The Sheets Pulled Over When one thinks in love about love, he’s doing what he shouldn’t. He will get it wrong. What if everything were revealed? The apples and milk on your mind when we lay down in Washington Park in the busy green city, if those were left on the bus in Flatbush, had tumbled to the gummed up floor since, and were what occupied you as we rushed back to your bedroom, gripped with heat. When we come to love we come expecting to get some part of it exactly right. What … Continue reading The Sheets Pulled Over by Tanner Pruitt→
Streetlight’s upcoming spring issue (due out on April 6th) will feature three winning essays selected from the trove of entries submitted to our 2016 Essay/Memoir Contest, so expect some amazing writing next month and in the future as well. This latest writing contest follows on the success of last year’s poetry contest, and promises to become a major fund-raising event for our not-for-profit web publication. Our editors delighted in the response this year to our call for entries, but choosing just three essays out of all the wonderful submissions is no meager challenge, so you … Continue reading Don’t Miss Our Spring Issue!→
The coffee shop was closed. I would not have made the detour into Leland if it hadn’t popped up on my smartphone map. And who would have expected that a coffee shop would be closed at 9 am? So there I was peering in the dusty glass, trying to conjure some sign of activity inside, sweating already on a Mississippi August morning. It didn’t look so inviting anyway. Next door, by the package store (Cheer!), a brick facade failed to conceal the implosion beyond. One step through that door and you’d be in the middle … Continue reading The Coffee That Didn’t Happen in a Delta Town (and All that Did)→
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~ Lao Tzu My father gave me a brand new digital camera for Christmas in 2005 and it sat on a shelf for a year and a half. “How are you liking that little camera I gave you?” he asked me one day. “Well, I haven’t really opened it up yet,” I had to confess. “Well, get it out and fire it up!” he chimed. I wanted to take pictures, but part of me didn’t want to have to open it. That would … Continue reading The Creative Path: From Couch Potato to Camera Buff→
Sometimes we need to write about writing. Sometimes we need to list all the reasons we love to write, or why we hate to write or what we want to write about. I write because I want to find out what I think, how I feel, why I believe and who I am underneath the makeup and the clothing and the skin. I write because writing is the best revenge and the best way to avoid goodbye. I write because it’s a vehicle for feelings that didn’t want to take the train. I write because … Continue reading Writing a Bridge→
Write It Right! Free Grammar Resources for Writers. Sometimes even the most erudite writers use bad grammar or misspell words. Hey it happens. English is a living language after all and subject to change. Dictionaries frequently bow to popular misusage of words and then permanently alter their acceptable meanings (podium, ironic, fortuitous), and as any person that grew up with a smart phone as an extra appendage will tell you: more and more chat-speak is creeping into acceptable usage. On top of that, the Internet creates crossover platforms for UK English writers and American English … Continue reading Write It Right!→
9 Pieces of Advice for Writing Fiction From Streetlight’s Fiction Editor First off, crafting stories is a skill that can be learned. (Unlike, say, the ability to keep house.) So here are a few pointers from someone who writes and reads. A lot. 1. Plotting: There are many different ways to do this. I know writers who cover their walls with blueprints, mapping each chapter like cartographers before embarking upon the very first sentence of any project. On the other extreme are those of us who take a more minimalist approach. We are … Continue reading Writing Advice→
My father was an aviator in the Great War. He was also 40 years older than I, and understandably we did not share a lot of the things little boys and daddies are supposed to share: like tossing around a football or baseball or his telling me stories of his youth and how he became who he was. And, he was a hard-driving, self-made man, from the slums of South Bend Indiana and yet gained entrance into the Notre Dame School of Architecture, from which he left to join the American army sometime … Continue reading Slipping and Falling…→
Virginia artist Jennifer Cox calls her latest series of paintings, Wanton Biophilia, describing them as “a mash-up of psychology and biology; the result of a lifetime of fascination with the natural world filtered through my subconscious, my experiences, my thought processes and philosophical leanings.” Combining natural and imagined flora and fauna, Cox says, “I always start with what comes out of my head — whether I’m waking from a nap or envisioning something I’ve seen. I’m a voracious looker. I stop in the woods and look at mushrooms. sticks, branches against the sky. I’m … Continue reading Strange Fruit→
The whole kerfuffle starts with a thought. I could illustrate my blog. As soon as I think it, she shows up: the familiar, furious fluster-roar: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? YOU’RE NO ILLUSTRATOR! YOU’VE NEVER EVEN TAKEN A DRAWING CLASS! YOU CAN’T DO THIS. YOU CAN’T JUST DECIDE TO DRAW THINGS AND SHOW PEOPLE. STOP INSTANTLY. The wrath of Pointy Girl. She’s been around as long as I can remember and that girl has the tongue of a snake. She shrieks at me when I want to do something different. She snarls when I … Continue reading My Friend Pointy Girl→
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