Everett’s mother sobbed loudly as he stepped onto his front porch and let the storm door crash against the house. He had to get out of that house, though. It was all full of church people and casseroles. The n […]

Streetlight’s third issue features the work of Charlottesville painter Cynthia Burke and photographer John Grant. They talk here about the progression and process of their work.
Cynthia Burke
SL: Cynthia Burke, […]

Voices
 
I would be sitting there idly twirling
the strawberry perched on top
of the plump red pincushion
while she was hunched over the singer

filigreed foot pedal
making rhythmical clicking sounds
as […]

Katie on Fire
 
Sunset and silence,
chocolate bars and coffee—
Katie fingers rifle shells after dinner,
stacked in rows and flicked
the way a child does dominoes.
These mountains have a way
of messing wi […]

Woman at the Post Office
 
An old woman’s trouble in deciding
is holding up the line.
Another crowd, another time,
a loudmouth might complain,
but here in mid-morning, the retired,
mothers, students, all st […]

Optional Yoga at Sunrise
 
We’re told to drop into each breath then release the air
like wind in the trees.

Outside, a windmill slices light. The murmuring pines
are all piñons. The desert flows into the […]

“The Art of the 15th and 16th centuries is a gold mine of inspiration for me as well as the lithographs of the early Naturalists. I am also drawn to textiles and often have backgrounds r […]

“In my photographic work I seek to distill and dramatize natural elements, transforming them into symbolic metaphor. I embrace the often clichéd or sentimental botanical port […]

Letter to the Body
 
If only you were the pure self,
we would not have to bargain or pray,
offer up good deeds for relief of pain, or
apologies for spasms and expectorations.
The cells could absorb and […]

In August, Charlottesville author Jane Barnes published her third book, Falling in Love with Joseph Smith: My Search for the Real Prophet. She has written for films and publication and has two novels: I, K […]

Just about the worst thing a book jacket designer can do is, in my opinion, depict any of the characters on the cover. It seems almost a cruel thing to do, like he’s stealing imaginative power from the reader […]

I recently took a short trip to the beach to escape “buzz.” Do you know that sensation I’m referring to? Not the hum of a summer fly trapped in your kitchen, more like a ubiquitous sensory and informational showe […]

Who knows what people will do in the dark.

After several days of lights flicking off and on this summer, I was somehow reminded of the cigar boxes long stored on the laundry room shelf. I’d collected t […]

The first American best seller was Susan Warner’s Wide Wide World, a saga of tears and redemption that appeared in 1850. It was eventually outsold by Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but only just. It’s not surprising that this […]

I first met Kristen-Paige Madonia two years ago. Her writing is forthright and honest. It is this earnestness that stands out the most, employed to great effect as a penetrating light to plumb the depths of her […]

Up until a few days ago, when it was returned in a glorious shower of shooting stars and singing angels, the internet connection at my house had been out for about a month. I suppose its absence could have been an […]

On a wintry late afternoon in the early 1960s, I was driving from Providence, Rhode Island, where I studied at Brown University, to my apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts. I did this three days a week – a ride o […]

Jessie had worked at Meyers Auditorium for six years, by then. When she had started during her fourth year in college (it took five to finish her social sciences degree), she hadn’t planned to stay that long. It h […]

“The ceramic vase is 5 years young, a complete improvisation, based on the seed crystal of a female model saying that this session was her last, that she would be flying away. Thus I drew the flying […]

“These drawings were done during an experimental period when I was drawing from reality and from my projected photographs (slides). I loved the idea that I could juxtapose images…like a l […]