The Blue Route 26

The Blue Route 26

The Blue Route ISSUE: 26

December 2021 Widener Univeristy

The Blue Route Issue 26 Dec 2021 widenerblueroute.org Editor-in-Chief: Stefan Cozza Blog Manager: Ciana Bowers Social Media Manager: Gabrielle Norris Production Manager: Ciana Bowers Copy Editor: Christina Giska Staff Readers: Ciana Bowers, Cloë A Di Flumeri,, Gabby Norris, Shpresa Ymeraj, and Christina Giska Faculty Advisors: Michael Cocchiarale and James Esch Cover by: Mary-Rose Keane

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Contents

Letter from the editor.............................................................. 4 stoneskin ................................................................................ 5 Panos ...................................................................................... 8 Floater .................................................................................. 10 A poem not for my mother.................................................... 15 Growing up on the Belle....................................................... 18 Broken Leg of a Wayward Lamb.......................................... 22 The last women I had sex with died in a car crash four days ago ....................................................................................... 25 Dandelion Bones................................................................. 28 Interview with Sherrie Flick................................................. 31 Contributing Authors ........................................................... 35

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Letter From the Editor Dear Reader: There is always the desire to deliver something new, something that really sparks a light in the reader’s eye. Isn’t that the fundamental goal of literature: to draw the reader in with magic? As the days pass, I am still only beginning to scratch the surface of my own literary journey, despite already being so entrenched in the community. As fellow English majors at undergraduate universities know all-too-well, there is a palpable energy that comes with reading a truly captivating piece of literature. However, the works covered in classrooms are coming from storied authors, most of whose works have been taught for decades. This is where the true brilliance of undergraduate literary journals shines. It is too easy for others to judge a previously unpublished author, especially if they are a young, aspiring writer. It is the duty of the literary journals’ editors to bolster the enthusiasm for undergraduate authors because their voices need to be heard too, now more than ever. From the entire Blue Route staff, we hope you enjoy reading this batch of well-crafted creative works as much as we did.

Stefan Cozza Editor-in-Chief

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stoneskin Kyra Jee my dad and i cling to the chalky outcrops, visual spelunkers looming. below, rough cragrocks hold tidepools inside the cupped hands — barriers against hotsands.

i peel one black elastic off my wrist which he dangles into the shadowabyss of the tidepool. he smiles at something unseen by me. soon his elbow reemerges, then knuckles, flexed. in a sharp grip, one whiteshell pincher clamps onto the rubberband elastic. helicopter stowaway. body littler than the soft flesh of my thumb. my father liftcarries the crab gently to the top surface. the clawclench loosens, lets go. maroonviolet glittercrust sits atop the rock on thin legs. stares up at us, turns to the sea — the unfathomable sea — then sidewalks down into the crevice again, still facing the transitory shore.

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til the tide turnshigh, we liftcrabs. every time, they grasp up with one gleamingclaw. they linger on the sunwarm slab, spines fenceposting their spines. they look upon the sea, then return to their toughtouch rocks that ridge and crinkle exoskeletonly. when they rise, i see their bellies — whitebellies, unknown to the sun. they neverstop reaching.

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Mary- Rose Keane

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πάνος panos 09.27.21 (ng house, stanford, ca) Chaidie Petris panos always smoked his bread and cigarette over the same ash the dollars from the bakery eating up his matches and hash just something that would make the burnt up moment last like the mud ovens full of bread and temples to hashish more holy than the cross he wore around his neck more holy than that cross he wore like a brand of bondage or a symbol of his homage his holy devotion like the candle he plants in the sand under the mantle of his authority lord that his parents adored his mother holding up her clasped hands on the floor and his father who abandoned him sang his tone-deaf hymnal blues and paid his dues but left him at seventeen when he took that train to germany ω πατέρα γιατί με εγκατέλειψες; με εχεις μπερδεψει που έχεις πάει; πανός καίς το τσιγάρο σου στο θεό σου αλλά σύντομα θα σε κάψει και πατέρα μου oh father why have you abandoned me? you left me confused where have you gone? panos burns his cigarette to his god but soon he will burn you too, my father panos do you remember all those days i came running to you there not there blacked out on the couch you never knew

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how many times i came to you bleeding cuz you were staring at your demons but never at me panos i remember your cigarette smoke plainly the clouds of it in the silverdale park disappearing with the growing fade of that silver dark where i never heard the words of your apology for abandoning me panos you’re not the father you saw in your parents’ glory i’ll not be your child or your new authority i see your lined face through the stained glass of saint demetrios and the shadow of a cross on the back of panos

ω πατέρα γιατί με εγκατέλειψες; με εχεις μπερδεψει που έχεις πάει; πανός καίς το τσιγάρο σου στο θεό σου αλλά σύντομα θα σε κάψει και πατέρα μου oh father why have you abandoned me? you left me confused where have you gone? panos burns his cigarette to his god but soon he will burn you too, my father

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Floater Alexandra Ameel The weatherman called for rain. Strange, considering there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At least as far as Esmerelda could see. She stood in front of the tv in her white fuzzy slippers and silk pajamas, coffee mug in hand.

She didn’t like to sit while she watched the news in the morning, then she might get stuck on the couch until the afternoon, and there were errands to run. They were out of milk, for instance. And someone had to go get more pool shock or Harrison wouldn’t be able to float around this afternoon.

The weatherman concluded by stating that the whole county could expect thunderstorms all week.

The screen switched to a woman in a white shirt sitting next to a man in a blue suit who started talking politics. Esmerelda turned the tv off. She was headed upstairs when she heard the glass door off the dining room open, close, and then open again a few moments later.

Harrison appeared at the bottom of the stairs. His feet were bare and his tattered bathrobe was open to reveal yellowing underwear. Another item to add to her list of things to buy today, Esmerelda thought. He had a coffee mug in one hand and an unlit cigarette and a lighter in the other hand.

“You forgot to shut the door,” Esmerelda said.

Harrison’s mouth worked to say something, but nothing came out.

“Bugs are going to get in. You know I hate when those tiny ones get all over the fruit. It makes my clementines feel dirty.”

Harrison’s face was blank, his mouth slightly parted. Finally, he said, “I think you should come outside.” He turned and strode back out into the backyard.

Esmerelda didn’t feel like going outside at the moment. What she felt like doing was putting on her nice pink blouse she just bought yesterday.

She would pair it with her pastel pink pants, the ones with the nice crease down the middle of each leg. In her mind she had already picked out the jewelry she would wear, the gold set of earrings with the dewdrop pearl hanging off, and the matching necklace. She would curl her hair in that

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way that always got so many compliments from the other women at the store. What she didn’t want to do was go see what Harrison was complaining about now. Probably a bird built a nest and was shaking leaves and twigs out of the lemon tree all over his lawn. Or a squirrel had fallen into the pool again and gotten sucked into the filter.

With a sigh, Esmerelda climbed back down the stairs and walked out the door, still open, and onto the cement patio. She closed the door loudly behind her, in a way that she hoped would get her husband’s attention. If he wanted to leave the door open, he could go buy her clementines. And everything else too. It was his day off; he could go to the store.

Harrison stood with his arms crossed, staring down into the pool. A hint of something in the air made Esmerelda hesitate before walking up behind him. It wasn’t a squirrel in the pool that had gotten her husband’s attention, but a man, floating face down in the deep end. The man’s brown hair floated around his head. He had no clothes on except for white underwear.

“Who’s that?” Esmerelda asked.

Harrison turned around, the unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His forehead was wrinkled in surprise, showing his age. “How the hell would I know who that is?”

“Well, he’s in your pool.”

“My pool?” Harrison’s voice rose.

Esmerelda nodded as she stared at the man in the pool. She thought she would probably need more pool shock than anticipated now.

The rest of the neighborhood was waking up beyond wooden fences and iron gates. Cars pulled out of driveways and the groan of school buses rumbled past the house. Birds chirped and flew in and out of the lemon tree. Before long the sun would be at that point in the sky where it begins to get really hot. Esmerelda wanted to be in the air-conditioned oasis of her living room when that happened.

“I need to get going if I’m going to get my errands finished,” she said.

“We need to do something about this.” Harrison gestured with both arms towards the dead man.

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“You should definitely do something about this. While I go get those shoes I’ve been wanting. They’re on sale today and I don’t want to miss it,” Esmerelda said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’ll get the pool shock too, don’t worry.”

Harrison rubbed his temples. “This is my only day off. You know I like to float in the pool on my day off. And now you’re leaving to go get shoes?

How am I going to go to work the rest of this week? It’s going to throw the whole thing off.” He bowed his head and put his hands on his hips. “I mean, really. This is going to screw up my entire week.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Esmerelda said. “You can float around him then.” Harrison seemed to shiver at the thought, but his eyes never left the dead man. “I’ll be back this afternoon,” she said to no response.

When Esmerelda left she was in a sour mood, but by the time she returned she felt much better. A lot lighter. She had secured the shoes she wanted and gotten three compliments on her outfit. She had even picked up extra pool shock, which she wasn’t happy about, until the nice man at the counter told her that buying that much would get her a discount. Esmerelda unlocked the front door and found the house empty. She set her things on the kitchen table, pleased that everything was back to normal, and Harrison was out floating. Back to a normal Saturday.

Esmerelda grabbed the bag of pool shock to take outside. She would set it on the cement poolside as a reminder to Harrison to pour it in when he was done.

And hopefully he wouldn’t have to be reminded to pour extra. Something like a wall came up when she got close to the thought of what had transpired this morning. A thick wall that wouldn’t let her train of thought pass through. That was all right with her, she never wanted to think of it again, in fact. But when she stepped out the back door and saw Harrison standing in the same exact spot staring into the pool the wall simply ceased to exist. Suddenly she couldn’t see anything but the dead man floating in his underwear. “Harrison,” she said, “why are you still standing there?”

He made no indication that he heard her.

Esmerelda dropped the pool shock and marched up to him, ready to yank

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him around by his collar and demand his attention. “You haven’t done anything about this? Are you kidding—” Harrison turned towards her, his eyes shot through with red. She couldn’t tell if it was from an afternoon in the sun or if he had been crying. As she looked at him, she saw something in his eyes she had never seen before.

Something that made her want to run and climb one of the high wooden fences Harrison had built up around their yard when they moved in so many years ago and never come back.

Esmerelda looked down and saw that the man in the pool had turned over.

She saw that the long blue skimmer was lying on the other side of Harrison, dripping wet. “Honey,” she began in a small voice.

He cut her off, his voice a half whisper, “Don’t you think he kind of looks like me?”

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Mary-Rose Keane

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a poem not for my mother Brooke Kenney The pacific ocean. the red sea. the columbia river. oldham pond. the pool never touched from embarrassment. a glass of water with lipstick stains. a drop of rain. three tears. then two.

I have watched my mother weep, seen her smile, heard her laugh, felt her embrace. but I have never felt happiness within her touch unless she was hand in hand with the sun.

She tells me loneliness feels like a meteor in space. alone for so long that you can’t blame it when it finally crashes.

But I have sat in my room alone. I have cried by myself into my pillow. I know how it feels to float in space and not be able to breathe.

I know because I will not burden her with my emptiness because I am afraid she’ll crash.

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I tell her to focus on the waves that kiss her feet, the waterfall we found in the desert, long bubble baths, the smell after rain, the ocean breeze on a hot day But she dreams too hard, she is stuck some place. some place in space in her own world.

I can only hope, she sees the same blue sky, that I do.

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Shpresa Ymeraj

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Growing up on the Belle Jeff Thomas The Belle River was mostly mud.

Sure, a couple okay spots for fishing, some creek bed offshoots with ringneck pheasants, deer and rabbits hiding on the banks, but what stayed with you was always the mud. Mud in your boots, on your skin, under your fingernails. The wet clay smell in your nose hairs, the grey-brown flavor coating your teeth. My childhood was covered in dirt. I wonder if they still let kids wander around with loaded shotguns the way I used to.

I might have been the last eight year old in Michigan to get in on that action. I grew up in a modular home.

We had ten acres on the north side. After eleven years, my parents bought five acres one road over. My dad built a house and we all moved to the south side of the river.

After Hurricane Katrina, insurance companies started requiring us to have flood insurance which drove my dad crazy. He told the insurance man “I’m paying for flood insurance and 11 months out of the year I can walk across the fucking thing.” He soured on it, he soured on a lot of things.

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One Wednesday in August 2015, a gorgeous summer day, seas of green leaves swaying on trees, a warm summer breeze gently blowing outside our home on the south side of the Belle.

I was working a warehouse job, getting off at 10:30 every morning. Riding home that day I ran my finger across the dirt road dust that had settled in the car, drew stripes on the dash. That same day my cousin Eddie called in to work. He drove over to his parents, my Uncle Ed and Aunt Lola. At their house, he had breakfast with them in a small living room, decorated with nicotine stained 90s wallpaper. They sat together on Lola’s brown leather sofa flipping through whatever was on TV. Around noon Eddie asked to borrow his dad’s Remington 870 and hit the road.

He went to the end of Schultz Road, on the northside of the river where we all used to live. He parked his car, got out with that old 12 gauge, went and sat down on the big flat rock at the bend in the river. He was there for about an hour and forty five minutes before our old neighbor Trudy heard the gun go off. Eddie had rested the barrel at an angle under his chin. It was so ugly the police had to bring my dad and my cousin Mike in to identify him.

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Eddie didn’t want anybody to feel bad, he’d been sitting there sending messages to his teenage son, his siblings, his friends, he even made a post on Facebook about how much he loved all of us.

I had the strangest urge that day to take a drive down by our old house to see how our old yard looked. Just something I would do from time to time. Nothing stays the way you remember it. The new owners painted the barn Eddie and dad built red. The white pine we’d all sit under was cut down by DTE. I miss the shade.

I didn’t go of course. Regardless I don’t think it would have changed anything. I went home, had lunch, and was in bed taking a nap when that gun went off a quarter mile from my bedroom.

Laying there I doubt I even flinched.

My dad had barbecue chicken, potatoes, and sweetcorn on his plate that night when he answered the call. He asked “what” and then “who” twice. He dropped the phone into his food, stood up, and stared out the window for what seemed like forever. The stillness broke and he moved like a wounded man, propping himself against walls, clutching at his face and chest, struggling towards his bedroom.

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I was in there with the old man, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed while his voice cracked and he gasped for breath.

After a few waves of it hit him he just kinda checked out, still hasn’t really checked back in

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Broken Leg of a Wayward Lamb Delaney Coldren He said, “I broke its leg.”

Said, “Why did you break its leg? Are you a cruel shepherd?”

He said, “No, I love the sheep. But the sheep got to running away from me.”

- ‘The Good Shepherd of the Sheep’, sermon delivered by William Branham When he snapped your leg in half, he cried, saying it wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed. But you, little lamb, had to wander into the valley to taste Eve’s leftover apples. Was it worth it to understand the world?

He had to sling you over his shoulder and press his thumb against your jugular to keep you still. As he caressed your craning neck, you watched the horizon grow as he carried you home over all the rolling hills. Did you not know how far you’d gone? Little lamb, he brought you to a soft green pasture. He led you to the river and made sure you didn’t drink too much.

Weren’t you grateful for all he’d given you? He loved you enough to hurt you. He loved you so much his body shook as he split your tibia in two.

Why were you willing to risk this tenderness? Little lamb, he grabbed your chin to make you stare at his tears. But he looked away, saying he couldn’t bear to see your brokenness. Did you finally understand shame?

Your leg will never be the same again, and you’ll have to live with this mangled limb. But, he said, you left invisible scars on his palms he’ll have until he dies. Could you feel his pain every time he touched your skin? He held your broken body close to his chest. His heartbeat rattled around your skull as he fed you milk and honey from his palm. Did you understand how hard it was for him to forgive you? He told you how much he loved you as he laid you in the grass. He said he’d do it all again despite the pain. Did you know all he’d do to keep you there, resting by his feet?

He’d break every bone in your body until you understood the meaning of devotion. Again and again, he’d drag you back to the pasture.

Do you really think you can leave, again?

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Still, you’ll crawl away from him on broken limbs. You’ll abandon the milk and honey, leaving a trail of blood behind. It’ll hurt to hold your own weight, but you’ll know you can’t stay, little lamb.

There will be an ocean of valleys you’ll have to carry yourself across. You won’t be able to tell the difference between breathing and drowning sometimes, but you’ll keep stumbling forward. The rain will beat against your back, and you’ll wonder if wandering was worth this pain.

But one day, you will find still waters, little lamb, and a greener pasture before you. Your reflection in the pool will be whole, undisrupted by a hand scattering you across the water. You’ll be able to rest underneath the fruit of the vine, and it will be sweeter than honeycomb.

You won’t need to hold onto fear, little lamb, because time mends broken bones. In this new home you’ll find serenity, and slowly, memories of him will evaporate with morning’s dew. You’ll find truth and realize it was never made in the image of this man.

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Shpresa Ymeraj

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The last woman I had sex with died in a car crash four days ago Jeff Thomas The dawn was orange and dim when I rolled away from her. I walked out the door, never saying goodbye.

The air was thick, a low fog covered seas of soybeans on either side of M-21. Quiet, eastbound, 6:06 a.m. Sunday morning.

The Times Herald article said she’d been an all-conference volleyball player, she was coaching the JV girls at her old high school.

There were pictures of teenagers decorating a cross on the side of the road, mothers

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holding their children.

Her father, having swallowed all the words, stared down at the pavement.

I got low reading it. Sore. Ashamed.

She was a stranger reaching into the night.

I hope she forgot my face as soon as I walked out.

Her’s is branded inside me, floating alongside details of her life I was never meant to know.

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Shpresa Ymeraj

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Dandelion Bones (A Zuihitsu) Deborah Brown Things that lose by being photographed: Sunsets. Stars. Storm clouds. The sky in any form. Moments with friends when my ribs hurt from laugher. The cool night air on walks through neon-lit streets. Intricate shadows that branches cast on the sidewalk.

Tall buildings. Christmas trees. Traffic lights reflecting on wet pavement.

Raindrops.

Depressing things: Dents in new cars. New Year’s Eve in Alaska. Fireweed season, and the way the colorful world shifts so quickly as frost, snowdrifts, and shadows paint everything in black and white. The first time I skip the song I’ve been listening to on repeat, or when my favorite songs just sound like noise. Entire pages of writing, deleted by the computer. Somehow my writing always feels worse when I try to recreate it from memory.

Sleeping too late on a sunny day. The guilty feeling when you don’t like a gift someone gives you. Sunday afternoons: something about them just feels like a cemetery. Those days when I find all my friends too busy to talk.

Empty mailboxes. Rotting fruit. Bad pieces by favorite artists. Chipped mugs.

Arriving at the airport with no one to meet me.

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Places I feel small: In cemeteries, I am aware of my smallness in time. Beneath millions of stars, I am aware of my smallness in space.

Airports. Interstates. Other people’s hometowns. In the arms of giant trees.

By the ocean. Lying on a bed of grass or tiny wildflowers.

Hospitals.

Thoughts on dandelions: I want to lie in a field of dandelions, so that when the wind blows, it will scatter my bones like wishes and seeds.

I wish I had the confidence to worm my roots through the dirt, to claim something as my home, whether or not others believed I belonged there.

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Christopher Tran

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Sherrie Flick Interview - Sherrie Flick was this year’s visiting writer for the fall 2021 semester. Editor in chief, Stefan Cozza interviewed her about her book Thank Your lucky Stars, and her creative process.

1. For many, flash fiction is an intimidating genre to tackle.

You have many in “Thank your Lucky Stars,” but there are also non-flash pieces of short fiction. What is the process going into writing a piece like “Open and Shut,” versus “Home,” and “Trees.” I am personally fascinated with how much can be said with as few words as possible. I love your narrative heavy pieces, but in a way, your short pieces evoke this mood and tone that I cannot shake. How do you differentiate whether a particular spot in the collection is better suited for a story with a clearer trajectory like “Lenny the Suit Man” versus a “7:23 p.m?”

“Open and Shut took years to draft, and it goes all the way back to 1997. It was consistently worked on, complicated, and layered with different characters. These stories drafted through exercises, constraints to write in small spaces be evocative with space and image. A lot of these micro pieces are crafted like a still life and they usually require less revision.

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2. This is very much in a similar vein to my previous question, but I find it relevant and intriguing, nonetheless. You have a few composite flashes in this collection, my personal favorite being “Garden Inside.” What makes a narrative suitable for this experimental form? How do you choose which specific scenes to depict that will add to the overall tone and trajectory?

Each section is its own contained story. You get a story putting them together, but each piece has the power to stand alone.

They were originally written as part of a collaborative exhibition with the photographer Sue Abramson and displayed as text panels on the gallery walls. They were written with a slightly different purpose than flash fiction. My end goal is not always to connect the pieces. For “Garden Inside,” I was heavily motivated by Abramson’s visual art and was challenged to put words to photographs.

Also, there was a revelation that came with learning about chapter breaks while writing my novel and the possibilities they offer. One minute you’re in one place and you turn the page, and the next you’re somewhere completely different. Transitional phrases are not as necessary in composite flashes. I treat the section breaks as punctuation.

3. This is a question more concerned with content; In my eyes, you did a tremendous job of balancing the human world and the natural world. It makes me think of the term Anthropocene and how humans influence, positively and negatively, the natural world around them? Much of your longer stories are narrative driven and centered around human relationships. Did you intentionally set out to reflect the complicated and convoluted ways of human and juxtapose that reality with the grounded perspective of the natural world?

This could just be me but I saw a sharp contrast with how you represented human relationships and more pastural, nature relationships.

The book has waves, and it has resting places. Some of the stories are very dense and complicated, and they involve merging time. They are non-linear and they are asking a lot from the reader, so the shorter pieces act as brief intermissions. The longer stories in

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Thank Your Lucky Stars never seemed to work as a stand-alone collection. The dense narratives got too overwhelming to keep reading through. Every piece, whether long or short, is in conversation with one another, but that conversation comes in peaks and valleys. The smaller pieces are more atmospheric and are primarily concerned with adding thematic backgrounds. They act as an essence of the longer pieces.

4. What were you thinking about when you chose your titles?

A lot of time is designated to titling. This collection had a lot of different titles, including “Open and Shut” and then “I thank my lucky stars.” “Thank your lucky stars” came from a writer friend, Chuck Kinder, who Sherrie refers to as a master titler. The title is a bit ironic, because a lot of the characters are not thanking their lucky stars. Sherrie emphasizes always having an extra set of eyes when it comes to titles.

I highlight ideas, objects, and concepts, and make a list and then base a title off of something on the list. Titles naturally morph as stories age. One of Sherrie’s biggest suggestions as an editor for SmokeLong Quarterly is asking writers to re-title their stories. It is the first thing that’s going to draw a reader in, so it’s important to spend extra time figuring it out.

5. How do you view your secondary characters?

Minor characters help in reflecting the world, we don’t live in a void. We do have random people come into our lives at any given time. The secondary character’s main purpose is to help shed light onto the main character. Similar to how objects in the story relate back and say something about the main character. Demonstrate the psychological drive of the main character. It’s boring if one character is talking to themselves the whole story. Add interaction to create wonder and insight. Try naming every character unless the story is more abstract and aiming to be evocative. Sherrie says to avoid reoccurring names, even adding that she finds herself drawn to certain names more than others.

6. What is the publishing process like?

Prepare for rejection and always have multiple, different

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pieces out to different editors. If an editor is interested in seeing more of your work, make sure you have some readily available.

Remember that a rejection with encouragement means something; most rejections don’t come with any comments or critiques. A big part of the publishing process is to keep trying, and part of it is finding your ”group,” your “people.” Sometimes, you’ll end up becoming friends with people that have accepted or read your work. Make sure to always include a nice, succinct cover letter for presentation.

Additionally, one strategy is to begin with submitting to publications that offer the most compensation and work your way down.

One thing to keep in mind is how professional your work appears: make sure there are no typos and everything is formatted correctly.

7. What are your favorite parts of the writing process?

I love the revision process. I draft quickly and then spend sometimes years in revision, which is where I’m most comfortable. Once I’ve finished a story, I separate work by business and creative. When I’m sending work out, it’s business oriented. If you do become successful, it does become a business and it’s helpful to separate the two.

8. How does personal experience come into play in this collection and your overall writing?

None of these stories are about complete things that happened to me. I pick and choose things and details from other people and manipulate them into stories. Strange and random things inspire stories. My brain takes situations and messes them up and switches them around. I write setting two different ways: direct observation and research and memory. Memory is flawed so it is more atmospheric and emotional. Both ways evoke different feelings that feel dynamic when put together. Observation is literally taking notes, building the physical environment with a kind of accuracy that comes from research.

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Contributing Authors

Alexandra Ameel is a full-time writing student, soon to have a BA from Oakland University. She lives with her cat in New Baltimore, Michigan.

Deborah Brown is a sophomore at Berea College, where she is majoring in Psychology and Sociology. She also works as a writing consultant for her college. When she’s not writing or studying, she can be found hiking, playing guitar, going to concerts, and reading poetry.

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Delaney Coldren is a German Studies and Creative Writing student at Converse University. Her work can also be found in the Concept Literary Journal, The Louisville Review, and The Battering Ram.

In all writerly environments, Kyra Jee hopes for joy, vulnerability, and the em dash. She is an editor at Calliope Art & Literary Magazine and a student at Chapman University. Her work has appeared in The Blue Route, Calliope Art & Literary Magazine, VOYA Magazine, Sapere Aude, and The Wildcat Review.

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Brooke Kenney was born and raised in California and is a graduating senior at Chico State University. “a poem not for my mother” is Brooke’s first published poem.

Chaidie Petris is a Greek-American poet and sophomore at Stanford University. Their work has previously been published in Mud Pie and Leland Quarterly literary magazines, and served as co-editor-inchief of the West Sound Globe in 2020. Their love for the Beat Generation has led them to ride public transportation around the country last

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summer to meet some fellow artist classmates and visit some of the spots frequented by Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Bob Dylan among others in order to connect with that existential tradition of artistic connection. Their love for the Beats and Greek resistance poetry has inspired some of the themes of their writing, which center around political injustice, disillusionment, mental health, and finding authenticity and happiness in a capitalistic social system.

Jeff Thomas is a senior at Oakland University. Majoring in Creative Writing with double minors in Journalism and English, he is a firm believer in the power of the written word. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Oakland University’s independent student newspaper The Oakland Post, and as Poetry Editor of undergraduate literary journal The Oakland Arts Review.

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