You Know Nothing
By Thomas L. Winters
You know nothing
about the snowfall
the coming blackness, or
the silver rain bolts spying
A “Farewell” Post
By Richard Southard I’ve been thinking for a long while about what sort of “farewell” post I should make. What constitutes that kind of post? A few inspirational words? Some … Continue Reading A “Farewell” Post
The Real Thing
By Tom Larsen
It was always autumn when Charlie Sikes emptied the machines at North Shore. He could still recall that first year driving the lake road through flaming trees, listening to the World Series on the radio, the sun warm on his left arm and Drysdale setting them down in order. Some men would envy him, he remembered thinking.
Prompt Your Story
By Meagan Jones
You know how in my disclaimer above I mention writing prompts? Well, whatever happened to those, huh? Here’s the short answer: I didn’t really do them. I’ve given some suggestions on how to write, but no honest-to-god prompts.
Musical Fridays: Albums of the Year
by Richard Southard Since December has arrived, I thought I would go ahead and share my personal favorites of this year. Yes, I know that the year isn’t actually over … Continue Reading Musical Fridays: Albums of the Year
Meeting my Child
By Griff Foxley
A lonely heart invited me over and was elated I’d seen the scroll in the bottle,
And had responded of all things, yes. Of all things, yes.
So I ventured. But frittered away on dirty stoops and dim, private alleys along the way,
Lost my way a time maybe two maybe two hundred. But here I stand at the scroll’s address.
Music & Writing, Very Very Frightening
By Meagan Jones
The notes dance around my ears, filling the room. I don’t usually like to put my music on speakers, but my ears have been hurting from having headphones on all the time. In my tiny dorm room, the sound echoes. The volume is only at a measly amount, yet the music seems to be twice that magnitude, bouncing off all corners.
A Few Words from Cleopatra’s Lover
By Jen Rouse
You trap the sun
in endless Ball jars,
line them up like
tiny souls on
the window sill.
Musical Fridays: As Weird as It Gets
by Richard Southard
So in these past weeks, I’ve always tried to include one (maybe two) outlandish suggestion in each category. Sometimes, their stranger aspects have been more subtle (such as some of the electronic albums). At other moments, I’ve suggested albums that I know will likely be a turn-off to many people (such as Swans’ To Be Kind). Last week, doing the post about genres has inspired me to further down the rabbit hole and suggest some of the most unusual (but still good) albums I’ve come across.
Two Moons
By Mark Belair
I was maybe 20
in this taut dream, not
looking back to that age or
knowing I’d returned to it, but simply
The Art of Revision
By Meagan Jones
She crosses out a paragraph. It is good writing – she thinks so herself – yet it is unnecessary. It doesn’t fit with the work. It is out of place. It doesn’t sound right.
She peruses over the rest of the manuscript, tapping the pages absentmindedly with her pen. That piece of dialogue on the third page, she realizes, sounds awkward. She writes a note to herself to rewrite it. Then she reads her work out loud.
Old Woman and Tea
by Michael Hammerle
That boy’s gonna’ be
a heart taker.
He’s got
our father’s eyes;
Musical Fridays: Do We Need Genres?
by Richard Southard You know, after doing these posts for a few weeks, featuring a different genre each time, I’ve started to think about something: why are there genres to begin … Continue Reading Musical Fridays: Do We Need Genres?
Meditating
By Z.Z. Boone
Except for the blood pressure, Parisi is a healthy seventy-five-year-old. He swims at the Y four mornings a week, his spine is straight, he maintains the 34-inch waist he carried through college. His mind is sharp; he reads historical novels and sees an occasional play, and he can still knock out the Sunday Times crossword without having to wait a week for the solution.
Reading by Example
by Meagan Jones
As a writer, you read. You read a lot. Don’t try to get out of it (yes, you)! It’s impossible. You’ll read good things, bad things, crazy things, and generally, (if you study English or Creative Writing), a mish-mash of words spewed forth by some person long since gone from this world (looking at you, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf).
Night Sweat
By Marc Swan
Three in the morning,
AC howling like a banshee dancing
on a wire. I shut it down
with a punch of the button.