by Laura Marello Many people knew him better and longer. Many can say more articulate things about his work. I always loved him so much. I remember many details of our ten months at the Fine Arts Work Center Provincetown. For those ten months, I lived two doors down from Denis Johnson in Provincetown in 1981-82 when we were both writing fellows there. Tama Janowitz lived between us. I remember so much about it. He had not yet published his first book. He did so that spring. When I first met him, he toasted … Continue reading Remembering Denis Johnson→
I did the same thing in the first two minutes upon meeting her for the first time that I did while sitting with a friend of more than 20 years two days before. I cried. I felt humbled and felt the tears well up, and I let them stay. I didn’t wipe my eyes. I didn’t worry about my mascara smudging or my nose running. I said what I felt: that I was honored to have met her. And then I thanked her for her service to our country. I met Mrs. Kahn, the mother … Continue reading Meeting Mrs. Kahn→
This past week I had an unusual experience in a memoir class. Several of us had turned in an excerpt to be critiqued during class. The workshop leader asked another writer to read my excerpt aloud. We were not to read our own work and we were not to look at the text. A writer named Leslie began to read mine. As she read, I experienced something I had never felt before about one of my characters. It was Michael, my brother. It was as if I didn’t know him, had never known him and … Continue reading A Brother’s Revenge→
The dogs at Chicago’s Belly Shack are the best. In the bare, post-industrial setting of this diner beneath the rumbling tracks of the L, you can get a Belly Dog loaded with egg noodles and pickled green papaya. Add a little mustard and a side of Togarashi fries and you’ve got the makings of a beautiful episode of indigestion. Which I got. And which propelled me into a local 7-11 for some Tums on my way to the funky independent bookstore in Wicker Park. I was waiting on a plane to land at midnight, bringing … Continue reading Despite What Beer May Come→
When I returned home from the grocery store a few weeks ago, in the Boonsboro neighborhood of Lynchburg, I looked up to see that my next-door neighbors’ shutters had been removed from the front façade of their house, leaving the darker green older paint exposed in the shutter area, and the lighter green, newer paint around it, creating a faux shutter phenomenon. It looks good. We don’t really need shutters, I realized. We can have faux shutters, using the old paint behind the shutters to create the illusion. In the last decade, commerce has exploded … Continue reading The Faux Phenomenon by Laura Marello→
A conversation with writer director Eleanor Gaver I met Eleanor Gaver in a writing workshop in L.A. and we kept in touch after she and her husband and daughter moved to NYC. I knew she had recently finished a film and knowing how hard it is to get financing I asked her how Here One Minute was able to go from script to screen. Eleanor: I got so tired of writing scripts and waiting years to get the money to make the film; I was so tired of hearing, ‘No.’ I decided to make a … Continue reading “A Great Time For Young Filmmakers” Eleanor Gaver, writer director→
by Laura Marello Three years ago I phoned Specialty Exterminators in Lynchburg. My side yard, viewed from my screened porch, was starting to look like a cheap horror movie: rats, mice, and baby mice, running from my yard into the neighbors’ yard and back. Specialty Exterminators sent the rat baiter: an appropriately slim, tanned, wrinkled, grizzled–but in a handsome sort of way–sixty-something in a uniform much like a gas station attendant or a tow truck driver, park ranger, or sheriff would wear. As it turned out, I needed all five, and more. The Rat Baiter … Continue reading The Rat Baiter and Me→
By Laura Marello Imagine that, 20 years ago, my father and I were visiting my sister in her apartment. It was a warm, sunny day. My sister was making us ice tea. I was sitting in the living room with my father. He was complaining about his wife and her children. He said: Sometimes I want to take the gun out of the drawer and shoot the whole lot of them. I thought, The gun, out of the drawer? Not a gun out of a drawer? Articles matter. For another example, let us consider … Continue reading Articles Matter→
By Laura Marello I’d never owned a house before, and when I finally bought one in Lynchburg, I found that I enjoyed decorating it. The rooms would take on a life of their own, sometimes a history of their own as I began to decorate them. The dining room was painted a pale gold and cream, and when I unpacked a Louis chair for the living room that had matching gold striped upholstery and ebony stained wood, suddenly the room took on a personality, but one I didn’t like. Some old, fusty person had taken … Continue reading What Happens When an Explorer from the 1750s Manifests Himself While You Are Decorating Your Upstairs Sitting Room→
By Michael Lachance I have been thinking more and more about art in my life and the special appeal photography has for me, especially black and white images. We are assaulted daily with media and the volume can obscure the potential beauty of a simple, isolated image. Some photographs succeed as record of a special moment in time. My looking at photography is a good means to gain a bit of mindfulness in an otherwise jumbled calendar. I like to quickly look at collections of photographs and bookmark those which arrest my attention. I then … Continue reading Kitten Follows Mother→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
