A Cottage by the Lake by Miles Fowler
Most of the year while I was growing up, my family lived in a seven-room house in Worcester, Massachusetts. It had three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, and a two-car garage, although we didn’t have two cars yet. Every June, after school was out for the summer, we would pack the car and drive to our cottage by a lake in Rutland, Massachusetts, where we stayed until Labor Day. The drive seemed long when I was little, but it could not have been more than forty minutes. My father’s parents had given this cottage … Continue reading A Cottage by the Lake by Miles Fowler
Digital Art by Edward Michael Supranowicz
Both the Irish and Ukrainian/Russian sides of my family settled in Allegheny County, and the men worked in the steel mills and coal mines. My mother got on a bus one day and moved to central Ohio. She remarried and we moved to a farm on the edge of Appalachian Ohio with no running water, an outhouse, coal stove, and three acres of gardens for me to plow and hoe by hand. I believe the long days working outside allowed me to merge with and absorb the quiet rhythms of nature, so that the … Continue reading Digital Art by Edward Michael Supranowicz
Photo of My Street by Katie Davis
A few years back, a new neighbor called. “Katie, there’s an old man leaning against my front wall, should I call the police?” I pulled my window up and leaned out to look, just two houses over. There was Paul, a retired carpenter who’s lived on my street for thirty-five years. (My mom paid him to build me a loft bed when I was 16.) Paul. How can she not know who Paul is? He spends every day outside, walking a few hundred yards, resting, walking, and smoking, always in pressed white carpenter pants. I … Continue reading Photo of My Street by Katie Davis
A Doctor Finds Her Way by Cynthia Yancey
The sun was warm and bright as we pedaled our way along the new Ring Road encircling the city. On its outskirts we saw many families working there in the Kathmandu valley, women weaving mats, others rhythmically washing their clothes by hand, beating them on the rocks and stretching them over the banks and stones to dry. Little children were everywhere. There were children carrying children, neatly tied onto their backs with brightly colored cloaks, some babies naked, crawling alongside their mothers who, though busily working, were not too busy to look up in amusement … Continue reading A Doctor Finds Her Way by Cynthia Yancey
Winners of 2019 Poetry Contest
Gary Beaumier is the 1st place winner of Streetlight Magazine’s 2019 Poetry Contest. Night Train to Paris Our aged bodies surrender to the sway and lurch of the train as we have passed through the long tunnel beneath the sea old is a foreign country we ride to when we get there we will rise to higher places sit with gargoyles balance on high slate roofs as light slips through us we sleep on park benches dry leaves chasing around us like wicked urchins I will fish the river in a floppy hat mouthing a … Continue reading Winners of 2019 Poetry Contest
Idea or Memory by Ann E. Michael
National Poetry Month Daily Blog with Poem Revising a draft, for me, means returning to the poem from several perspectives. I might change the speaker from first person to second or third person, or change the poem so that there is not a clear speaker at all–no longer “lyric.” I may alter specifics, such as place names or seasonal references. Or fictionalize with invented crises, persons, time periods, or events. Take on a persona, for example. Add or delete dialogue. These are interpretive and point-of-view considerations: How can I broaden the poem’s reach? I might … Continue reading Idea or Memory by Ann E. Michael
La Mer by Gary Beaumier
It is the reach and sweep of the horizon that seduces the eye the darker folds of clouds the insinuation of rose just above the water a breeze moist and warm like the touch of first love a boat secured to the outermost mooring rocks an afternoon away a little wine a book and the plink of piano notes from the classical station that escape the raucous confusion of gulls while a wave geysers high as the lighthouse. Gary Beaumier has been a finalist for the Luminaire Award and has had his poem Rio Grande … Continue reading La Mer by Gary Beaumier
A Light Touch by Jennifer Lothrigel
I grew up in Southern California with a darkroom in my garage. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all photographers. As a child I didn’t spend much time with photography, even though I was around it. I saw how photography was a way for them to document their world and how much joy that brought them, something I realized for myself later in life. I became interested in photography in my early twenties. I am self-taught. Now in my early forties, I’m still learning. I am inspired by the work of Claude Cahun, Francesca … Continue reading A Light Touch by Jennifer Lothrigel
A Tortoise by Derek Kannemyer
Sunshine at last, & the woodland walks dappled with it. On a patch-speckled side-path skirting a pond, an immense tortoise, sunning itself. Sshh, she said, as if they had been talking too loudly, or at all, & tugged him back behind her to the trail. Until it in its turn wound by the pond, sludge-green, thick with algae & bottles, & where a tree trailed bent-trunked over the bank they leaned to peer across it. There, that mud-bronze mound: the tortoise. Would it crawl off in the grass? Amend its angle to the sun? Trouble … Continue reading A Tortoise by Derek Kannemyer
Yes, Writers, It Is Possible to Get Past Your Fear of Marketing Yourself as an Author by Lauren Sapala
By and large, the biggest problem I run into with struggling authors is the challenge they have around marketing themselves. I hear a lot of different reasons for this: “I’m too introverted.” “I hate anything that has to do with sales.” “I don’t want to be fake or phony,” etc. I get those reasons, because way back in the day when I felt like I had an allergic reaction to anything that had to do with marketing, I told other writers I hated marketing because of those very same reasons. But, here’s the thing. That … Continue reading Yes, Writers, It Is Possible to Get Past Your Fear of Marketing Yourself as an Author by Lauren Sapala