Prompts are everywhere all around you, all the time. If you have recently been startled awake from a dream, taken a bite out of an apple, crossed a busy intersection or lived another day, you have new material to draw from. If you want to draw from the past rather than the present, firsts are fertile ground. First apartment, first kiss, first time leaving your hometown or state, first motorcycle ride, first funeral, first drink, first friend, first breakup, first boy-girl party, first prayer, first revelation. And lasts. The last lie you told, the last … Continue reading “Halfway House For Writers”→
I’ve always known that what I love can disappear. When I was three, I fell asleep on the subway, head on my father’s lap, my stuffed green bunny clutched in my arms. One instant I slept; the next, Daddy roused me and rushed us off the train. Standing on the platform, I remembered Bunny. “He’s on the train!” I screamed. But the doors had slammed shut, the train roared and screeched into its tunnel, drowning my cries. Perhaps this was when I learned that a dark, howling void waited to carry away what I loved. … Continue reading St. Anthony of Poughkeepsie by Cora Schenberg→
HAPPY NEW YEAR! to all our readers. Thank you for your interest and support. We look forward to your continued input and submissions as Streetlight approaches its third year online. Cheers to 2016! From our editors, Trudy Hale, editor in chief Sharon Leiter and Lisa Ryan, poetry Erika Raskin, fiction Susan Shafarzek, memoir, non-fiction Elizabeth Howard, art Suzanne Freeman, facebook/twitter, social media Spriggan Radfae, tech, layout and design Follow us!
It’s a highly discriminatory practice, but on this small tump of an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, dark-haired boys are the ones rewarded as harbingers of good luck for the coming year. If such a child crosses your Tangier Island threshold on New Year’s Day he’s due a dollar for the blessing he’s provided you. Other children tag along and receive spare change for their efforts, but the tradition of New Year’s Giving clearly benefits the raven-haired the most. What is it about the doorway that inspires such superstition? Brides must … Continue reading Dark-Haired Strangers at the Threshold→
Every year, my husband and I spend two weeks at a 70-year-old cabin in the Allegheny Mountains, west of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. I have been going there since the summer after I graduated from college, when the cabin had no electricity, plumbing or running water. But 100 feet off our back porch was the constant, comforting sound of the Maury River flowing through the mountain pass where the cabin was built—a sound that more than made up for the lack of 20th-century conveniences. Now, 40 years later, the cabin still has no … Continue reading A Place to Take Stock→
Last week it rained for three days. Outside my window the light pearled gray and rain drumming on the roof inspired me to ignore my to-do-list and wander among my bookshelves. My books have a way of wandering themselves as writers come and go and will sometimes carry a book to another room. Often when the writer returns the book, she will forget which room, which shelf. So as the December gusts of rain blew across the river pastures, I decided to stroll among my book shelves. I did not care to re-shelve, organize or … Continue reading Rainy Day Odyessy→
I’m a writer which means I am constantly taking in interesting things. Even when I shouldn’t be. I can be having a very serious conversation with a doctor, for instance, while simultaneously pondering competing information. It’s where my stories come from. Recently, I was mid-discussion with a specialist about medication doses when I found myself wondering about the wedding ring he was sporting on the wrong hand. I was barely able to restrain myself from interrupting and asking what that was about. Instead, while he patiently explained the prescription, I crafted a whole tragic narrative about his slow transition from Widower to … Continue reading The Writing on the Wall (or life’s little prompts)→
I take for my text the oft quoted words of E.B. White: “If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I awake in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” I won’t keep you long today; I will get right to my three points. Point number one: Bewilderment is part of the human condition. This, I believe, is one of the enduring truths … Continue reading Thanksgiving Message→
There is a dog on my runs who doesn’t like me. He lives on an Amish farm one and a quarter miles from my house. I take Bake Oven Hill Road to Middlecreek Road and can get in a moderately challenging run out and back as long as I’m staying under six miles. It is gorgeous and pleasant and has a mild hill and runs along the creek for a while. But that dog though. He’s the worst. The road splits his farm in two, like so often is the case around here in rural … Continue reading When Things Bark at You→
On a drizzling November day our poetry group gathers around the workshop leader’s kitchen table. Before we begin the critique of our poems that we wrote during the week, our workshop leader, Sharron Singleton gives us a writing prompt to free the writing self. We sit with our loose-leaf paper, yellow pads, our pens poised. I always feel a little like I used to in school before a pop quiz. “I want you to write “How Big Is No in Your Life,” Sharron tells us. We laugh and groan, oh, no. … Continue reading How Big Is No In Your Life?→
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