23 Feet Deep The footway we walk sketches brown lines on green fields that seem to hover over the Irish Sea. All around us sheep and cows hold their mouths to grass, unmindful of heaven. This perpetual path traces cliffs, cuts into rock, curdles to mud, descends onto beaches of rock draped in laver fronds, home to codling and flounder. Kelp, clams, fishermen, children who splash and swim, all know the sea’s routine. Even Annie the cab driver knows the tidal ways: in out in out days nights, unending. It’s the far away sun … Continue reading 23 Feet Deep by Martha Snell→
Dimithry Victor, a junior at South Plantation High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, continues to create original and intriguing images, now inspired by personal dreams and Pop art. He draws with pen and ink and digital tools, combining them with media sources. “Recently,” says Victor, “I have been exploring collages and Pop art from images I see in my dreams. I usually write down what I see in my dream, then I cut out figures from magazines, and get digital backgrounds online, or any source I can find, to recreate the dream … Continue reading New Dream Works by Dimithry Victor→
Catherine carefully dumped the coffee grounds onto the center of the front page and then folded over the four corners, making a neat bundle. Robert didn’t like to read the news and she was always careful to remove the paper before he came down. The headline would have really set him off: CYANIDE KILLER CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM! STOMACH REMEDY DEFINITE LINK! She carried the bundle of paper to the trash bin, wincing a bit when she raised the lid. Her shoulder was still sore, although the bruise had nearly faded. At least it wasn’t … Continue reading Accidents Will Happen by Nancy Christie→
In my old age, I have become an artist’s model. Every couple of months, I remove all metal adorning my body, enter a radiation-proof inner sanctum, climb up on a conveyor belt that carries me into a cavernous machine and a radiation artist makes images of my brain. The images are preserved in the Cloud, potentially for posterity. *** How terrible is nostalgia for one’s former self. There I am dancing down city streets like Gene Kelly in Paris. Healthy and fit. Ready for adventure and new friends. Oblivious to clouds floating up over the … Continue reading Excerpts From A Life: Margaret Klosko→
You have stalked about fifty agents and know what they like with their toast and where their poodles get their haircuts. The ten minutes you got to spend with some of them at writers’ conferences bought you nothing but sweat. Your queries have been answered with one-liners by robots: “Thanks, but no thanks.” You’re likely wondering why me! as you wash and dry an ice pick before you plunge it through your ear. Wait, don’t do that yet. Put it down. Let’s talk. I must note that I have the credibility of a divorced marriage counselor … Continue reading Resources for Writers Series: How to Bubble Up to the Surface of the Slush Pile→
When I was younger I prayed that if I had to get sick, I’d get a movie star illness—one with a color, ribbon, and celebrity spokespersons. It’s not that I wanted to be ill, but in my family broke-down-body lore was a frequent supper topic and bedtime story, complete with mysterious myalgias, fogs, and cases of The Nerves. For years, I thought I’d descended from malingerers or hypochondriacs. I moved six hundred miles away to avoid their fate, believing that, if there was in fact a problem, it was likely the water, Upstate New York’s … Continue reading The Ribbon Test by Lisa Ellison→
I first read Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” when I was in college. Five American Poets was the course, taught by a ruddy-faced Midwestern professor who began class by reading aloud a poem, often reciting it from memory. We were to sit and listen, book closed, before discussing anything. His sonorous voice hung in the air, like a small plane flying low over crops on a hot summer afternoon, his words trailing like a lazy line of smoke across the sky. The physical pleasure surprised me, the low hum of language a warm breeze on my … Continue reading “The Fish”, A Love Story by Mary Esselman→
As a child, one of the most thrilling things to me was the story my father told about how he, at the age of ten, first encountered Indians on a dusty road near the Flandreau Santee Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He had been sent to live with relatives who homesteaded there after his mother died in the flu epidemic in 1918. These were almost fantasies to me, stories which transported me away from my insular life on a small lake in rural Michigan. But to him this was his real and often tragic life. … Continue reading The Indian Lady Who Lived in a Quonset Hut→
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