What do you do when something ought to be a word but isn’t yet? You’re typing in something you’ve written, and a little red line appears under it. You’re supposed to humbly backspace and obediently type something else instead, because the robots are always right. Let’s say you’re writing about the sensory experience of walking on damp sand. You’re writing from the POV of an autistic child, so you need precision. “Grittiness” isn’t quite right; “powderiness” is way off. It’s not a static “roughness”, or a “crunch” exactly. “Grind” carries the wrong connotation, and even … Continue reading What Would Shakespeare Do? by Fiona M. Jones→
So, I found myself in a restaurant with my wife, two friends, and one friend’s first cousin whom I had not previously met. After drinks and appetizers, the cousin, a well-educated, intelligent, funny, and charming lawyer and real estate investor, learned that I had recently published a novel and was in the process of editing a second for publication. After hearing that each novel had taken me about ten years to write, edit and find a publisher, he proposed that, to produce more in a shorter period of time, I upload my writings into an … Continue reading Aritifice or Intelligence by E. H. Jacobs→
We are going on the trip of a lifetime and the two parts of my personality are at war. Anxiety/control vs. procrastination/let it ride. It’s really fun. To celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, the husband and I are going back to the Isle of Man, for the annual TT motorcycle races. We have a year to plan everything; unfortunately all this time means there’s plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong and for changes to have to be made. So I take a few breaths and try to focus on something else, anything else … Continue reading Vacations are great, but . . . by Emily Littlewood→
Two years ago, in the pocket of time between Thanksgiving and the onslaught of holiday chaos, I spent a week with my grandmother, Mimi, at her home on St. Simons Island. She had been feeling a little off—her words, not mine—and welcomed the company. Under her astute and vigilant direction, I cooked her favorite dinners, recorded a podcast episode about her life, and rubbed her feet while we watched TV procedurals in the evenings. Mostly, she rested. But on Thursday she got antsy. She wanted to go out to dinner. So we did. We ended … Continue reading Talk To Strangers by Bree Luck→
My writing mantra used to be, Fine is good enough. I made sure whatever I sent out was the best it could be. However, I worked fulltime and was the primary caretaker for three children. When I finished a manuscript, I checked for issues, then hit “send” before anyone came down with croup, required a ride to music lessons, or needed four zillion forms signed. I never lingered at the finish line, which meant some manuscripts went out not quite fully polished. You’ve heard of the tyranny of the urgent? Those years, I happened to … Continue reading Don’t Arrive Before You Get There by Deborah M. Prum→
I find it hard to write a condolence letter, not a note, but a letter. And three condolence letters wait for me. They sit like black crows on a fence, cawing, scolding. I delay, stall, guilt-gnawed and sometimes, I admit, never write the letter in time. Instead, I email or call. Not the same! My fear is that my condolence will be a minefield of cliches. I saved a letter from the Palliative Care Social Services counselor at the Motion Picture and Television Home sent after my husband died five years ago. I remembered it … Continue reading On Writing A Condolence Letter by Trudy Hale→
It is two weeks past Mother’s Day, late afternoon, when I see a doe on the neighboring pasture. Light slices across the grass from its peach horizon, nearly blinding. Around the fringes of haze, I see there is also a tiny fawn with noodle-like legs behind the doe, and a few feet away, the neighbor’s small bulldog bluff-barking the two of them. The doe does something that I’ve never seen her do before in her elegant tiptoe strolls—she lifts one leg and hooves the ground, then the other leg, same motion. Her head thrusts forward … Continue reading Finding Isabella by Sharon Perkins Ackerman→
We usually consider mea culpas as good things, honest actions, purges of guilt, wiping clean the chalk smudged slates (to start again.) We want to regain a certain state of innocence, of internal peace. A sincere confession seems more purposeful than an everyday apology, a “sorry” which has become almost a place word in auto-fill conversations. So, what transgression(s) prompt me to spill my guts? Throughout my writing years, I have made notes on how I think poetry works (or doesn’t) along the lines of academic poets who write how-to books on how-to write poetry. … Continue reading A Confession by Fred Wilbur→
Michael Roberts describes his delicately conceived photographs as “minimalist.” “Starting last fall,” Roberts remembers, “I wanted to capture the very basic forms and graceful structures I would perceive while hiking in the Sonoran Desert. Carefully composed images with certain lighting and reduced background lent themselves to minimalism in nature and without the intrusion of color that often supersaturates photographs today. I love the simple complexity of natural structures. The images focus on one’s own perceptions and interpretation. “I seek to portray things and scenes that are overlooked or are mere backdrops to everyday … Continue reading Minimalist Photographs by Michael C. Roberts→
The forsythia outside my window has given up the brilliant citrus yellow and is fading back to the sticky green leaves. I am trying to hold a dull panic at bay. My aim is to steady myself, my nerves. I do not want to doom scroll exhaustively, rants and laments of our country’s frightening descent into chaos. Look out your window, I tell myself. Write about the forsythia’s brave first burst that ushers in the redbuds’ purple halo. See the lime green of spring grass and tiny leaves. In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers’ Karamazov, Ivan, the … Continue reading Ars Poetica by Trudy Hale→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
