Nick Antosca
Nick Antosca is the author of Midnight Picnic (Word Riot Press, 2009) and Fires (Impetus Press, 2007). His fiction has been published in many literary magazines and websites. His blog is http://brothercyst.blogspot.com.

When I was in middle school and my mother yelled at me one morning, so I poured milk over her head and ran out of the house and went to my friend’s house to play video games, then went to school (it was a half day starting in the afternoon) and then went home after school and said, “Hey Mom” because I forgot what happened in the morning.

Jorge de la Garza
Born 1978 in Mexico City, Jorge de la Garza currently lives and works in London.

My relationship to arrogance stems from my shyness. Shyness is often misinterpreted as arrogance, and since arrogance offers a mechanism for hiding flaws and vulnerability, it was easy to incorporate. Of course, after years of practice one becomes arrogant. There is certain arrogance to the loner, as there is to the artist.

Orion Extreme
Orion Extreme Hensley A.K.A. Fryy was born Feb 6 1996. He likes stickmen, skateboarding and rock and roll.

Well, I think of it as humphreyism. It is the practice of thinking you are better than everyone. There is one way to stop arrogance, and the answer is, is, is, wait. cookie break *<elevation music starts> DoDo Dooo Do, ok back and the answer is, is, is, wait the phones ringing, blah raw lare, yes mom, i’ll get milk, blahharowler, no mom, i won’t ask, blahhamako, ok, fine <massive yelling starts>. ok, sorry...the answer is to shove arrogant people in a soda can.
(if actually shoved in soda can, i’m not responsible)

Molly Gaudry
Molly Gaudry edits Willows Wept Review and Willows Wept Press, co-edits Twelve Stories, and is an associate editor for Keyhole Magazine. She has fiction, non-fiction, poems, and a criticism forthcoming in Mud Luscious, PANK, Night Train, Fringe Magazine, elimae, Eyeshot, The Northville Review, anderbo.com, and apt. For more, find Molly online at http://mollygaudry.blogspot.com.

Although arrogance is rather a foreign concept to me these days, it was less foreign back in my junior high days. How low self-esteem can rupture into an every-day arrogance is beyond me. I have a spotty memory when it comes to my life before the age of fifteen, so I don’t have specifics regarding my junior high era arrogance, but I have this vague, general feeling that I was. And I am sorry. There was no need for it.

Laura Goode
Laura Goode is still hung over from her six years in New York City, during which she somehow managed to receive a B.A. and M.F.A. from Columbia University. She recently relocated to San Francisco, about which all the rumors are true, and where she is, among other things, an editor and facilitator for The Beat Within, a literary magazine by and for Bay Area incarcerated youth. Her poems have appeared in the Denver Quarterly, Cannibal, and Narwhal, and her first novel, Sister Mischief, is forthcoming from Candlewick Press in 2010.

There is—I say, there is something irrepressible in me, a relentless thing that boasts and howls and makes no friend in stillness. Patience and I are unacquainted; neither have I known quiet, nor meekness, nor grace. When there is so much world to boast of, how can I keep from boasting?

Lilah Hegnauer
Lilah Hegnauer’s Dark Under Kiganda Stars (Ausable Press, 2005) was an honorable mention for the 2007 Library of Virginia Literary Award. She has an MFA from the University of Virginia and her poems have been published in FIELD, Agni, Kenyon Review, Orion, and The Cream City Review. She is a recipient of an Astraea Lesbian Writers Grant and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia..

Arrogance: I find it very attractive, but only fleetingly so. And then I find it repellent. Certainly it helps make the world go round. I’m really not sure what else to say about arrogance that wouldn’t lead to finger pointing and tsk-tsking. It’s despicable. Who wants to encounter other people’s enormous egos? Not me.

Alex Krul
Alex Krul is a recent Columbia University graduate living in New York.

When you call me arrogant, all you're really saying is: “Hey, look at that guy, he’s way cooler than I can ever hope to be.” I am sorry if my omniscience brings you down.

Clancy Martin
Clancy Martin has work published or forthcoming in The London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney's, NOON, Ethics, and elsewhere. In 2008 he won The Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for The National Magazine Award.

I recently treated a student with extreme arrogance, telling him that if he truly couldn’t read Plato’s Euthyphro he might try Winnie The Pooh and see how it went from there.

Amy Paeth
Amy Paeth is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University, and now works and writes in Philadelphia.

“When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.”
—John F. Kennedy

Eric Wennermark
Erik Wennermark is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His work is available in Pindeldyboz, The Baltimore Review, Pank, and others.

My 2009 fortune cookie: Arrogance is a state of being that often precedes a hard whack in the face.