It’s the late ’90s—the final days before smartphones and the internet changed the teenage landscape forever. Zack and his mother have moved from Tempe to Berkeley for a fresh start, leaving behind Zack’s father after a painful divorce. A natural athlete, Zack makes the water polo team which equals social acceptance at his new school. Yet he’s more drawn to Matthias, a rebellious skater on the fringes, who introduces him to punk rock, record stores, and the legendary Telegraph Avenue. As their friendship intensifies, Matthias’s behavior reminds Zack of his absent dad, driving a wedge between him and his mother. Complicating matters is Zaylee, a senior who boosts Zack’s confidence but makes him question his new buddy, Matthias. Faced with all these changes, Zack learns that when life gets messy, he might have to become his own best friend. Dr. Z and Matty Take Telegraph is about how a friendship can challenge who we are, how we fit in, and where we’re going. “Dr. Z and Matty Take Telegraph is a keenly and compassionately observed coming-of-age story that glows with truth and yearning. Reading this book feels the way falling in love and making a new best friend alight on the young and hungry heart.” — Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of In the Wild Light

Coasting follows music industry aspirants, goth teens, and others into rehearsal rooms, twelve-step meetings, a cult indoctrination, and a Russian heavy metal bunker as they pursue success, connection, and a sense of purpose.

The fourth volume of FROM SAC. This issue addresses the theme of being an Outsider. At some point, we have all felt outside of something: at school, at work, at home, in our community, in a relationship; or perhaps more of a physical outsider, whether outside our house, our town, our state, our country. Wherever we are, and whatever we are doing, we are simultaneously an insider and an outsider. Often we define ourselves by what or where we are in, but equally we are constructed by those whats and those wheres that we are not in. Whatever and however it may be, we want to know what makes you, or others, feel like an OUTSIDER. This is the first issue that FROM SAC has sought submissions outside of Northern California. We heard from everyone all over the world, and volume four is full of amazing writing and authors, as well and photographs.