One of the most surprising things I’ve discovered about writing is that while putting words on the page can be a solitary act, “being a writer” can’t be. Mind The Gap There is a gap between what people think the writing journey looks like, and what it really looks like. Non-writers picture you, alone in a book-lined room, dashing off deathless prose from Once Upon a Time to The End, occasionally gazing moodily into the distance as you wrestle with a creative demon, but ultimately in charge of your story all the way. Even … Continue reading Don’t Walk the Writers’ Path Alone by Julie Duffy→
I am in the middle of writing an essay that spans a full twenty-nine of my thirty-two years of life. It hinges on an event that happened three Thanksgivings ago, but reaches as far back as my third birthday and as far forward as—well—now. And it is here, half-way through the writing of this essay (which is as heavy in terms of my emotional investment as it is long in word count), that I pause, close my laptop, and momentarily step away. Last week, I read a piece of the essay to my beloved writing … Continue reading Writing in Retrospect by Dana Mich→
Once again we have had the good fortune to be invited into other worlds, each unfurled in just 500 words. The skill involved in presenting backstory and insight—with minimal description—is great. And, as always, trying to rank submissions to Streetlight‘s Flash Fiction contest was very difficult. In terms of the mechanics, Suzanne Freeman and I present each other with our subjective responses to the narratives. We then take a Venn Diagram approach, winnowing down the entries by those that overlap in our respective hierarchies. It’s interesting (and difficult!) to see how many stories fall by … Continue reading 2021 Flash Fiction Contest by Erika Raskin→
In the quarantined Covid year of 2020, I returned to exploring the figure in my mixed media paintings. Even though it’s been years since I’ve used the human figure as a subject, I’ve always considered my paintings “figurative,” containing representations from the real world as they do. I seem to land somewhere between abstraction and representation where composition, layering and playing with the space steer me through the painting. I’ve never been interested in replicating what I can observe outside my window like a photograph. I don’t ever want viewers to forget they … Continue reading New Works by Linda Laino→
My summer reading list (and Spring) centers around the writings of Thomas Merton. After sifting through his prose and poetry I think the most amazing thing about him is how many people lay claim to him and find a sense of permanency in his writings. It is as though his thoughts formed in solitude in the forests of Kentucky were destined to travel outbound, arriving as the first French Trappists first arrived, sailing up the Mississippi river from New Orleans to the Abbey of Gethsemani. A Roman Catholic from the age of twenty-three, Merton nonetheless … Continue reading Finding Thomas Merton by Sharon Ackerman→
I’m amazed and delighted every time we hold Streetlight’s Essay/Memoir contest to see how many wonderful submissions we get. The only sorrow is that we can’t give out more than three cash awards. But, we can offer honorable mentions and this year, I’m happy to say, six very excellent writers have agreed to let us publish their work under that aegis. We’ll be starting to roll out those wonderful essays this coming Friday, with Naomi Enright’s insightful and useful criticism of the usual way our troubled American history gets presented in school. The Hidden Curriculum, … Continue reading Celebration (Part II) by Susan Shafarzek→
Monday for Mom was splat day. She was working on splats up until her last few days. We talked about the splatforms a lot in her last few months. About a week ago she asked if I would write a splat about what it is like to be splat adjacent. This is what I came up with and she scheduled it for today not really intending it to be a last splat in this format. I’m posting it today in her honor. One thing I tell my students is, it’s not the mess we avoid … Continue reading Martha Woodroof by Liz Gipson→
I cannot separate drawing from writing. Without drawing swallows, I cannot write spring. I am self-taught in art. I am always a student. I observe, I dream and I draw. I grew up and live in Ankara, Turkey. I’ve traveled Europe to see works by Botticelli, Rafael, Michelangelo, Donatello in Italy; Dalí, Velázquez, Picasso, Goya in Spain. I took a deep breath in Alta Mira Cave, Spain. I lost myself in the Louvre, and the Hermitage. I stared at Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Vermeer in the Rijks museum. Art is long, life is short. Cappadocia, … Continue reading Drawings by Guliz Multu→
That’s actually me. I have four kidneys. I joke about it, but with great feeling for what they each signify. Two are native, gifted by my parents. The others are from two donors who saved my life with their own flesh and blood. I’m not a religious person, but the brotherly parable holds. I fell ill towards the end of the millenium when my kidneys failed. My brother volunteered to donate one of his. We matched blood types and four out of five tissue types, delighting the transplant team at Cedars, who then performed the … Continue reading The Kidney Hoarder By Bess Wiley→
As a Tuskegee Airman, the late Leon “Woodie” Spears was one of fewer than 1,000 African-Americans pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He was among the last cadets to be trained on the grounds of (and in the air above) the Tuskegee Army Air Field near Tuskegee, Ala. Several thousand other African-Americans were also trained there to be navigators, traffic controllers, mechanics, and bomber crew members. Nothing was easy for the young black men who came to Tuskegee from all around the country in the early 1940s. Woodie was from … Continue reading A Tuskegee Airman by Miles Fowler→
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