Welcome to Moonchaps, an imprint of Moonchild Magazine that publishes dreamy, experiential online chapbooks. Every chapbook we publish is free to read on our site or download to your computer/handheld device. We do believe in the beauty and timelessness of a print copy, but we can't deny that it's a luxury not everyone can afford; we want everyone to be able to read everything we publish. Concurrently, we want to add an experience of sorts to our chapbooks, which has its limits when it comes to hardcopies—for now!
We hope you enjoy—and experience—our chapbooks. If you wish to give a piece of the moon and stars to our authors, you are most welcome to tip them under the books' descriptions. If you wish to submit a dreamy chapbook of your own to our press, you can read the guidelines here. Thank you so much for your enduring support! And so, may you be swift away to another satellite...*
*Note: for best user experience, view on your PC.
We hope you enjoy—and experience—our chapbooks. If you wish to give a piece of the moon and stars to our authors, you are most welcome to tip them under the books' descriptions. If you wish to submit a dreamy chapbook of your own to our press, you can read the guidelines here. Thank you so much for your enduring support! And so, may you be swift away to another satellite...*
*Note: for best user experience, view on your PC.
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Fem Box by Elisabeth Horan, art by Ryan Schaufler
"Elisabeth Horan’s Fem Box is shockingly candid and self-aware. Each vivid and illuminating box-shaped poem draws the reader in deeper, one line at a time. They traipse along vital subjects like sexuality, identity, and pain with unflinching irreverence—while still allowing plenty of room for vulnerability. Every poem in this collection is a present that you’ll savor unwrapping." - Alana Saltz, Editor-in-Chief of Blanket Sea Excerpt 
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moon tourist by Jamie O'Connell
"A mystical moonscape distinguished by its midnight sunsets, glacial clouds, lava flows, and rich history of folklore, the country of Iceland has an ethereal and transcendent energy. Reflecting on Jamie's time spent on the island, moon tourist is a collection of poems and photographs exploring how our bodies and souls become immersed by the landscapes we inhabit. A seeming epicenter of both creation and destruction myths, this chapbook illuminates the ways in which Iceland's transformative powers and cosmic mysteries reflect the cyclical patterns of existence and its connection to our collective human spirit." Excerpt 
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Moonbeams by Craig Rodgers, art by Robin Basalaev-Binder
"Moonbeams follows a little boy who, upon deciding he no longer needs his sleep, trades it away. As he wanders the night wide awake he begins to dream." Excerpt 
The dark was there all at once, as if the light of the moon had been snatched away by some unseen fiend. Even the glow thrown from streetlights dimmed in reverence to the depth of that shade. The boy’s footfalls came to an abrupt end as he found himself wading through that endless black, a yawn the only thought he had to offer.
A spot of light appeared in the distance and grew, slowly at first, like a shining coin expanding as it neared. A piece at a time, it resolved into something more pronounced, the features of a man appearing and smiling upon that luminous facade until it could be seen for what it was, the round-faced man coming ever closer at a leisurely stroll. His voice was amused as he spoke.
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Cynthia Silver by Sam Jowett, art by Christine Sloan Stoddard
"Have you heard of The Cartographer? They’re a seller of Quests. Quests both exquisite yet rustic, whimsical yet tragic, heroic yet humble. You can find them in the woods. Any woods, if you just so happen to know where to look. Luckily for you, young Cynthia does, and she’s determined to go Questing for herself, to go to worlds that must be believed to be seen. Perhaps you’d care to join her?" Excerpt 
It was when Cynthia had heard one of those very “maybes” worm their way into her left eardrum, just so happening to be on the day that all that Quest talk was in her right, that she decided to take matters into her own hands.
We can understand, then, our hero’s insistency on secrecy for the time being. Parents don’t take too kindly to this sort of news in the same sort of way a cat doesn’t take kindly to being dropped in tub full of water. And so, Cynthia, for the time being, gave a shrug and a yawn. “I was hoping for something new…” “Ohhhh, make no mistake! We have the latest!” A waterfall of parchment roared off the counter to only be replaced with pristine sister copies. “Plenty of new ones. Trust me, darling, the market is as booming as ever.” “I trust you,” Cynthia’s voice matched the impatience of her swinging legs.
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"You don't feel like yourself sometimes, Gemini, but you don't exactly feel not like yourself either. You decide to visit your psychic Madame Muriel. She's always been there for you, acting as a remedial mum.
It's a good thing you'd already scheduled an appointment with her in advance—you haven't been acting this strangely since the last time Mercury was in retrograde."
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Death Library: The Exquisite Corpse Collection by Juliette van der Molen
"Bartholomew Miller, M.D. has always been fascinated with collecting things—dead things, in particular. As a child he collected butterflies and pinned them to little boards. He found an enormous sense of satisfaction in collecting, cataloguing and taking tender care of beautiful creatures after their expiration date. He has spent his career as a medical examiner, in keeping with his fascination of life turned to death. However, the morgue would fill up, and empty out, leaving Bartholomew without a coveted collection. One day, he decided to create a private collection. Bartholomew takes us through his card catalog of corpses, painstakingly recording some of their last moments, struggles, hopes and dreams in Death Library: The Exquisite Corpse Collection. Because every body has a story." Excerpt "Birthed undercover, sex misunderstood for gender. A transformation near complete, one last surgery on the horizon. One drink too many—a hand up her skirt. Shocked drunken rage and ignorant embarrassment. Fight me like a man. Lower lip swollen with the sting of a thousand bees. One nail broken, dragging an assailant’s DNA to damnation."
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Other People’s Scorpions by Rachel Feder
"Other People’s Scorpions is a serial poem about astrology, modernism, and other people’s children, written among H.D.’s astrology papers and published as a small-scale, poetry-based fundraiser to help prevent family separations in the Greater New Orleans area." Excerpt 
Fundraiser
Other People’s Scorpions is an astrology poem for a good cause! Moonchild Magazine and Rachel would love it if you contributed in support of a bail fund set up by the Congress of Day Laborers/Congreso de Jornaleros to prevent retaliation against immigrant human rights leaders organizing to pass anti-bias policies in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, and to help prevent the separation of immigrant parents from their families following routine traffic stops. In Kenner, the detention of immigrants for traffic violations is commonplace, and Congreso leaders have documented many cases of abuse. For example, a Kenner mother, Mayra, was torn away from her infant son for two months after Kenner police arrived at the scene of an accident where Mayra had been hit. Mayra was not responsible for the crash, but she was transferred to an ICE detention center. Congreso’s fund provides money to release immigrants from police custody before they are transferred to ICE. To contribute to the bail fund, please donate to the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice and designate Kenner Bail Fund, Attn: Chloe Sigal. Thank you for reading and for taking part in this small-scale, poetry-based fundraiser!
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Three Gothic Stories by Thursday Simpson
"Three Gothic Stories is a love letter to an assortment of romantic weirdos. An ode to the fetishized minutiae of Night Film and The Ninth Gate, a tribute to Italian Giallo films and Eurocult horror. Thursday Simpson's collection is an attempt to queer the films of Jess Franco, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci into a prose equally informed by Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamy, Chris Kraus, David Wojnarowicz, Cookie Mueller, Jeanette Winterson and Maggie Nelson. Throughout Three Gothic Stories, Thursday is searching for an authentic queer, romantic voice that is in tune with the past in its attempt to disregard tradition in an effort to help carry tradition forward. Towards this effort, Thursday has composed and recorded an original soundtrack for Three Gothic Stories to help evoke an aesthetic bridge between the visual elements of Argento and Fulci and the prog and jazz drenched scores of Goblin, Claudio Simonetti and Jess Franco." Excerpt "There are many uses for a razor blade as there are many ways a woman who is pure at heart can make her mark on the world."
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Lexapro Diary: Events of January 22, 2007 by Andrea Lambert
"In prose and synchronistic dual lyric poetry Andrea Lambert describes a near death experience. Starting with seeing the Grim Reaper in the ER. Continuing with Jehovah and Satan arguing over her soul. Or is it all a psychotic break down brought on by her Schizoaffective Disorder? Are you willing to go down the rabbit hole and unearth the whole truth about her one-day séjour of madness, cruelty and suffering?" Excerpt In the slender light of dawn. A cup of coffee by my hand. Just risen. Bathrobe on. The twitching began. Cramping. Twitching. My hand scrawled through the haiku. My arm thumped the table. My leg spasmed. I tripped on the table. Spilled my coffee. What’s going on? I wondered. I have to get dressed! I thought. They can’t take me naked. They can’t come in here. Find me all splayed out dead. Drooling. Naked. I know I’m going away to the hospital. Fuck, I don’t know for how long. I need to bring things. I need books if I’m going away. I threw my Art in Theory anthology into my bag. Thought if I was in the psych ward I could at least read some Artaud. Followed it with Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Bell Jar. I grabbed a skirt and T-shirt and pulled them on. As a crowning touch to my Sunset Boulevard moment, I took hold of an ancient, deteriorating fur coat and draped it around myself. Might as well go out kicking.
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On This Path We Travel by Joyce Chng, Kristin Garth, L. Mari Harris, Abigail Pearson, Elisabeth Horan & Tara Lynn Hawk
"Women are stronger together. What happens when six talented female forces come together to make art by and for each other? Magic. Surreal feminist power, love, humanity, compassion, anger, regret, and sexuality. These are the poems compiled in this debut collaborative chapbook by Kristin Garth, Abigail Pearson, L. Mari Harris, Tara Lynn Hawk, Joyce Chng and Elisabeth Horan. All of this beauty and strength in words uplifted by the exquisite grace of L. Mari Harris' photography. Women in Nature. Nature in Women. We are each other and we present to you our souls, our bond, and our art. Enjoy." Excerpt Return You cannot break me I take my boots off Place my bare toes in the sand and walk on You will not break me Cannot keep me locked up or haphazardly cage my heart I will walk Far, far Much away Empowered, alone Into the forest
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THE SILHOUETTE WOMAN by Christine Sloan Stoddard
"Family lore may be intriguing, but it often shrouds the truth. We can so easily take it for granted...or we can challenge it. Seeking answers involves risk. What we find may frighten or disappoint us. It can make us angry or bitter. But it's also possible it will delight us and clear up major misunderstandings. The Silhouette Woman is about one woman's yearning to find out who her great-grandmother Lucy really was, not just as a figure in family stories but as a human being. Original photo illustrations bring texture to the narrator's still-fuzzy visions of Lucy." Excerpt 
They say she was radiant, a woman who rose with
the mourning doves and shone throughout the day.
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These Celestial Bodies by Caitlin Gaudio
"This debut collection is a journey through the phases of love, recounting the very best and very worst moments of a couple’s shared history. Relationships, like stars, can eventually burn themselves out, but their atoms will always remain. The author collects these disjointed fragments and creates something tangible to make sense of the loss. These poems seek meaning in destruction and strive to appreciate the beauty in broken things; let them pull you into their orbit." Excerpt I’m not ready to lose you I’m afraid of the dark And things I cannot see I’m afraid of the ocean And its ability to swallow me I’m afraid of distance And afraid of time And if As it passes You will still be mine
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