Sleep bears me to the farmhouse slanted on a steep hill, commanding the highway below. Yellow clapboard and fieldstone constructed after the Civil War, the first floor a single room of stone, fireplace centering it. I warm my hands at the stone hearth—a rosemary bush flames silver-blue tongues, new stems uncoiling as fast as they burn. Through pungent smoke shades appear: my children young again, interrupted in their play, John, my professor husband with his eternal scatter of books, friends, just passing through and the ghost we all tolerated. A woman we agreed, wearing white … Continue reading The Yellow House by Judy Longley→
SL: Congratulations on the publication of your short story, “Phoenix” in Streetlight’s upcoming Winter Issue. When did you start writing or realize that you were a writer? JD: I remember that when I was eight years old and in the 3rd grade I wrote a poem, but I was writing down words as soon as I could read. I felt that words held magic. In the 5th grade I was writing stories. I liked to write stories about large families so I could name all the children. I loved names. I’d write stories with families … Continue reading Author Juditha Dowd Interview→
Here at Streetlight, our favorite nonfiction is the personal essay and after reading some recent submissions, I’ve been thinking about my own family stories. One of my favorites is one that didn’t happen to me, but to my mother when she was a child. It’s a story I heard several times and always was amused by – but, I notice, differently as time goes by. The story could be told with this caption: “The Day My Mother Got Kissed by Warren G. Harding,” and it’s as short a story, as the events it features. The … Continue reading Speak Memory, But Not Too Much→
By Kanta Bosniak “Herein lies the real hope for our future. We are moving toward the ultimate destiny of our species—a state of compassion and love.” – Jane Goodall “Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment.” –Nikola Tesla “We use our gifts to bring people together.”–Babtaunde Olatunji Over a period of twelve years, I painted a series of sixty Contemporary Folk Art portraits that I use as teaching tools and which I exhibit in universities and other educational settings. The Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech is … Continue reading Mentors of the Peace→
A friend and co-worker, Caroline Eberly, shares her essay about mixing labor and leisure. This piece first appeared on Story Matters, the digital expression of Journey Group, a Charlottesville creative agency. [divider] Work Meets Play: An invitation to turn up my senses. Looking out the window at this wide, dried-out wilderness, I have sympathy for the desert-crossers who have gone before me. The wayfaring types who pushed sand with feet to cover this bare country. Just minutes before, I’d been considering the people of the future — those beings who might live in these shiny, … Continue reading Work Meets Play→
Leaving for L.A the day after tomorrow and realize I have not rented a car, wrapped presents, packed for California chill and sun, booked a motel for the road trip up the coast, or logged my students exam grades, nor scribbled notes for my house-sitter, arriving tomorrow. The clothes in my dresser drawers (spanning decades) are packed so tightly I am unable to dig past the tangled surface to even guess what archeological layers lie below. I fling everything out and now, panicked, realize there’s not enough time to thoughtfully sort and neatly fold, and … Continue reading Christmas Chaos→
Late on a Sunday afternoon, after a nearly eight-hour drive, I arrived at The Porches in Norwood, Virginia. I met my host, got the tour, unpacked my stuff, opened my laptop and stared out the large window in front of my writing desk, which overlooked a porch, and beyond the porch, the mountains. It was then that I noticed several strange, faint noises: a slight breeze rustling the tree leaves, the low hum of my ceiling fan, crows calling in the distance and, somewhere in those endless trees, the low rumble of a train. … Continue reading How Marcy Got Her Groove Back or…what I learned at my writing retreat→
Okay, there is no such list. In fact, you can go ahead and file that under Lists You’re Unlikely Ever to See in Our Current Culture. Because, these days, it seems we’re all supposed to pretend that there are no bad books. Critics may still pan movies, artwork, dance and theater, but fewer and fewer reviewers are willing to talk tough about a book. Not long ago, the New Yorker’s web site published a rambling mea culpa from critic Lee Siegel who confessed that he’d written negative book reviews in his career, but has … Continue reading Ten Books You Shouldn’t Waste Your Money On→
The poet/novelist James Dickey – who, among his many accomplishments, wrote the novel, Deliverance, is said to have once claimed that reading detective fiction was like opening a gift by first eating the excelsior. Dickey was really onto something with his cruel remark, but perhaps no one remembers excelsior (I’m assuming a quorum of readers who remember Deliverance). Excelsior, for those fortunate enough not to know, was material made from thinly sliced curled wood shavings and used to provide packing for fragile merchandise. It was later replaced – within living memory of some of us … Continue reading Excelsior!→
We’ve all done it. Found ourselves reading a successful, but dreadfully written book and exclaimed “I can do better!” Well, this was the genesis of Silver Apples of the Moon, the novel co-authored by me and my sister, Felicity Blundon. In our case, the dreadful book was The Bridges of Madison County. Bad as that book was, it did touch on a couple of important themes. One was the fact that the protagonists were mature, as opposed to twenty-somethings—targeting it to an older demographic was a key ingredient for success given the aging Baby Boomer … Continue reading Silver Apples of the Moon by Sarah Sargent→
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