds of the white night
naked in the darkness with myself
what would i say …
morning did not come for years
but there was no moon – no stars
would-be-light reflection in the snow
my candle long gone but with company
still burning with me somewhere in the trenches.
SPRING WONDERLAND
MARISA RENCE
6 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 7

4. THE ZEN OF FORTUNE COOKIES DEAD WRITE
TONY DEGENARO ALYSSA MAZEY
B
eatnik poet Jack Kerouac so insignificant to the rest of the beautiful things crammed onto pale walls
once said on the fringe of universe, your personal little pearl
his adventures on the road, is the macrocosm that may define pale silence hangs between.
“Somewhere along the line I who you are as a person. That is
knew there’d be girls, visions, ev- the best way to describe a pearl: the between our words, i’ve found my religion.
erything; somewhere along the line thing that defines who we are.
I knew the pearl would be handed I mentioned earlier that I found have faith in the fifteen mile per hour curves,
to me.” Kerouac was very zen about mine inside a fortune cookie. On
his adventures, which is why they my fifteenth birthday, as I crossed those curves that are ruin.
were so precious to him. Everyone the bridge from awkward innocence
is zen about something; I am Zen into definite manhood, I found worship the starved late nights,
about Fortune Cookies. Bizarre as myself dining with my grandparents
it may sound, I am religious about at the grungiest Chinese buffet you the hungry hours where they sleep.
how to handle the fortune cookie, could imagine. It was here that my
for example: I will always force my pearl was uncovered, and my future sleep well, for you’ll need tomorrow.
dining companions to choose their was laid before me. After a fulfill-
cookies first, leaving me the cookie ing meal of wontons, dumplings, tomorrow, you might fix your beautiful hair.
that I was destined for. The purpose lo mein and stir fry, the waitress
of this practice: receiving the cor- brought the bill and customary for- trim your beautiful words,
rect fortune. Like Kerouac, I believe tune cookies. I eyeballed the three
that we all have our own pearl; as my grandmother and grandfather remain
while his was waiting on the high- grabbed theirs. Mine sat alone,
ways of America, mine was located slowly and surely I reached and to me
in a vanilla coated cookie. grabbed the golden cookie. Before
Have you given up deciphering unwrapping it, I smashed it into the torn gash
my fascination for Eastern reli- little bits, revealing the small white
gions, Beatnik poets, cookies, and scroll. I opened the plastic baggie of your mouth
aquatic gems yet? A pearl is defined and dumped out the remains. In my
by dictionary.com as “a smooth, hand was my pearl, a fortune that that haunts
rounded bead formed within the read: “You are a lover of words,
shells of certain mollusks: valued as someday you will write a book.” my eyes.
a gem when finely colored.” To us, We all have our pearls, and
they must be more. To you a pearl when we find them, we can find so many inches of polished condescension –
could be some long term goal, some ourselves. The funny thing is I don’t
desire, something you crave to have even like fortune cookies; it’s all the back of your neck rips a canyon in me.
and will stop at nothing to get. As about the pearl inside.
difficult as it may be to dive into Q&q
the sea and wrestle certain mollusks
for their treasure, so must finding
our own pearls. The most important
thing in the world, which may seem
8 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 9

5. HIGHWAY PRAYER
TONY DEGENARO
These roads know your name,
hugging the wet pavement like suns slipping into
the satin blankets of a night’s sky,
this is ubiquitous:
gravel, sunset.
Your name could mean anything,
written in Hebrew or English,
there are gods on the highways,
Yahweh, God, Allah,
He is on the dashboard, darting
between pickups with Confederate flags,
around minivans and convertibles,
He is the black bird in your heart,
do you let Him sing?
Highways always know our names
on the outerbelt of every city,
asphyxiated by monotony
I tell you each ounce of earth
crafted to make these highways
breathes with life.
Keep your eyes open brothers,
hands on the wheels sisters,
the sun hardly sets on our lives
keep going around and ’round and ’round ’n’ ’round,
sing it like a prayer,
because all of these roads lead home.
YIN AND YANG
BRITTANY IVY DOROW
10 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 11

6. on the southern accent from what I can tell (and I’m no
linguist, mind you), older Hunts-
college out-of-state – they have yet
to escape. But the South was, to
VIAN YOHN ville natives speak in the Southern them, all business and no pleasure.
Appalachian dialect, while newer They couldn’t afford to live in Cali-
Huntsvillians speak something fornia, for one thing, and Dad had
I
did not grow up in Appalachia, ever picked it up, he’d “kick me out
closer to the Highland Southern dia- just been offered a job at the Valley
unless the foothills count. I didn’t until I learned to talk like an intel-
lect. Add to that this phenomenon Hill Country Club for another. They
even grow up in the country, on ligent woman again.” Or something
of Old versus New Southern Ameri- had had no desire to move anywhere
a farm, or in a trailer. I grew up like that. He meant it in jest, of
can English, and you’ll find that east of the Mississippi River and
in and around one of the largest course, but I believed him – or, at
a Huntsville teenager thrown into south of the Mason-Dixie line, but
and most diverse cities in Alabama, least, the part about how intelligent
the mountains – the real mountains there they were. And there they
a city that may be the best example people don’t “sound like hillbillies.”
further north, not the foothills that stayed.
of the idyllic American Melting Pot Or how hillbillies aren’t intelligent?
barely reach into the city – would Technically, then, I didn’t grow
that I have ever seen. But when I Either way, I hung on to “y’all,”
probably have a hell of a time up in a “Southern” home. Southern
hear a Southern accent, no matter but that’s about as Southern as my
understanding what an Appalachian homes take generations to build;
how poorly rendered (and trust me, accent got. “Ain’t” in particular
man was saying. Each of their ac- you aren’t a real Southerner unless
the Southern accent is more difficult was anathema, though if I’d said
cents would be distinctively South- you’re born there, and your worth
to fake than you would think), my “cut” instead of “turn off” the lights
ern, but they would also be distinct as a Southerner is evaluated par-
immediate reaction is to then think or that I was “fixing to” instead
from each other. tially (maybe even largely) by how
of home. After all, my best friend of “going to” do something, my
Anyway. The history of the many generations of your family
from home and parents prob-
Southern accent doesn’t really lived in the South before you. My
her family have ably wouldn’t
explain why I didn’t pick it up, and family, two people who travelled
it; most of my have caught
teachers had it;
But when I hear a Southern it. After a few
let’s face it – kids don’t always do so much they didn’t know where
what their parents tell them to do home was anymore with two kids
my stepfather accent, no matter how years, it all
(or not to do, which is sometimes who were too young to attribute
and his fam- starts to sound
ily have it. But
poorly rendered, my pretty natural
even better; that’s where all the fun their identities to their surround-
ideas come from). And even though ings, was implanted there. But the
even though I immediate reaction is to – especially to
I usually followed my parents’ or- reason Southern homes develop is
was surrounded my mother, for
by it, I don’t
then think of home. whom English
ders as though they’d been deliv- because the South is a sort of black
ered to me from an angel on high, hole, a vacuum that sucks people in
have it – at was her second
that still wasn’t justification enough and refuses to let them go. It warps
least, not one that anyone can hear. language. Although, considering
for me to reject the accent that was them into Southerners whether they
I don’t remember how old I was how each accent in America can
all around me – was it? like it or not, and then their kids
– somewhere in the nine to twelve sound like its own language, she
become even more Southern than
ballpark, when I was just start- could be on her way to multilin-
they, and then their kids …
ing to get really metaconscious or gualism.
My mother was born in South My father owns a restaurant on
whatever – or how the topic of The Speaking of which: I think it
Korea, just outside of Seoul. My the south side of Huntsville, a fine
Accent even came up when my dad catches people by surprise to realize
father was born in Pennsylvania dining joint. I worked there for a
made his opinion on it known, but that there isn’t just one Southern
(or maybe New York) and raised in few years through high school and
I think it had something to do with accent. People in old plantation
Columbus, Ohio. They met in Ver- into college, and although my fa-
my having just said “y’all.” He’d country sound different than people
mont, lived in Minnesota, had their ther and I aren’t “Southern,” a good
laughed and said something about in Appalachia, who sound differ-
two kids in California, and even- deal of the staff was (and continues
talking like a redneck, and, indig- ent than people in the bayou, who
tually settled down in Alabama, to be, of course). That restaurant is
nant, I’d told him that my accent sound different than people on the
which – despite their divorce, their my father’s ball-and-chain, the locus
could be worse. He’d then said I ranch. Even people in the same
individual bouts with unemploy- of the black hole. I can’t count how
didn’t have The Accent and that if I region can speak different dialects;
ment, and their children going to many times he’s told me how badly
16 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 17

7. he wants to sell the place and get would Robert Downey, Jr., have black and white and Korean and except northern Alabama. It didn’t
out of there, and during one such made his great artistic comeback Indian and Middle Eastern people make sense that I was so proud of
conversation, a fellow server – a and Kobe Bryant still be considered have coalesced into one community, not carrying any vestige of home
born-and-bred Southerner – jumped a basketball great? Yes, the histori- though each one maintains its own with me, of not having anything
in with the black hole observation. cal South pushed for institutions identity – each community a coral about me that said, “This is where
Dad laughed at the time, but there’s that most people consider … well, in a reef. In short, I know a South I’m from, and I’m damn proud of
something tragic about laughing at bad. But that was then, and this is unlike the South non-Southerners it.”
a truth that verifies your sense of now, and I’ve never met a slave- seem to know. It wasn’t even until I left home
entrapment. But that’s another tale owner or a Ku Klux Klan member that I realized that it was, in fact,
altogether. (only the first incarnation of which, home. People talk differently in
by the way, was almost exclusively I’ve spent quite a few years Ohio, I realized, and if I had to put
Southern; as it resurfaced in the being proud of how I talk. One sum- my personal vernacular on a spec-
Sometimes I still wonder what it early 1900s, it became a nationwide mer while I was home from college, trum between Ohio Midwestern and
even means when we call someone’s phenomenon), so why is it so great years after the black hole discus- Alabama Southern, it would almost
accent “Southern.” By extension, I that I don’t “sound Southern,” that sion, a man I was serving at the res- certainly waver more toward the
also still wonder what people even I’m not easily recognizable as a taurant asked me where I was from. latter. I mean, come on – doesn’t
mean when they talk about “the Southerner? I told him I was raised in Huntsville “the car needs washed” sound
South.” There are a few states on In a way, it’s almost not for me (he wasn’t expecting to hear that, weird to anybody else around here?
which almost everyone can agree – to say. The South I know is differ- I could tell in the way he sat back Since when did “crayon” have only
Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, the ent from the South a Louisianian in his chair, raised his eyebrows, one syllable? How can anyone not
Carolinas, Louisiana, Arkansas and, knows is different from the South a and set down his fork), and then he know what “humdinger” means? I
of course, Alabama – and are there- Texan knows. Even a person from asked if my parents are from the couldn’t believe that I was speak-
fore known as “the Deep South.” Birmingham, Mobile, or Bug Tussle area. No, they aren’t, and I told him ing a new language when I left the
Then there are states that other (it exists; look it up) knows a differ- South and entered the Midwest, but
people might debate – Texas, Okla- ent South than I do. I know a South I couldn’t deny that I was strug-
homa, Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky that does not look back to the past gling more to understand some
– but are usually included, more for but towards a future in aerospace – IT WASN’T EVEN UNTIL I LEFT things people in Ohio say than I’ve
the similarity in their dialects than a future in the stars. I know a South ever had to struggle anywhere back
a unifying culture. And then there’s where I call you “ma’am” or “sir”
HOME THAT I REALIZED THAT IT home. Of course, there’s more to
Florida, the southernmost contigu- not because I’m sexist or trying to WAS, IN FACT, HOME. home than the way people talk –
ous state, that almost no one con- make you “feel old” (I even address there’s the way springtime smells
siders “Southern” – and they usually children as “sir” or “ma’am,” so like wild onions, the way lightning
mean this in a “good for Florida” don’t give me that) but because I so, to which he replied, “Oh, that’s bugs (or fireflies, if you’re a Yan-
kind of way. What’s so great about respect you. I know a South where why you sound so Midwestern. You kee) light up stretches of woods
not being Southern? everyone says Hi to everyone, have a very neutral accent; I guess like Christmas in the summer, the
I won’t insult you by assuming waves to everyone, asks everyone you never got the chance to pick way grass stays greener longer
you’ve never heard of the Ameri- how their day is going – and then one up from around here.” And and comes back to life sooner, the
can Civil War. Of course you have, stops to listen because they genu- I agreed, and we laughed, and I way cicadas can replace humming
if you live in the US. So assuming inely want to know. I know a South felt good…ish. After hearing, over refrigerators and midnight planes
you received a more-or-less unbi- where family comes first, before and over again, “You don’t sound as white noise and no one thinks a
ased education of said war, let me even an individual’s own work and/ Southern” every time the subject thing about it. But I can’t carry any
ask you this: if we based all of our or education, but where parents has come up at in college, I was of that with me like I can my own
value judgments on past transgres- will do anything they can to guide suddenly aware of how detached I voice.
sions and only on past transgres- their children toward the job and/ was from my home. I’d never lived Someday, I hope I think of
sions, how many of us would still or education they wish they could in the Midwest until I came to Ot- something witty and charming to
have friends? A job? A family? How have had. I know a South where terbein; I had never lived anywhere say when someone says, “You don’t
18 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 19

8. sound Southern,” in that surprised
way in which a “good for you” sen-
timent is implied (or, in one case,
explicit, and I think she was just as
flustered as I was when she real-
ized what else she had said without
saying it). It took me long enough
to recognize that there’s no shame
in “y’all,” in dropping g’s and add-
ing vowels, in emphasizing the first
rather than the second syllable in
“Thanksgiving” and “ibuprofen”
(although, strangely, I don’t keep
to this pattern in the more common
words such as “cement,” “um-
brella,” or “insurance”). And one
of the last things my junior English
teacher said to me before I gradu-
ated high school was along the lines
of, “I’m proud of you for leaving,
not because you need to escape
the South, but because you need to
show the rest of the world that the
South isn’t what they think it is.
You can break the stereotype; you
have a potential about you, unrelat-
ed to being or not being Southern,
for going far.”
I hope so.
Q&q
BOBCAT
KATIE ZABORSZKI
20 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 21

9. AUTHOR
BRITTANY IVY DOROW’S ideal life would be living on a quiet beach,
creating art, writing, and making music. For now, she’s finishing up her
last couple months of undergrad at Otterbein University as an art major
(with concentrations in photography and digital media) and English minor.
Next stop: the real world.
and ARTISTBIOS
YIN AND YANG, 11
ENTRANCE TO A DREAM, 33
ABOUT A COLOR., 39
FOR ANITA, 46
The 2012 spring mag
COMMON GROUND, 74
includes work by the THE KITE, 78
following Otterbein students.
Listed in alphabetical order.
HANNAH FARLEY is a first-year art major with concentrations in com-
munication design and drawing. She’s from Johnstown, Ohio, and she com-
pleted the skull drawing in her Drawing 1 class this spring.
DRAWING WITH SKULL, 66
MIKE CIRELLI is a junior journalism major and art minor at Otterbein MEG FREADO is graduating in fall as an honors psychology major. She
University. He is the editor-in-chief of the Tan & Cardinal student newspa-
per and the page designer for Quiz & Quill. He wants to design newspapers spends her summers writing, traveling, and exploring rooftops. Her schol-
and magazines for a living and dreams of one day being a designer for a arly and creative work has been published in the journal Reclaiming Chil-
music publication. dren and Youth.
UNCOVERING MY DAD’S SECRET PAST, 52 CHOKE, 28
THE FULL MOON’S SUICIDE, 42
TONY DEGENARO is a senior creative writing major from Youngstown,
Ohio. In the fall, Tony begins an MFA program in creative writing at the BORIS HINDERER is a senior majoring in creative writing and psychol-
University of San Francisco. He is a poet. ogy. He is a member of the psychology honorary society Psi Chi and is
involved in Aegis as well as the Otterbein outdoor adventure club. Artisti-
THE ZEN OF FORTUNE COOKIES, 8 cally, he works primarily in (unapproachable) poetry and after leaving
HIGHWAY PRAYER, 10 Otterbein, he would like to pursue graduate studies in psychology.
ORANGES, 44 CHEWING WATER, 34
WORDLESS, 72
THE LIGHTHOUSE, THE TREE, 76
ALYSSA MAZEY just wants to sit in the grass with her dog, read books,
make art, and drink Earl Grey. She also wants to teach and travel, and
maybe, just maybe, be the change.
DEAD WRITE, 9
90 | QUIZ&quilL SPRING MAG 2012 | 91

10. WRITING AND ARTWORK BY:
(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
mike cirelli
tony degenaro
brittany IVY dorow
hannah farley
meg freado
boris hinderer
alyssa mazey
andrew miller
whitney reed
marisa rence
jennifer rish
lindsey rowland
jordy lawrence stewart
emily swank
vian yohn
katie zaborszki
ON THE COVER
A Close RelationshiP by Marisa Rence
A round of applause for Marisa Rence’s A Close Relationship, the first-
place winner of our campus-wide cover contest. Rence said her inspiration
for the piece was her relationship with a very close friend. They were going
through a rough patch at the time, and painting was a way for Rence to
come to terms with it. She represented her own feelings and thoughts with
yellow (her favorite color), his with red, and their relationship with the
96 | in &quilL
colorsQUIZbetween. Rence has three other works in this magazine.

11. QUIZ&quill
2012 SPRING WRITING AWARDS
YOU A WRITER?
THEN WHY HAVEN’T YOU JOINED QUIZ&quilL YET?
QUIZ&quill
OTTERBEIN UNIVERS
ITY’S STUDENT LITERAR
Y MAGAZINE | VOL.
QUIZ&quilL
PRESENTS...
93 | SPRING MAGAZIN
E 2012
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RESUME OPPORTUNITIES.
LITERARY DISCUSSION.
VALUABLE EXPERIENCE.
WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK?
6
PROGRAM
Welcome
THANKS TO THESE
Q&q SUPPORTERS! 6 join now!
see reversE FOR MORE INFO.
6
Spring Mag Cover Contest Winner PL AYS
Single-Author Chapbook Winner Mrs. Roy A. Burkhart
QUIZ&quilL
Nonfiction Prize Winners for funding the Burkhart Poetry Prizes
Roy A. Burkhart Religious Poetry Prize Mr. Donald L. Williams
Playwriting Prize Winners for funding the Louise Gleim Williams OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT LITERARY MAGAZINE
Poetry Prize Winners Writer’s Prize Q&Q is always looking for students to join our staff. Earn valuable experience editing
Newspaper Writing Prize Winners a real literary magazine. All years and majors are welcome. We meet every Thursday
Fiction Prize Winners THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT from 5-6:30 to discuss literary and artistic works, plan events and publications and
just have fun.
Louise Gleim Williams Writer’s Prize for funding Q&Q’s events and magazines
If you are interested in joining next year’s staff, send an email to quizandquill@
2012-13 Editorial Board Announcement otterbein.edu or fill out and return this card to Dr. Shannon Lakanen’s office, Towers
228, and we will send more information your way.
NOW AVAILABLE!
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12. &
&
QUIZ&quill
2012 Spring Writing Awards
This certificate is presented to
Jessica Bryant
in recognition of excellence in creative writing.
first place, poetry PRIZE