Among rural Piedmont foothills, coves of the gentle Blue Ridge Mountains, is where I live. There is no incorporated town in the county; the courthouse town has but a few hundred residents. As internet access reaches into the remotest corners and the local newspaper sees its circulation numbers dwindle, it is fortunate that an online Facebook group has been set-up as a community bulletin board. No substitute for Moose Lodge dances, a church chitterling dinner or a Fourth of July parade, but the group serves to disseminate information, both of a general and a particular … Continue reading Reaching Out by Fred Wilbur→
Something there is that doesn’t love a bridge. At least on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Oh, when I lived there, we were proud of the engineering marvel that connects the waning end of the Delmarva Peninsula to the Hampton Roads metropolis across the Chesapeake Bay. With two tunnels, four high bridges, and twelve miles of trestle bridge across the mouth of the nation’s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is an impressive structure. But natives of the Shore have always viewed it with some ambivalence, much as they have viewed the rest of the land “across … Continue reading A Bridge to Somewhere by Alex Joyner→
I grew up studying and using traditional methods and materials in painting, printmaking, and drawing, learning the characteristics and limitations of each. Digital art, using programs such as GIMP and Photoshop, now allows me to use its blending options and the fact that digital paint is never actually “wet” nor will a digital drawing smudge, to combine different methods and schools of painting into a blend that otherwise would not be possible. Old master’s techniques can be combined with alla prima painting, one layer can be abstract expressionist but blended with another which is … Continue reading New Work by Edward Michael Supranowicz→
This is me in 1975, with one of my best friends: my grandparents’ dog Sandy. This kid became tough as fuck, even though she was scared to death for most of her young life. This kid wore hand-me-downs, even though she was an only child. This kid never liked Yoo-Hoos. This kid could write a New York Times bestseller and a Netflix series about her childhood, if she’d only stop scrolling on her phone. This kid lived in apartments until she was ten years old. This kid still has math anxiety from Catholic school and … Continue reading This Kid by Kathleen McKitty Harris→
This year’s Art Search Contest drew from a pool of talented artists far and wide. Their works included handsome photographs and landscapes to mixed mediums, fine drawings and surreal collages. The choice of winners took some back and forth between us. Our final two selections were based primarily on the artist’s skill and facility with their materials, and principally, their personal vision regarding their subject. For First Place, we have chosen the work of Emma Knight of Richmond, Va. Emma Knight’s unique and playful landscape scenes provide a lush view into an imaginary … Continue reading Winners of 2023 Art Search Contest→
My dad’s family bible and watch finally arrived in the mail to me nearly twenty years after his death. How it happened is a circuitous story, worthy of a southern novel. Of note, I did in the getting, offer to pay my nephew a sum of money to steal the bible off my sister’s coffee table. It didn’t come to that but hopefully gave my nephew and niece a tale to tell. Novelist Pat Conroy once contended there are no crimes in families beyond forgiveness. Well, that rings true. The presence of these items in … Continue reading Southbound by Sharon Ackerman→
My dog sits right next to me. He’s a fourteen-almost-fifteen year old soft-coated wheaton terrier. He’s recovering from another bout of pneumonia, only two months since the last. Insanely cozy and sweet, mellow and always ready for a nap, he’s night-and-day different from his puppy days, when my husband and I thought we’d made a mistake for the entire first year of his life. When Animal (named because of his similarity to the drum-rocking muppet) was a puppy he was batshit insane. He’s always been so lovable, and so loved, but those first years he … Continue reading Afterglow by Emily Littlewood→
Seems like every morning I find myself weeding my inbox: delete, delete, delete, like a gardener tending a hopeless patch. I’m wary of accidentally opening something I might regret. Every afternoon, I weed again. Impossible. This morning, for example, I had ninety-three messages in my inbox. After weeding: twenty-one. Once, when I glanced away at something else, eighteen new messages suddenly appeared. “Have you heard of Unsubscribe?” friends say to me. Everybody knows about Unsubscribe, our one weapon against the onrushing glut. How’s it working out for you? As well as that spam filter you … Continue reading Male Enhancement Or, You Think I Need a New Email Address? by Susan Shafarzek→
Not too long ago, I was walking my black lab down Norwood Road when an acquaintance stopped his truck to chat. He said he was concerned about my neighborhood. Wasn’t I embarrassed for writers to come to the retreat and see all these ruined and abandoned houses here in Norwood? It’s a shame. It hurts him every time he passes through our hamlet, he said. He then announced that he was going to buy up as many of the forlorn houses as he could (he has the means) and renovate and turn them into Airbnbs. … Continue reading The Pleasure of Ruins by Trudy Hale→
The horizon line has long been a source of inspiration for landscape artist Susan Haley Northington. She remembers growing up in South Georgia where the open land led to the horizon line. “I remember being in love with the land. The vast flat land and open skies attracted me. Watching sunsets in amazement. The colors, the texture, the endlessness of it all. “I viewed that horizon line as mysterious but at the same time it offered peacefulness and calm, that balance I sought. As we get older we yearn for balance and … Continue reading Susan Northington Looks to the Horizon→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
