Coming down from the redwood forest, where majestic trees defy rusted Coke signs and dead gas stations, we drive, curve after curve, in daylight darkness, with flashes of sunlight through the deep green. Then the dream fades as the landscape diminishes into dry grasses, straighter roads, and the offer of something to eat somewhere you wouldn’t want to go. An exit sign emerges, “Ferndale,” and I remember hearing about a hidden Victorian village. So we turn off the main road because that often seems like the right thing to do. But there is no immediate … Continue reading Lily is Safe by Elisa Wood→
9 a.m. ‘M’ comes out of his flat. I see his head first, coming up the basement steps. He needs a haircut. And he’s wearing the same shirt he had on yesterday. He’s let things slide. The way he’s standing, tapping the pavement with his cane and moving his weight back and forwards, either he’s in pain or he can’t make his mind up whether to go left or right. Sometimes when he just stands there, I know it’s because he senses someone watching him. Once, I was concentrating on a patch of leg … Continue reading Ground Zero by Lynn Bushell→
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash. I. a. This morning, I saw a creature standing in the road. The size of a small dog with rust-colored fur. But even from a distance, I could see electricity shuddering just beneath its skin. A taut wildness that disappears with domesticity. b. For years now, I’ve lived in the West, in places that once were desert. Where the air is dry, and the bugs are few and no one cares quite so much if you graduated from one of the Ivies. Sometimes, I return East in August and … Continue reading Fragments From Returning to the Suburban Neighborhood of My Youth by Sharon Gelman→
The fear of losing you torments me. Krenshaw’s roommate, Annie Alessandra, was dating Tommy Stalwart. Krenshaw had introduced them a few months back and it seemed like things were going well. Krenshaw was happy for them. But she was also sad. Seeing the two of them together reminded her of what she used to have with Memphis Jericho. Krenshaw had fallen for Memphis after dating him for a few months. Then, he broke up with her, saying he wasn’t as physically attracted to Krenshaw as he hoped he’d be. Krenshaw was confused by this. She … Continue reading Krenshaw and the Tale of Memphis by Karys Rhea→
My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to beginners who are asking for comments and helpful tips on their first attempts. A self-avowed beginner posted several portraits online. Using vivid colors and bold strokes, her paintings portrayed purple bruises, blood flowing, and anguished expressions. Each portrait revealed the artist’s compassion for the difficult lives of her subjects, … Continue reading Don’t Let Anyone Break Your Creative Heart by Deborah M. Prum→
It rained the day before so burying the cat wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. She found a shovel in the shed, and wrapped her pet in an old towel and a grocery bag and put it in the hole like that, not wanting to see the life gone from his eyes. She shoveled the dirt back, then walked in the woods that bordered their two acres until she found a sufficient rock to keep animals from digging him up. She had met the truck for the delivery of the beds and … Continue reading The New House by Dawn Abeita→
Immigration Service Camp, Kenedy, Texas – May 1944 Nearly two years had passed since a Peruvian policeman pointed a pistol at him and declared Tadashi Yamada to be “under arrest.” The employee of a Japanese food store in Lima, Tadashi, along with hundreds of other Japanese and Japanese-Peruvians, soon found himself shipped off to internment in Camp Kenedy, Texas. Seizing these people through a deal with Peruvian authorities, the United States government hoped to use them as bargaining chips in exchange for Americans held by the Japanese. But that did not happen. Twenty-four and a … Continue reading New Cut Hay by Lawrence F. Farrar→
They were back at the fountain as she had promised, Nicky’s sweet round belly against the marble ledge as he tried to reach for the penniesnickelsdimes tossed into that over-chlorinated water by puppy-love teens and small children who begged, like Nicky, for change, which she refused to give when he’d come whining five minutes ago, three minutes, two, one. She wasn’t about to raise the kind of person who just went around throwing coins into any pond or stream he saw, necessitating the signs at their zoo and the park with easy hikes. “Please do … Continue reading Fountains by Amy Foster Myer→
Beginning a painting was the hardest part. Each time, there was an anxious confrontation with the blank white canvas as he stood before the easel. The image was unstable and there were so many choices: who or what entered and who or what remained excluded. Gradually, out of uncertain mist, the charcoal drawing diverged forms from background with broken lines, cross hatchings, and shadings. With an eraser, chiaroscuro images were recovered from darkness. But the pattern was still tentative and required layers of color to establish meaning which was not yet knowable. On the … Continue reading Scumbling by Thomas Mampalam→
Photo by Yucel Moran on Unsplash . My website recently asked if I’d like some assistance composing a blog post. As I’m hopelessly behind in the book marketing department for Allegiance (promoting myself ranks right up there with a colonoscopy prep), I think: God, yes! I’ll take any help I can get! AI generously provided a menu of topics to choose from (crafting quirky characters, laughter as a writing tool, secrets revealed.) I clicked on humor as a theme. Before getting started though, I found myself glancing around for Mrs. Goode—my 4th grade teacher. … Continue reading The Art Of Unconventional Wit — With An AI Assist by Erika Raskin→
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