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Interview: Laird Barron

10/29/2015

Old Leech Speaks: An Interview with Laird Barron

By Julian Drury

QuailBellMagazine.com

Artwork By Dalton Rose

Laird Barron is among this era’s most gifted conjurers of the weird tale. Playing heavy on Lovecraftian and noir horror, he has created his own terrifying mythos that invites readers to both shudder and perhaps grin in an ironic way. Laird Barron allows us to glance into mundane settings, with gritty characters, who uncover the true horrors just beyond the senses of mankind. He has several books published, including the short story collections The Imago Sequence, Occultation, The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All, as well as the novels The Light is the Darkness and my personal favorite The Croning.

I can say Laird Barron has been a huge inspiration in my reading and writing, and many others as well. He was kind enough to take some time to have a brief discussion with us at Quail Bell Magazine, sharing his thoughts on various topics ranging from Lovecraft to his writing endeavors.

Thanks again, Laird.

How To Vegan: The Big Lebowski Edition

10/27/2015

How To Make Vegan White Russians

By Ghia Vitale
QuailBellMagazine.com

Credit: Flickr

Credit: Wikimedia

In case you haven't heard the rumors, a sequel to The Big Lebowski just might be on its way. If you're vegan, you can still enjoy this Coen brothers' classic with a White Russian in hand. Your ethical diet needn't conflict with #dudeism. You’re not out of your element; The Dude abides. Get some coffee-flavored liquor, almond milk, The Big Lebowski, and let the magic begin with the best alcoholic drink ever!

What's Your Sign? Series: Pisces

10/27/2015

I'm My Own Pisces

By Ida Basilio
QuailBellMagazine.com

My personal thoughts have always been that astrological signs only exist for psychological reasons. Being born in a certain month isn't going to determine everything about the rest of your life. They're just another stereotype that society wants to define us by so that no one can develop an individual personality.

I myself am suppose to fit under the stereotype of Pisces. Supposedly we're all supposed to be extremely emotional and generous. The first link to shown up in Google tells me that since I was born on February 20th that I should be kind, compassionate, intuitive, sensitive, selfless, idealistic, pessimistic, and lazy.

I do fit in some of these descriptions, some I do not. For anyone that doesn't know me, I fit the idealistic and lazy description perfectly on most days. Some days I fit the compassionate and selfless description. The day I was born has nothing to do with any of that though. The way I act in my day to day life is just that, reactions to the day to day not a reaction to February 20th, 1996.

I know people that aren't in the Pisces stereotype that fit the description better than I do, but society tells me this is how I should act because that was when I was born. We're so eager to stuff people into these stereotypes so that they can't develop as individuals. There's no way we can group thousands upon thousands of people into one stereotype just because of the day they were born. We can't tell them that this is how they should act because they were born on a specific date.

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#Real #What'sYourSign? #Pisces #Intuitive #Selfless #Lazy #Kind #Compassionate #TheFish

Essay: Be Proud of Your Butt!

10/27/2015

The Butt Manifesto

By Leah Mueller
QuailBellMagazine.com

I have a confession to make about asses.

I find myself staring at them a lot. It's hard to avoid when you're standing in any sort of line. I'm waiting for an espresso or something, and there's an ass in front of me. Sometimes it's a young ass, other times a much older one. The young asses are usually pert, as yet unravaged by the assaults of time and gravity. Ha ha, I think, it will get you sooner than you think. The older asses are more practical, clad in sensible gear, doing the admirable job of holding up the upper portion of the body. Young or old, however, everyone has a butt, and its main purpose is to act as a hinge that allows for both walking and easy sitting.

What's Your Sign? Series: Virgo

10/22/2015

A Stack of Books and a Stash of Hand Sanitizer

By Gretchen Gales
QuailBellMagzine.com

Walking into my room, I don’t know if you could figure out that I’m a Virgo. The mess—which consists of papers, books, stationary and other office supplies— is uncharacteristic of a Virgo.
My sign, a sign that is supposed to be cleanly and organized, doesn’t show it by the state of my living quarters, unless you were to look at my bookshelves or my computer’s media folders. My books are typically found by author and genre, maybe if it is a certain edition, all of those would be paired together (leather-bound Barnes and Nobles editions need to stay together at all times).Other interesting finds in my bookshelf are18th and 19th century poetry and studies anthologies, World War II Era works, and an entire shelf dedicated to Oscar Wilde.

Review: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

10/22/2015

You Will Still Love Her Tomo-orrow

By Colleen Foster
QuailBellMagazine.com

Though the quarter-gulping machines for which they are named are pretty predictable, jukebox musicals have varied widely in their success level. For something so seemingly formulaic, these tune-recycling pieces of musical theater have more the letter-number combo predictability of, say, a rolling bingo ball cage.

Essay: Alpha Phi Video and Greek Life

10/20/2015

Yard Full of Blonde Girls, Furlongs Ahead: That Alpha Phi Video Still Matters

By Christopher Sloce
QuailBellMagazine.com

Retirement plan: buy a racehorse and name it “A Fraternity Fucking Up," because nobody's went broke betting on that yet. The fraternity system exists as a sort of petri-dish for faux pas and all it takes is tossing a rock. Sigma Phi Epsilon held a “Kanye Western” party where attendees covered their foreheads with charcoal. Sigma Nu brothers recorded themselves saying they “wanted to rape some bitches.” FIJI at James Madison sent out a guide to getting pledges laid that included room numbers and a hotness scale. Boys will boys, so it goes, etc.

Spice Up Your Life: 5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Health With Cinnamon

10/19/2015

5 Practical Uses of Cinnamon And Their Benefits

By Ghia Vitale
QuailBellMagazine.com

Beauty, health, and wellness come in many manifestations. Cinnamon is one of them. Meet your new best friend: a fall spice that has many benefits to offer during any time of year.

Cinnamon can give you everything from a speedy metabolism to plump, kissable lips. Egyptians used cinnamon in the mummification along with other spices noted for their preservative properties. As little as half a teaspoon a day can give you energy, a faster metabolism, plump lips, reduced hunger, and improved concentration.

What's Your Sign? Series: Taurus

10/18/2015

The Bull to Reckon With

By Christopher Sloce
QuailBellMagazine.com

5:44, September 23, I was writing this in the Plasmacare donation center waiting room, waiting to have a tube shoved in me that will remove my blood, extract the plasma, then shoot my blood back in my arm. For doing that I was paid $50.00. Sunday the 20th, they paid me the same. I had tried to get this done on Tuesday September 22 instead but they claimed my driver’s license wasn’t adequate enough a proof of address. The venting phone call afterward will not be reproduced in the event my current and future employer find this article. The last words I said in the center on Tuesday, after telling them their reasoning was ludicrous was, “Where’s another center?” They told me. “Good. I’ll be going there.” Then I realized the price for my time, which is what I’m really giving up, and for my plasma, which never crosses my mind, would be going down. So I wrote this on September 23rd at the Plasmacare center and I realized I budged over money. I put my stubbornness on retainer because of the $50.00.

Essay: We Need to Make Space for Anti-Feminists in the Feminist Discourse

10/18/2015

Why "Women Against Feminism" Isn't Just About Internal Misogyny

Mari Pack
QuailBellMagazine.com

I’m a die-hard feminist, and I agree with almost everything on the 'Women Against Feminism' Facebook page. Well, everything after the “I don’t need feminism because…” cut. I do need feminism – a lot. Strangely, I think that most of the contributors, who post selfies with signs that explain why they “don’t need feminism,” express concerns that are often inadvertently feminist in nature. So, why aren’t they feminists?