Shedding his cells every seven years (as our species is so inclined) Jared A. Conti is but a shell of his former self. This is not his final form.

A native of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and writer-in-residence at Lock Haven University, Jared has tried to cleave on multiple occasions. He even went to such extremes as to moped across these fine United States. This did not end well.

As luck should have it, his adventures crop up time and again in being one half of the singer-songwriter duo The Echo & Sway, and in his non-fiction, comics, and poetry.

He is the author of three chapbooks, most recently 2017’s “The Emperor’s New Poems: Poems New, Poems Used, Poems Slightly Abused” and is currently at work on a sequel of sorts to his first. This is not a joke.

As per his seven-year-itch, in relation to the newest wrinkle in his magnum opus, this post-apocalyptic fantasy is proving difficult to make amends during the current political climate.

“Last 4th of July” is the first installment of his “Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen.”

This is not the end.