“A pinch, to me, is a seemingly quiet way to wake a person up, to direct their attention, to make a little space for their attention.”

What do you think it means to be Pinchy? Or for a piece to be Pinchy? I think it means you don’t mind the friction of the living; that sequitur and non-sequitur, nonsense and a great hope can all be together, and the work included in Pinch requires those tensions.

Photo Credit: Jason Lee Brown

“Pinch and her works are not eccentric for the sole purpose of achieving uniqueness to the point of triteness, but rather with precise intention and narrative purpose. Pinch is real life, pinchy is the 180-degree turn required to communicate that reality in a refreshing and poignantly unconventional way.”

As editors consider submissions, they often discuss whether a text is pinchy. One of our editors discusses the term.

As she finished up her time as The Pinch’s Art Director, Annalee Elmore sat down with another of our wonderful MFA candidates, Lily Kate Anthony, to discuss the art of The Pinch.

As editors consider submissions, they often discuss whether a text is pinchy. One of our editors discusses the term.

Caki Wilkinson’s third poetry collection––The Survival Expo––is a weird family of poems. Beautiful, complex, breathtaking, but beautifully weird. Contained in the collection are a series of oddities like the date who wore a Titans jersey and a coonskin cap, the juxtaposition (in one line) of swamp tours and sexy gun range selfies, and a good ol’ boy selling apocalypse-prep specifically geared toward cats. We see these weird images every day in the modern world, most of us accept it or ignore it and continue along with our ill-conceived plans, but not Wilkinson.

Contest participants can be selected for publication even if they don’t win the contest. Check out this interview with Lela Tredwell to learn how this contest participant caught the attention of editors and got her piece published! “My Eye Eye” was published in issue 38.2 of The Pinch, which is available for order.