M. Brianna Stallings, MFA

Picture it: Todd Rundgren, Isaac Asimov, and Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist walk into the Savoy Theatre in London's West End together. The everyday world may not see them as likely companions, but the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert & Sullivan recognizes all three as fans of the duo's comic opera Iolanthe and welcomes them with open arms.

Wanderlust is dedicated to travelogues, trip reports, photographs, & nonfiction essays taken from unique experiences on the road. In these stories, there’s an open sense of adventure & innocence, one that takes a personal experience & taps into something universal.

The Glass Coffin shows some undying love to our fave vampire

If Bram Stoker was to be believed, we might have crabs to thank for one of pop culture’s great icons. The Irish author, best known for penning the literary classic Dracula, once claimed that part of his inspiration for creating the charismatic, bloodthirsty Transylvanian stemmed from a nightmare brought on by gorging on crab meat.

Making musicals from movies, and vice versa, is nothing new. Just look at The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, Mamma Mia!, and Hairspray, the last of which went from film to Broadway show to movie musical.
Then there are those musical adaptations of films that seem ... odd. Examples include American Psycho, Evil Dead, Re-Animator, and Silence of the Lambs. We can now add to that list Breanna Bietz's Terminator: The Musical.

Mount Island is a literary magazine for rural LGBTQ & POC voices. M. Brianna Stallings is a writer & editor, though she prefers the title “Professional Word Wrangler.”

Edited by Sarah Leamy.
Guest Editor 2019 - M. Brianna Stallings; I also designed the book cover using Canva.com.

This anthology grew out of the overwhelming support & global interest in www.wanderlust-journal.com. Wanderlust is the only one-stop online resource for numerous writers to share their personal experiences rooted in the people & places they know or visit.

When 2020 Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris stated that climate change called for “science fact, not science fiction,” she probably expected some resistance from denialists, but not a rebuttal from the world of literature. That’s exactly what she got from SF author Charlie Jane Anders in a Washington Post op-ed.

Much like the threat of nuclear annihilation, Simpsons villain C. Montgomery Burns remains a lingering, omnipresent hazard to the stability of Springfield. You could also say that's what he represents on a global scale in Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. Mr. Burns has been staged several times in Austin, but in mounting the play at the UT Department of Theatre & Dance, co-executive producers and graduate students Khristián Méndez Aguirre (director) and Iman Corbani (scenic designer) wanted to do something different. They're staging a zero-waste production.

This debut novel about a future in which people can live forever is a bittersweet yet life-affirming story of eternity versus death

Brooklyn comic gives big laughs about not getting the Big O.

The improv alchemists of this weekly show turn the crap in your life into comedy gold (Photo by David Brendan Hall)

Interview with journalist & independent radio host Allison Kilkenny, co-founder of the listener-funded podcast "Citizen Radio."

Some helpful advice from someone who looks like you, ladies.

The members of mariachi band Flor de Toloache are most definitely more than “Las Caras Lindas,” or “the pretty faces,” as their new album title translates in English.

Class-led interview with critically acclaimed bestselling author Julianna Baggott. Edited by Stallings and Breanne Cunningham. (Hunger Mountain - VCFA Journal of the Arts)