I know at least four Virginia poets with books published this year so it seems timely to recommend some fall reading, gifting, or perhaps simply to raise awareness of our local bards. There is also the matter of reverence for place and all writing that is a reflection of our chosen hill, where our consciousness plays out, our miracle of aliveness, our thousands of breakfasts and tying of shoelaces. There is also, I confess, a splash of self-promotion. That said, I hope this list leads at least a few people into the mystery of one … Continue reading Local’s Corner by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
Years ago, before I decided to bite the bullet and embrace the soul crushing rejection that often goes with Being A Writer, I decided to try my hand at substitute teaching. I realized my mistake almost immediately. Part of the problem was Miss T., a school secretary who’d call before the sun rose to line-up her fill-ins. She scared the hell out of me. And not just because she carried herself like a linebacker. Shed done an on-the-spot personality assessment to determine how best to keep me in her stable—correctly settling on a combo of … Continue reading The Wrong Turn On My Career Path, From Which I’m Still Recovering A Quarter Century Later by Erika Raskin→
The working title for my forthcoming poetry book is A Furious Surrendering: Poems for Navigating the Unraveling. The title poem contains these lines: ……………… ….These days being alive feels like ……………… ….flank speed in roughening seas. ……………… ….These days we evolve at speeds ……………… … Continue reading These Days by William Prindle→
Weddings create their own weather. I had no idea. I did not have a big wedding myself. It was spontaneous and the only white article of clothing I had that wild night in the Hollywood Hills was my white satin nightgown. I sometimes regretted that I did not have the confidence to have a real wedding. Now, my daughter is to be married next month, here, in my home, and the village and I am caught up in the matrimonial turbulence. One such storm, the wedding wardrobe. In the spring, she searched for her dress. … Continue reading The Wedding Dress by Trudy Hale→
The school bus is squeaking past again, there’s a pumpkin/watermelon cage match in the produce aisle and — most critically — the annual influx of dynamite entries in Streetlight’s flash fiction contest have been read! As before, the judges were gifted with glimpses of whole worlds built a mere five hundred words at a time. Some captured the quotidian, others, terror; some broke our hearts and a few, too, were laugh-out-loud funny. (You’ll see.) All of which means that picking winners was freaking hard. We are not talking about a bridge design competition which … Continue reading It’s Fall (ish) And The Flash Fiction Results Are In! by Erika Raskin and Mary Esselman→
Trixie Dougan Bijou Bellman was my mom’s dachshound when she was a kid. Though extremely short, Trixie had a rich and independent life. She walked around their Minneapolis neighborhood, giving wide berth to the front yard of Mrs. Sinclair whose reputation as a witch had clearly been conveyed cross-species.The abbreviated pet traveled an impressive circuit that included a stop at my great aunt and uncle’s place for some type of biscuit. This was apparently surprising in that, according to my grandfather, my uncle was notoriously tight. (Grandpa swore his brother-in-law bought one top shelf … Continue reading What Do Dogs Do All Day? by Erika Raskin→
I possess a book on reading at the beach. How to Read a North Carolina Beach* is one of those few books you need a beach to enjoy fully, one that prompts you to verify its contents by actually walking on the beach! The notion of reading at the beach began in the latter nineteenth century with the rise of summer vacations (not necessarily all at the beach) and this leisure time to read was promoted by the publishing industry producing entertaining, light, or fun works of literature. Thus, “beach read” eventually rose as … Continue reading Let the Leaves Turn by Fred Wilbur→
Etymology uncertain. That is how the dictionary deals with the origins of the word gradoo, tip-toeing lightly around a word you wouldn’t want to step in. Pronounced graw-doo with the accent on doo, as in Scooby-Doo and Yabba Dabba Doo, a colloquialism from the South, the dictionary says. Ahh! No surprise there. It’s not Connecticut yankees throwing a word like that around if classier terms are available. Which brings up the question of what, exactly, is gradoo. Back to the dictionary again: crud, filth, garbage, gunk; burnt mess stuck to the bottom of a pot. … Continue reading Gradoo by Richard Key→
The train whistle trumpets its warning. I watch the woods, meadows and marshland slowly morph into urban views and city skylines. Washington. Baltimore. Philadelphia. Newark. New York will be next. The best of memories surface as I approach Manhattan, the captivating city for which I feel a claim and abiding affection. What, I wonder, does it take to be considered a New Yorker. My first memories of the city date from the 1940s, a formative time and closeness to my parents. We lived on Seventeenth Street near Stuyvesant Park where my mother took me … Continue reading To Be a New Yorker by Elizabeth Meade Howard→
With all due respect, Mr. William Carlos Williams, it’s not the red wheelbarrow on which so much depends. It’s the cinder block car wash glazed with rainbow foam beside the Handlebar Grill in Great Bend, Kansas. I’ve seen it in the setting sun as I watched Red River Valley clay, carried up from Texas, make runnels off my rented pickup. You don’t go having mystical experiences in Kansas. At least that’s what I’d heard. What was it Dorothy said when she opened the Technicolor door? “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” By which … Continue reading To See the Universe in Cinderblock by Alex Joyner→
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