WELL READ Magazine APRIL 2025

WELL READ Magazine’s Best of 2024 Volume One

Contributors in Volume One include: Carolyn Haines, Doug Gray, Angela Patera, Kimberly Parish Davis, Michael Spake, Jennifer Smith, Ashley Tunnell, Ken Gosse, Dr. Elizabeth V. Koshy, Ann Hite, Ellen Notbohm, Micah Ward, Malcolm Glass, Katie Crow, Lorraine Cregar, Patricia Feinberg Stoner, John M. Williams, Michael Lee Johnson, J.D. Isip, Casie Bazay, Jacob Strunk, Ann Christine Tabaka, Joan McNerney, Fhen M., Steven Kent, Peter Magliocco, Mark Braught, Rita Welty Bourke, Loretta Fairley, Barbara Anna Gaiardoni, S. Dodge, DeLane Phillips, Candice Marley Conner, Arvilla Fee, J. B. Hogan, Ramey Channell, Hope Kostedt, John Grey, Martha Ellen Johnson, Nancy Chadwick-Burke, Mike Coleman, Margaret Pearce, Nicole Irizawa, Donald Edwards, Janet Lynn Oakley, Mandy Jones, Phyllis Gobbell, and Suzanne Kamata

Cover art by Lindsay Carraway

In January of 2023, WELL READ Magazine began accepting submissions for prose, poetry, and visual art. I was blown away by all of the talented poets, authors, and artists that first year. I can’t explain the thrill I felt sharing them with readers every month through the online journal, and the excitement of opening up another new submission.

That feeling is still strong today and I’m just as excited to share the submissions from 2024 with you. They are too good not to share again – in print – to give readers another chance to find them. There are no prompts or themes for the submissions so I never know what I’m getting into until I dive in. Every submission is a surprise and each one hits you in a different way.

I love the emotional rollercoaster each new entry takes me on, so I’ve broken the traditional rules for publishing collections and

kept the anthologies in the same format as what you find in the online journal. You never know what’s coming next so get ready for a fun ride!

In Best of 2024 Volume One, you’ll find fiftyone submissions. Three were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: The Hanging by Doug Gray, Sandy Tells Me About Dead Pine Trees by J.D. Isip, and Wilma by Phyllis Gobbell.

In Best of 2024 Volume Two, you’ll find fiftytwo submissions. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: Hanging Pictures by Micah Ward, The Lone and Level Sands by James Wade, and American Chestnut by Candace Connor. The cover art is by artist, Lindsay Carraway, who had several pieces published in February of 2023.

Did you miss last month’s issue? No worries, click here to find it as well as all the past issues.

Life Close to the Bone by Michael Spake

JohnGreenburnusedtobesomebody. Now, he's just a middleaged guy, sitting behind his computer screen, waiting for his life to come to a screeching halt. Cognitive-Pharma, a Floridabased pharmaceutical company with deep pockets and a secret to hide, has caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice. The allegation? Medicare fraud. No one is more on the hook than John, who, as the Chief Ethics Officer at Cognitive-Pharma, has been the canary in the coal mine for the last 12 months. Not that his CEO cares much.

The CEO, a flashy, profit-driven type, certainly doesn't care that John's own mother, Francis, is in desperate need of CognitivePharma's top-selling drug to slow her memory loss. Haunted by what he knows of the fraud allegations - and the investigation's impact on the thousands of patients who depend on the medication - John draws closer to the memories he has of his own mother, Francis, and the ways she pushed him to be somebody. And, not just somebody, but the greatest youth tennis player upstate South Carolina had ever known. With Francis' memory deteriorating,

John's time to understand both himself and his mother, a product of the rough mill town that shaped her, is slipping away.

Life Close to the Bone moves from present day Florida and back in time to John's successful tenure on the youth tennis circuit and the textile mill in upstate South Carolina that, through Francis, shaped John's adolescence. It depicts a matriarchal family's relentless striving to overcome their "linthead" heritage and explores what it means to live for yourself and, ultimately, to forgive parents shaped by their own generational hardship.

Michael Spake is a healthcare attorney and writer. His debut novel, Life Close to the Bone, a coming-of-age story about the shift in memory that comes with moving from adolescence to adulthood, as the story’s protagonist learns about love and loss in a textile mill town located in upstate, South Carolina.

Michael and his wife Mary Lucia celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary. They have four children (22, 18, 18, and 13). Michael is from Anderson, South Carolina and graduated with honors from The Citadel with a BA(English) in 1994.

Michael currently lives in Lakeland, Florida. At home, when not writing, he gardens and raises chickens.

ABOLD THRILLER—Kirkus Reviews

In Streets of Nashville, Ezra MacRae has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of songs and their writers, and he has moved from the North Carolina mountains to Nashville’s Music Row with the dream of becoming part of that songwriting world. Yet just as he is out on the town to celebrate his first good fortune after several years of trying—a staff songwriting contract with an independent music publisher—he witnesses the man who signed on the dotted lines with him gunned down with three others outside his Music Row office. The masked gunman spares Ezra. But why?

Flowers of the Heavens by Joyce Compton Brown explores the South and its history through the lens of her family. These poems recognize within this history the holiness of life and the nobility of the human spirit, while remaining conscious of the necessity of breaking up the South’s old and stubborn mores. The collection is an elegy to the past, an appreciation of present moments, and an acceptance of the finite in the flowing of time which carries us through Earth’s cycles and our own. Brown documents a life lived through awareness of those moments of wonder, large and small, a life lived in both sorrow and in joy.

Drum the Double Sun—Algoems is a book of poems that provides a tour of surrealist portraits of the working-class through the barrooms, cafes, apartments, motels, and highways of SouthTexas and the Midwest. These “algoems” range from prophetic lyricism to absurdist poems of social and political protest, incorporating the symbols and metaphors of Aztec philosophy and western art. Through childhood to adulthood, Daniel Manuel Mendoza seeks to gain a closeness with the reader as he peers deep into the heart of what it means to be a Chicano poet in the 21st century.

MADVILLE PUBLISHING seeks out and encourages literary writers with unique voices. We look for writers who express complex ideas in simple terms. We look for critical thinkers with a twang, a lilt, or a click in their voices. And patois! We love a good patois. We want to hear those regionalisms in our writers’ voices. We want to preserve the sound of our histories through our voices complete and honest, dialectal features and all. We want to highlight those features that make our cultures special in ways that do not focus on division, but rather shine an appreciative light on our diversity.

Deep Water, Dark Horizons

by Suzanne Hudson

Suzanne’s work has been praised by William Gay, Tom Franklin, Suzanne Kingsbury, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, William Cobb, Steve Yarbrough, Karen Spears Zacharias, and others.

Suzanne Hudson is the author of two literary novels, In a Temple of Trees and In the Dark of the Moon. Her short fiction has been anthologized in almost a dozen books, including Stories from the Blue Moon Café and The Shoe Burnin’:

Stories of Southern Soul. Her short story collection Opposable Thumbs was a finalist for a John Gardner Fiction Book Award. A native of Columbus, Georgia, with roots in southwest Georgia, Suzanne Hudson grew up in Brewton, Alabama. A retired public school teacher and guidance counselor, Suzanne lives near Fairhope, Alabama, at Waterhole Branch Productions, with her husband, author Joe Formichella and the other denizens of the Branch.

She is the 2025 Truman Capote Prize winner.

Murder UnderAMystic

Moon:A1930s Mona Moon

Historical Cozy Mystery by Abigail Keam

High society lady sleuth Mona Moon and her husband, Robert Farley, Duke of Brynelleth, are on the last leg of their honeymoon. They are island hopping in the sunny Mediterranean Sea, sightseeing all the ancient archaeological ruins before returning home to Mooncrest Farm in Kentucky. They find it odd that they keep running into old friends and associates along their trip. A sixth sense is telling Mona that danger is slowly closing in, but she has no idea how it will manifest itself. Will Mona’s dream honeymoon turn into a nightmare?

Award-winning authorAbigail Keam writes the Mona Moon Mystery Series—a rags-to-riches 1930s mystery series which includes real people and events into the story line. The series is about a cartographer who is broke and counting her pennies when there is a knock at her door.Alawyer, representing her deceased uncle, announces Mona has inherited her uncle’s fortune and a horse farm in the Bluegrass. Mona can’t believe it. She is now one of the richest women in the country and in the middle of the Great Depression!

This is a special, limited edition

hardback with music CD of songs

recorded by Michael Martin Murphey.

Texas Poets LaureateAlan Birkelbach and karla k. morton are joined by award-winning musician, Michael Martin Murphey.

The Green Mage is a tale in the finest of sword and sorcery tradition—a hero’s journey told through the eyes of the mage.

Norbert Oldfoot is a simple mage who makes his living traveling the Bekla River Road, selling trade goods, performing healing magic, and singing traditional songs of heroes. He becomes friends with Kerttu, a coppersmith who has developed a new alloy which is perfect for manufacturing swords. When Kerttu is kidnapped by the evil Wizard Ludek, Kerttu’s teenage daughter Tessia, a skilled hunter, recruits three friends, including Norbert, and sets out on a quest to find a legendary dragon who lives in the mountains. With the help of the dragon, Tessia plans to save her father. Little do they know that in order to save Kerttu, they will first have to save the kingdom.

Long ago, Milon Redshield, the first warrior-king of Windkeep Castle, brought down a curse on the kingdom for his cruel treatment of dragons, the Goddess Nilene’s chosen guardians of nature. Thousands of years later, Windkeep is still burdened with the curse, and Queen Tessia is having to defend her kingdom from repeated assaults by the weather witches and their allies. She turns to her friends and advisors Norbert the Green Mage and Tyrmiss the Last Dragon, to accompany her and a band of heroes in a quest to travel to the far land of Sheonad in order to parley with the witches, and if they refuse to negotiate, then to destroy their city. Tessia urges Norbert to use his powers to fight the witches and protect Windkeep, but Norbert is reluctant to do so because he understands that the world exists in delicate balance, and grave and unforeseen consequences result if the balance is disrupted. After fighting a number of battles and suffering bizarre magical transformations, Tessia and Norbert at last come to understand the kingdom of Windkeep can be saved only through the ancient wisdom of dragons.

When the dragon Tyrmiss returns to the kingdom to ask Tessia and Norbert to help save the Western Dragons from extermination, the two heroes begin the greatest adventure of their lives, one that will take them into the underworld to plead with Mnuurluth, Lord Death himself, whom they have unknowingly been serving all along.

MADVILLE PUBLISHING seeks out and encourages literary writers with unique voices. We look for writers who express complex ideas in simple terms. We look for critical thinkers with a twang, a lilt, or a click in their voices. And patois! We love a good patois. We want to hear those regionalisms in our writers’ voices. We want to preserve the sound of our histories through our voices complete and honest, dialectal features and all. We want to highlight those features that make our cultures special in ways that do not focus on division, but rather shine an appreciative light on our diversity.

WELL READ Magazine’s Best of 2024 Volume One

Contributors in Volume One include: Carolyn Haines, Doug Gray, Angela Patera, Kimberly Parish Davis, Michael Spake, Jennifer Smith,Ashley Tunnell, Ken Gosse, Dr. Elizabeth V. Koshy, Ann Hite, Ellen Notbohm, Micah Ward, Malcolm Glass, Katie Crow, Lorraine Cregar, Patricia Feinberg Stoner, John M. Williams, Michael Lee Johnson, J.D. Isip, Casie Bazay, Jacob Strunk,Ann Christine Tabaka, Joan McNerney, Fhen M., Steven Kent, Peter Magliocco, Mark Braught,

Rita Welty Bourke, Loretta Fairley, Barbara Anna Gaiardoni, S. Dodge, DeLane Phillips, Candice Marley Conner, Arvilla Fee, J. B. Hogan, Ramey Channell, Hope Kostedt, John Grey, Martha

Ellen Johnson, Nancy Chadwick-Burke, Mike Coleman, Margaret Pearce, Nicole Irizawa, Donald Edwards, Janet Lynn Oakley, Mandy Jones, Phyllis Gobbell, and Suzanne Kamata

Cover art by Lindsay Carraway

WELL READ Magazine’s Best of 2024 Volume

Two

Contributors in Volume Two include: Candice Marley Conner, Kaye Wilkinson Barley, Mike Ross, Will Maguire, AJ Concannon, Patricia Feinberg Stoner, Gregg Norman, Robin Prince Monroe, Ramey Channell,April Mae M. Berza,Anne Leigh Parrish, B. A. Brittingham, Mike Austin, Sara Evelyne, Jennifer Smith, Loretta Fairley, J.L. Oakley, Celia Miles, Kris Faatz, Ed Nichols, Linda Imbler, Annie McDonnell, Mike Turner, Micah Ward, James Wade, Ashley Tunnell, John M. Williams, Robb Grindstaff, Stevie Lyon, Laura McHale Holland, Saeed Ibrahim, Nancy Julien Kopp, Julie Green, DeLane Phillips, Shayla Dodge, Edilson Afonso Ferreira, Chris Wood, Jasna Gugić, Fhen M., Hubert Blair Bonds, Ellen Birkett Morris, Margaret Pearce, Ellen Notbohm, Kimberly Parish Davis, J. B. Hogan, and Royal Rhodes

Cover art by Lindsay Carraway

TheyAll Rest in the Boneyard Now by Raymond L.Atkins

(Author), Evelyn Mayton (Illustrator)

“Raymond Atkins writes with intuitive wisdom, as he channels those from beyond the grave. His poetry gives voice to those who once mattered, those who time wants us to forget. In They All Rest in the Boneyard Now, Atkins wrestles death from the dusty clay and breathes life into dry bones while reminding us that every soul who once had breath is worthy of being remembered. These saints, sinners, socialites, and the socially inept are all victims of time, or circumstance, as we too shall one day be. Atkins offers salvation to all who are tormented, and solace to those who seek eternal rest.”

– Renea Winchester, Award-winning author of Outbound Train

The Cicada Tree by

Robert Gwaltney

The summer of 1956, a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence, Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an elevenyear-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed.

During a visit to Mistletoe, a plantation owned by the wealthy Mayfield family, Analeise encounters Cordelia

Mayfield and her daughter Marlissa, both of whom possess an otherworldly beauty, a lineal trait regarded as that Mayfield Shine. A whisper and an act of violence perpetrated during this visit by Mrs. Mayfield all converge to kindle Analeise’s fascination with the Mayfields.

Analeise’s burgeoning obsession with the Mayfield family overshadows her own seemingly, ordinary life, culminating in dangerous games and manipulation, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences—all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song.

Haints on Black Mountain:AHaunted Short Story Collection by Ann Hite

Ann Hite takes her readers back to Black Mountain with this haunted short story collection.

An array of new characters on the mountain experience ghostly encounters. The collection took inspiration from her beloved readers, who provided writing prompts. Wrinkle in the Air features Black Mountain's Polly Murphy, a young Cherokee woman, who sees her future in the well's water. Readers encounter relatives of Polly Murphy as the stories move through time.The Root Cellar introduces Polly's great grandson, who tends to be a little too frugal with his money until a tornado and Polly's spirit pays the mountain a visit. In The Beginning, the Middle, and the End, readers meet Gifted Lark on an excessively frigid January day. This story moves back and forth between 1942 and 1986 telling Gifted and her grandmotherAnna's story. This telling introduces spirits that intervene in the spookiest of ways.

Red Clay Suzie by

Jeffrey Dale Lofton

A novel inspired by true events.

The coming-of-age story of Philbet, gay and living with a disability, battles bullying, ignorance, and disdain as he makes his way in life as an outsider in the Deep South— before finding acceptance in unlikely places.

Fueled by tomato sandwiches and green milkshakes, and obsessed with cars, Philbet struggles with life and love as a gay boy in rural Georgia. He’s happiest when helping Grandaddy dig potatoes from the vegetable garden that connects their houses. But Philbet’s world is shattered and his resilience shaken by events that crush his innocence and sense of security; expose his misshapen chest skillfully hidden behind shirts Mama makes at home; and convince him that he’s not fit to be loved by Knox, the older boy he idolizes to distraction. Over time, Philbet finds refuge in unexpected places and inner strength in unexpected ways, leading to a resolution from beyond the grave.

The Smuggler's Daughter

by Claire Matturro

Ray Slaverson, a world-weary Florida police detective, has his hands full with the murders of two attorneys and a third suspicious death, all within twenty-four hours. Ray doesn’t believe in coincidences, but he can’t find a single link between the dead men, and he and his partner soon smash into an investigative stonewall.

Kate Garcia, Ray’s fiancée, knows more than she should. She helped one of the dead attorneys, just hours before he took a bullet to the head, study an old newspaper in the library where she works. Kate might be the only person still alive who knows what he was digging up—except for his killer.

When Kate starts trying to discover what’s behind the murders, she turns up disturbing links between the three dead men that track back to her family’s troubled past. But she has plenty of reasons to keep her mouth shut. Her discovery unleashes a cat-and-mouse game that threatens to sink her and those she loves in a high tide of danger.

The Bystanders by Dawn Major

The quaint town of Lawrenceton, Missouri isn’t sending out the welcoming committee for its newest neighbors from Los Angeles—the Samples’ family. Shannon Lamb’s “Like a Virgin” fashion choices, along with her fortune-telling mother, Wendy Samples, and her no-good, cheating, jobless, stepfather, Dale Samples, result in Shannon finding few fans in L-Town where proud family lines run deep. Only townie, Eddy Bauman, is smitten with Shannon and her Valley Girl ways. The Bystanders is a dark coming-of-age story set in the 1980s when big hair was big, and MTV ruled. In a quiet town of annual picnics and landscapes, the Samples’ rundown trailer and odd behaviors aren’t charming the locals. Shannon and Wendy could really use some friends but must learn to rely upon themselves to claw their way out of poverty and abuse if they want to escape Dale.

The Bystanders pays homage to Americana, its small-town eccentricities, and the rural people of the Northern Mississippi Delta region of Southeast Missouri, a unique area of the country where people still speak Paw Paw French and honor Old World traditions.

The Girl from the Red Rose Motel:ANovel by

Susan Beckham Zurenda

Impoverished high school junior Hazel Smalls and privileged senior Sterling Lovell would never ordinarily meet. But when both are punished with in-school suspension, Sterling finds himself drawn to the gorgeous, studious girl seated nearby, and an unlikely relationship begins. Set in 2012 South Carolina, the novel interlaces the stories of Hazel, living with her homeless family in the rundown Red Rose Motel; Sterling, yearning to break free from his wealthy parents' expectations; and recently widowedAngela Wilmore, their stern but compassionate English teacher. Hazel hides her homelessness from Sterling until he discovers her cleaning the motel's office when he goes with his slumlord father to unfreeze the motel's pipes one morning. With her secret revealed, their relationship deepens.Angela-who has her own struggles in a budding romance with the divorced principal-offers Hazel the support her family can't provide. Navigating between privilege and poverty, vulnerability and strength, all three must confront what they need from themselves and each other as Hazel gains the courage to oppose boundaries and make a bold, life-changing decision at novel's end.

The Best of the Shortest: ASouthern Writers

Reading

Reunion

by Suzanne Hudson (Author, Editor), Mandy Haynes (Editor), Joe Formichella (Author, Editor)

“Some of the happiest moments of my writing life have been spent in the company of writers whose work is included in these pages. They all brought their A-game to this fabulous collection, and at our house it is going on a shelf next to its honored predecessors. The only thing that saddens me is that the large-hearted William Gay is not around to absorb some of the love that shines through every word.” ―Steve Yarbrough

“The Best of the Shortest takes the reader on a fast-paced adventure from familiar back roads to the jungles of Viet Nam; from muddy southern creek banks to the other side of the world, touching on themes as beautiful as love and as harsh as racism. However dark or uplifting, you are guaranteed to enjoy the ride.” --Bob Zellner

“I had some of the best times of my life meeting, drinking and chatting with the writers in this book, times matched only by the hours I spent reading their books. This collection showcases a slice of Southern literature in all its complicated, glorious genius. Anyone who likes good writing will love it.” --Clay Risen

In Volume One, you’ll find thirty-eight submissions written by a fantastic mix of award-winning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: Miller’s Cafe by Mike Hilbig, Sleeping on Paul’s Mattress by Brenda Sutton Rose, and A Hard Dog by Will Maguire. The cover art is by artist, Lindsay Carraway, who had several pieces published in February’s issue.

Contributors: Jeffrey Dale Lofton, Phyllis Gobbell, Brenda Sutton Rose, T. K. Thorne, Claire Hamner Matturro, Penny Koepsel, Mike Hilbig, Jon Sokol, Rita Welty Bourke, Suzanne Kamata, Annie McDonnell, Will Maguire, Joy Ross Davis, Robb Grindstaff, Tom Shachtman, Micah Ward, Mike Turner, James D. Brewer, Eileen Coe, Susan Cornford,Ana Doina, J. B. Hogan, Carrie Welch,Ashley Holloway, Rebecca Klassen, Robin Prince Monroe, Ellen Notbohm, Scott Thomas Outlar, Fiorella Ruas, Jonathan Pett, DeLane Phillips, Larry F. Sommers, Macy Spevacek, and Richard Stimac

In Volume Two, you’ll find forty-three submissions written by a fantastic mix of award-winning authors and poets plus new ones to the scene. Three submissions in this volume were nominated for a Pushcart Prize: A Bleeding Heart by Ann Hite, A Few Hours in the Life of a FiveYear-Old Pool Player by Francine Rodriguez, and There Were Red Flags by MikeTurner.The cover art for Volume Two is by artist, DeWitt Lobrano, who had several pieces published in November’s issue.

Contributors: Ann Hite, Malcolm Glass, Dawn Major, John M. Williams, Mandy Haynes, Francine Rodriguez, Mike Turner, Mickey Dubrow, William Walsh, Robb Grindstaff, Deborah ZenhaAdams, Mark Braught, B.A. Brittingham, Ramey Channell, Eileen Coe, Marion Cohen, Lorraine Cregar, John Grey, J. B. Hogan, Yana Kane, Philip Kobylarz, Diane Lefer, Will Maguire, David Malone, Ashley Tunnell, Tania Nyman, Jacob Parker, LaVern Spencer McCarthy, K. G. Munro, Angela Patera, Micheal Spake, George Pallas, Marisa Keller, Ken Gosse, and Orlando DeVito

Walking The Wrong Way Home by Mandy

Haynes

Spanning nearly twenty decades, the struggles and victories these characters face are timeless as they all work towards the same goal.

A place to feel safe, a place to call home.

Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth: Eva and other stories by Mandy Haynes

Each story features a female protagonist, ranging from ten to ninety-five years of age. Set in the south, you’ll follow these young women and girls as they learn that they’re stronger than they ever thought possible.

Oliver by Mandy Haynes

“Dear God…and Jesus and Mary…” Even though eleven-year old Olivia is raised Southern Baptist, she likes to cover her bases when asking for a favor. Unlike her brother Oliver, she struggles with keeping her temper in check and staying out of trouble. But Oliver is different, and in the summer of ’72 he proves to Olivia there’s magic in everything - it’s up to us to see it.

Mandy Haynes spent hours on barstools and riding in vans listening to great stories from some of the best songwriters and storytellers in Nashville, Tennessee. After her son graduated college, she traded a stressful life as a pediatric cardiac sonographer for a happy one and moved to an island off the east coast. She is a contributing writer for Amelia Islander Magazine, Amelia Weddings, and editor of Encounters with Nature, an anthology created by Amelia Island writers and artists. She is also the author of two short story collections, Walking the Wrong Way Home, Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth Eva and Other Stories, and a novella, Oliver. She is a co-editor of the Southern Writers Reading reunion anthology, The Best of the Shortest. Mandy is the editor-in-chief of WELL READ Magazine and the editor of four WELL READ anthologies.

Like the characters in some of her stories, she never misses a chance to jump in a creek to catch crawdads, stand up for the underdog, or the opportunity to make someone laugh. At the end of 2024, Mandy moved back to middle Tennessee and now spends her time writing and enjoying life as much as she can.

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A CONVERSATION WITH CASSANDRA KING ABOUT THE HARPER LEE AWARD

by Mary Ellen Thompson

Beaufort, SC’s beloved author, Cassandra King, was the recipient of this year’s prestigiousHarper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer,on February 28, 2025. In doing so, she kept company with PattiCallahan Henry, Rick Bragg, Carolyn Haines, Fannie Flagg, and a host of other renownedauthors.

Established in 1998, and presented by the Monroeville Literary Festival, the press release states,“The annual award recognizes the lifetime achievement of a writer either born in Alabama orstrongly connected to the state. It is funded by Harper Lee LLC and is one of the top southernliterature awards.”

Cassandra has written five novels and two non-fiction books, the most recent of which is Tell Mea Story, about her life with Pat Conroy. She has won numerous awards for her books, and hasalso authored several short stories and articles.

The Harper Lee Award is a big deal for a Southern writer. When I asked Cassandra if she wasexcited and/or nervous about going to get her award, she replied, with her not unusual tongue-in-cheek response. “Well, I’m of course pleased to be honored in my native state - and Harper Leewas a big influence in my life - but just between us,” (sorry about this Cassandra, not justbetween us any longer) “I’m too old to enjoy going to book festivals. I just want to be home. ButI’ll have a bonus on this trip, in that I’ll get to see my grandkids in Birmingham, and my oldestson and his wife from Houston are flying in for the ceremony. My sister and her son are comingtoo, I haven’t seen her for a while. I love Monroeville and will enjoy catching up with some of my Bama friends from the old days.

Rick Bragg is doing the toast at dinner.”

Unfortunately Rick Bragg wasn’t able to be there but the Chairman of the event read Rick’sremarks. When Mr. Bragg was inducted into the Alabama Humanities Alliance as a Fellow, thispast December, Cassandra, an inaugural Humanities Fellow herself, was asked to introduce him.

Cassandra’s obvious delight about the award is evidenced in her remarks, “One of my mosttreasured possessions, literally under lock and key in my desk, is my signed copy of To Kill aMockingbird. As someone who came of age in rural Alabama during the time of the book’srelease, I don’t just love and appreciate To Kill a Mockingbird, I revere it. When Harper Lee toldthe story of Scout Finch, she was telling my story as well, and the stories of so many of us whogrew up during that historic time.”

In expressing her gratitude for the award, Cassandra said she wished she had been able to speakto the late author herself to say, “Harper Lee, few writers have touched and influenced as manylives as you have. Please allow this Alabama girl to finally say thank you, from the bottom of myheart. Your writing not only touched and influenced me, you changed my vision of the world.”

When I asked Cassandra how she found out she had won the award, she told me that last fall shehad received a message from Jonathan Haupt at The Pat Conroy Literary Center, whereCassandra is Honorary Chair, telling her that a group of people inAlabama wanted to contacther.Then she received a telephone call letting her know she had won the award. ”I was verypleased but I couldn’t tell anyone.

Pat’s name for me was Helen Keller.” In the introduction to ALowcountry Heart, Reflections on a Writing Life, Cassandra wrote, “I’m notoriouslyclosemouthed and private; so much so that he would later nickname me Helen Keller. Not onlywere Helen Keller and I both native Alabamians, he said, but like my namesake, I saw nothing,heard nothing, said nothing.” So she told no one.

Cassandra was not a stranger to the Monroeville Literary Festival, she had been there with mostof her books when they debuted. She remembers when the Festival was held at the college andthe Harper Lee Award was presented at the country club, and the closing ceremony crowned thefestival with the play of To Kill a Mockingbird, which started being held outside the courthousebut moved inside the courthouse for Tom’s trial. Cassandra recalled that the audience went intothe courthouse, drew a number and, based on that, was picked to be on the jury. The Blackcommunity sat in the balcony; Scout and Jem were also in the balcony. Cassandra said that whenthe trial was over and Atticus was walking out of the courthouse, Reverend Sykes told Scout,“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.” was such a powerful moment for her. Now,the play is in April instead of during the festival, and the entire trial is held in the courthouse.

Cassandra told me that she had always wanted to be a writer, that even as a child she wrotestories, and Harper Lee had a large influence on her writing. For a few minutes we batted aroundthe writers that we had liked in the 1960’s and agreed upon Carolyn Keene, J. D. Salinger, JamesMitchner, Louisa May Alcott, and Ernest

Hemingway. Cassandra thought that Harper Lee mayhave been the first Southern author she ever read; somewhere in the list were Margaret Mitchelland Thomas Wolfe, but not until later.

When receiving her award, Cassandra particularly enjoyed being introduced by a directdescendant,Anna Lee Gresham, who is Harper Lee’s great-niece, and Cassandra also got to meetAnna’s mother. I asked her if in addition to her own family, any of her “same sweet girls” werethere and Cassandra said no. “Well,” I said, “they are off the list now!”

Cassandra laughed and said “I know! But for various reasons they couldn’t make it.” I’m surethey were all there in spirit as were all of Cassandra’s friends and fans. The award will be on display at The Pat Conroy Literary Center and it won’t be difficult to miss because not only wasit a big deal to win it, but also it is an impressively large bronze replica of the Monroevillecourthouse.

Cassandra accepting the award

A CONVERSATION WITH CASSANDRA KING ABOUT THE HARPER LEE AWARD by

Mary Ellen Thompson

Cassandra and family

Cassandra with Anna Lee Gresham

Celebrating back in Beaufort at a cocktail party

Mary Ellen Thompson

Mary Ellen Thompson is an Associate Editor for Southern Literary Review and freelance journalist for the Charleston Post and Courier. Previously, she was the lead features writer for Beaufort Lifestyle Magazine for eight years and a columnist for Lowcountry Weekly for ten years. She has also been a contributor to Heavy Feather Review, Well Read Magazine, as well as several other publications, and her interview with the legendary Pat Conroy was published in A Lowcountry Heart.

Mary Ellen has very happy feet and loves to travel. Currently living on Saint Helena Island, SC, she hosts a Writer’s Residency for the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

INSIDE VOICES

“When the word activism comes up these days, many folks think of violence in the streets. I feel, however, that we all participate in activism almost daily.”

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Jeffrey Blount

Jeffrey Blount is the award-winning author of four novels. Almost Snow White, winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Awards, Hating Heidi Foster, winner of the 2013 Readers Favorite Book Award for young adult literature, The Emancipation of Evan Walls,winner of the 2020 National Indie Excellence Award for African American fiction and other awards, and Jeffrey's latest novel is Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way,winner of the 2024 Next Generation Indie BookAwards forAfricanAmerican Fiction.

He is also anEmmy award-winning television director and a 2016 inductee to the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. During a 34-year career at NBC News, Jeffrey directed a decade of Meet the Press, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News,and major special events.

He was also a contributor for HuffPost and has been published in The Washington Post and other publications, commenting on issues of race, social justice and writing.

Jeffrey/WellRead:Without giving anything away, will you set up the story of Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way?

James Henry Ferguson is an African American billionaire who lives in Washington, DC. A famous humanitarian, he is well-liked because of his philanthropic nature. He makes a self-destructive choice and suffers a very sudden, severe and highly publicized fall from grace. In an attempt to outrun the unending traditional and social media attention that follows, he buys a house, sight unseen,

in the small town of Ham, Mississippi.He arrives to find that he is neighbor to a community mired in abject poverty. An emergency draws him, quite unwillingly, into the lives of his impoverished neighbors.As he attempts to find redemption for his own failings, he must find a way to empower his neighbors or watch them collapse alongside him. Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way is a story about failure, self-discovery, empowerment, and the possibility of redemption.

Robert/WellRead: What was your inspiration for this story of redemption and salvation?

It was actually a three-part inspiration. First, throughout my career in the news business, I began to feel strongly about the struggle of Americans suffering in poverty. It was an issue I’d planned on publicly addressing somehow when I retired from NBC. Second, Jeanne Meserve, my wife and former CNN anchor and correspondent, was in Louisiana to work on a story about storms. She and her crew got lost and in the process of finding their way, she passed through a community living in a kind of poverty that one rarely sees in the United States. She was horrified and transferred that feeling to me. I began to do research based on her experience. Third, for many years I had considered writing about the notion of redemption. In part, because I wanted to investigate whether or not in the age of social media a person could actually find redemption after a tragic and public fall. My daughter and I

went to see Bryan Stevenson speak and during his speech he said this: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”At that point, I knew I had the basics for the work that would become Mr. Jimmy FromAround the Way. I knew I had the vehicle to take on and publicize these issues that I felt so strongly about.

Jeffrey/WellRead: I heard you talk about the Activism of Kindness, and you mentioned this as a guiding tenet. For our gentle listeners, will you expound upon this notion?

When the word activism comes up these days, many folks think of violence in the streets. I feel, however, that we all participate in activism almost daily. We just don’t think of it that way. For instance, if you have ever advocated in a medical situation for a loved one, then you have been an activist for better medical care. If you have helped to feed the hungry or clothe the partially clothed, then you have been an activist for humanitarianism. If you have shopped for your ill neighbor, you have been an activist for a better community. I coined the phraseTheActivism of Kindness as I wrote my novel. It was in my heart with every keystroke. It really means that we see the pain around us and that with kindness as our guide and rule, we step into our neighbor’s pain with the hope of easing it. At the core of this kind of kindness is the recognition of each other’s humanity. Part of the United Nations’ mission statement is “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The Activism of Kindness is one way we can achieve

that mission.

Robert/WellRead: It sounds like you are purposeful in your writing. For example, the cycles of poverty within communities, lack of education. What do you want your readers to take away from this story?

I want people to close the book and be moved toward action. I want them to be inspired to make a difference in the lives of others. One of my readers wrote, “I have never had a fictional book strike such a call to action in my soul before.”With that, I knew that I had at least partially achieved my goal.

Jeffrey/WellRead: Mr. Jimmy is a well-known figure, which means the media is aware of him.You have spent your entire career in the media as a renowned director. How did your career shape the portrayal of the news media in your story?

I am in a period of great concern for journalism in the United States. Even in the entire free world. Sensationalism and opinion have replaced facts for many and there is no doubt I wanted to point that out in the book. I wanted to illustrate the kind of damage it can create in the world.Also, at the same time, I wanted to show what hard-nosed, old-fashioned journalism looked like. So, there are two versions of journalism in the novel. Much more for the reader to think about.

Robert/WellRead: You’ve spoken about the idea of “Air Pressure, Water Pressure, and Blood Pressure.” Will you tell us more about this intriguing idea and why it’s important?

This is a treasured phrase in my relationship with my oldest and best friend, Perry Bell. He coined it to explain how he dealt with periods of struggle in life. In time, each of us began to use it to remind the other what we needed to do in order to deal with the tough moments. Over the years, it got to the point that when we said it to each other, it spurred an instant reality check. That was usually followed by smiles and chuckles as we were reminded about how blessed we were to be alive and to have our friendship. As long as we woke up every morning with air pressure, water pressure and blood pressure, we had enough life and time to work through our issues in the days to come. When I developed the character Miss Septima, I called Perry and asked permission to share this phrase in the novel and he was quite pleased.

Jeffrey/WellRead: Who are your literary heroes?

James Baldwin,Toni Morrison, John Irving, RichardWright and Alice Hoffman.

Robert/WellRead: What’s next for you?

I am back at the keyboard creating a new world. Stay tuned!

“It has been a long time since a story has brought me to tears and laughter. At the same time, the range of emotions throughout the entire book was quite surprising to me. The author has done an outstanding job in describing our weaknesses and strengths, but most of all the incredible hypocrisy that some people of one race have towards others. The compassion, understanding, and love that a small community can feel took me back to my childhood when my grandmother and I would walk on the dirt roads of our small town and I would listen to her words of wisdom and wit, cherishing the moment.” Five Star Reader Review

2024NationalIndieExcellenceAwardforAfricanAmericanFiction

2024NextGenerationIndieBookAwardsforAfricanAmerican Fiction

2024NYCBigBookAwardforGeneralFiction

2024AmericanBookFestBestBookAwardforAfricanAmerican Fiction

Mr.JimmyFromAroundtheWay JeffreyBlount

Click above to go to the BETWEEN THE PAGES YouTube channel, or on one of the links below to listen to the podcast. Please take a second to like and subscribe if you enjoy the channel - we appreciate you!

The Great Palace Lie: Every Family Has One

The Great Palace Lie: Every Family Has One

I always tell my writing students to read, read, read. To be a writer, you must read. In the words of others, we find inspiration to write our own stories. This month’s column started when I was reading a book about Appalachian conjuring. This has nothing to do with my piece, but the book inspired me to think about the meaning of family bibles in Appalachia. And that made me think of my granny and there I went. See how reading and writing go together. How inspiration trickles from stories. Here is the column that came forth.

Granny had a bible with a cracked leather cover that she kept in the drawer of her nightstand beside her big four-poster bed. Back in those days, everyone owned some kind of bible and displayed them on coffee tables or bookshelves. InAppalachia, the bible was more than just “the good book” that went to church with a soul on Sunday. In Appalachia, believing in God and conjuring, healing, and having sight went hand-in-hand. Still does. Being a Christian

in SouthernAppalachia was a whole different ballgame than down here inAtlanta. My great aunts went to the small, one room church every Sunday morning. And when I stayed with them, I went too. The place was jammed packed with folks. No one cared what a person did the night or week before, mostly everyone was accepted. Uncle Dogun (pronounced: Doo-gun) would stay out drinking until daybreak, drag himself in the front door, and go clean-up for church while Aunt Stella (pronounced: Stellar) made a pot of black coffee for him to drink before leaving for church. The “men will be men” attitude prevailed in their holler. It wasn’t so much like that for women, who were held to higher standards and considered the bedrocks of their families. In many cases they were the healers, the granny women. Bibles were seen as the granny woman’s guidance to conjuring their spells and saving a person from some sickness. Many outside of Appalachia would view this activity as not very Christian.This was far from the truth. Every act of healing—pulling fire, stopping bleeding, lowering sugar in the blood—was associated with a bible verse. The only thing that would get a person kicked out of church, especially women, was adultery.

Unbeknownst to me, Granny had fallen out of grace within her childhood holler. If I have to be honest, I only saw her inside a church once in my whole life when she married her second husband after being a widow for forty years. That’s not to say she didn’t believe because she did. Her bible stayed tucked away in her bedside table, and she never offered it to me.

Bibles in Appalachia were used to preserve family records for generations. A person could learn about the distant past from the front pages of these books. While visiting my great aunts, I was allowed to flip through the giant family bible that belonged to my great-grandparents. There were pages of people I had never heard of, going back to my second great grandparents on Granny’s maternal side. There was a list of Granny’s brothers and sisters and their families. I flipped the page expecting to see Granny’s name. Instead, I found nothing. Granny wasn’t mentioned. This bothered me and I tracked down Aunt Stella, who frowned at my blunt childish question. “You’ll have to ask your granny about that story.”

And that was that. Granny had told me many stories about her childhood. If she didn’t mention the big family bible, she had a secret meant to be kept. The subject was buried. When I returned home from my great aunts’, in my first quiet alone moment in the small, overcrowded house, I slipped the bible out of the beside drawer, took a deep breath, and opened it to the front page. There was the writing I wanted to see.

Granny always said to be careful what questions you ask because you might get an answer that you can’t live with.

On the page was Granny’s chicken scratch writing. Written as if she had pressed down so hard she wrinkled the tissue thin paper. Ink was smeared. No, it was a mark through.Awhole name next to hers was crossed out with a black inky blob. All that was left was J.D., my grandfather’s initials. Well, I already knew his last name.

The same as Granny’s, Loyd. Then I spied a name under Mother’s. Agirl’sname,Estelle.Thebirthanddeathdaterevealedshewastwo when she left the world. Mother was not the only child she claimed to be. This was the biggest question mark in my life. How would I keep it a secret, pretend I never saw this little girl’s name?

I couldn’t.Well, that’s not true. I kept it close to my heart for three whole days.Then one evening as I stood in the small, heated kitchen with Granny as she cooked supper after work, I blurted out the burning question.

“Itookyourbibleoutofthedrawerandlookedatthefrontpages.” I prepared myself for her disappointment. Instead, I saw a flicker of fear cross her face.

“Did you have a little girl that died?”

This time her expression relaxed and a big breath was released, as ifthequestionshefearedwasn’ttheoneIasked.Ofcoursethisismy opinion in adult hindsight. “Yes. She was younger than your mother. She died at two.”

“So, what was the big deal? Why didn’t someone tell me?”

Granny paused a full minute. The old clock ticked on the wall above the kitchen table. “Sometimes a person just can’t tell the stories that hurt the most. You’ll understand when you grow up and you have your own hurt. It’s just easier to sweep it out the door and goonwithlife.”ShewentontotellmehowEstelledied.Meningitis. The subject was rarely brought up after that. Only once many years later, when my middle daughter was two and we sat in Granny’s living room within view of the nightstand that once held the bible.

“She looks just like the baby girl I lost. All those blond curls. It seems like yesterday.”

I almost asked about the bible but decided against it. After all, I had become an adult with children of my own. The bible was something Granny saw fit to keep tucked away for her own reasons.

So, you ask what is the mountain magic in this story? Remember sometimes the question one asks could produce an answer you aren’t expecting.

To be honest, I never thought about that bible again until today when I was wondering what to write for this month’s column. I should have thought about this mysterious book many times after, but for some reason, I shoved it in a drawer in my mind. Of course I kept asking questions. In 2020 seventeen years after Granny died, I wrote a memoir about her, Mother, and me. While writing this manuscript, I found many questions and sought answers. The book, Roll The Stone Away, began when a second cousin told me a shocking secret at my mother’s funeral. “You know, Ann, your mother’s maiden name wasn’t really her name. Your grandmother changed it when your mother was six.”

Granny’s last name, Loyd, wasn’t her last name? Still I didn’t put that day of looking at the bible together with this news.

This morning as I thought of writing about family bibles in Appalachia, I realized why Granny looked so relieved when I asked about Estelle that day in the kitchen. The real secret wasn’t Estelle’s death. Granny truly hurt too much from the loss to talk

about her. No, that wasn’t the secret hidden in the bible that was hidden away.The secret was the last name of J.D. (my grandfather) that was marked through with such a force that it wrinkled the page. In that moment, I realized I didn’t even know what J.D. stood for. That Mother died not knowing what her father’s initials stood for. That the ink blot in Granny’s bible should have made me suspicious.

And this is mountain magic. A memory emerging fifty years later, connecting to an ink spot in a hidden bible. A memory that showed up exactly when I was ready to understand, when I was plenty old enough to see that the details of the past can be forgiven, that we can move forward.

I know. I didn’t tell my dear readers the true secret, but only revealed the name change, leaving more questions than answers. Seems to be a nasty habit in my family. But this story is such a long and winding tale, I don’t have enough room here to do it justice. But you can read whole truth in the memoir. Mountain magic helped me to understand Granny’s great palace lie and how life is never just black or white. That all people have flaws. Remember every family has skeletons in their closets. Maybe that’s why Granny never seemed to judge a person even when they deserved it.

Forgiveness and acceptance are the ultimate gifts passed on with this memory. May we all experience this magic in our lives.

Merle

Aaron Goodman

Someone knocked on our door. It was late. Ilaystill.Iknewmymotherheardit.She’dcomehomeafterweeks in the hospital. My mom said she had a nervous breakdown.Adoctor told my father it was manic depression. Again, knuckles on wood. My mother got up and walked down the stairs.

My dad wasn’t home. He was a firefighter and started picking up extrashiftswhenmymomgotsick.Mostdays,heleftthehousebefore dawn and came back when I was asleep.

Isatonthesteps.Mymomopenedthedoorandcoldairblewaround mylegs.Amanstoodoutside.Icouldn’tseeabovehisbeltfromwhere I was.Atweed overcoat came to his knees and a duffel bag lay next to his leather boots.

“You’re kidding,” my mother exclaimed and put her arms around him.

She reached for his bag, but he got hold of it first. I glimpsed his white cheeks, overgrown moustache, and tired eyes beneath a brown fedora. It was my grandfather.

My mom backed up. He came in and put his bag down. Then he knocked his boot heels on the floor, removing a dusting of snow.

“You left the west coast for this?” my grandpa said and feigned a shiver.

“It’s January, Dad.”

It was a decade since we’d seen my grandfather. There weren’t any phone calls. No letters or cards. The last time we were together, I was four, and we pulled away from our house in East Vancouver to move to Ottawa. My parents put suitcases in the back of their station wagon. I was crammed in with our stuff. I turned to see my grandfather, standing in front of our house, biting his lip.

When we lived in Vancouver, Grandpa Merle’s place wasn’t far from ours, but he rarely came by. Once my mom and I met him at a movietheatre.Theygotintoanargumentbeforethefilmbegan,andhe emptied a box of popcorn on her shoes.

Mygrandfatherputahandonthewallandpulledoffhisbootswhile my mother held his hat. I looked at his hair, grey and oily with comb tracks in it. He was handsome but worn-looking like Errol Flynn near the end of his life.

My grandpa moved to the round wooden table that my mom got at the Stittsville Flea Market and pulled out a chair. I stood behind my mother as he rubbed his temples.

“Three days on a Greyhound, Evie,” he said. “Can door flapping open the whole time.”

“You didn’t think of calling?” she said.

“I came because I heard you were in trouble,” he replied.

How did he know?

My grandfather leaned a hand on the table and stood up. Then he looked at me for the first time.

“Trying to hide, hey?” he said.

“I’m not hiding,” I answered.

“Hug your grandfather and go back to bed,” my mom told me.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he said.

My mother poured him some milk.

“You know I’m lactose intolerant,” he said, eyebrows cinched together.

Mymomputthebaggedmilkinitsplasticholderbackinthefridge.

“I’ll put a foamie on the floor in Aziel’s room for you,” she said, gripping the refrigerator door handle.

Thehousewasripewithhisbodyodour,thesmellofthebus,andhe was going to sleep next to me?

I was in bed and my grandfather dragged his bag up the stairs. It slumpedoneachstep.Heletitflopontheflooratthefootofthefoamie my mom set down. Then he took off his pants, draping them over the back of my desk chair. His belt buckle knocked against the wood. He got on his knees in his boxers and undershirt, fumbled for the blanket, and lay down.

I woke to the sound of him ruffling under the covers. It was nearly midnightandhekeptgoing.Myeyesfeltheavy,thebedroomcramped. I imagined my dad’s face in the morning when he’d see Grandpa Merle.

A few years earlier, my mom considered calling her father. “Forget it,” my dad said. “He’s a used car salesman.”

My grandfather restored early-century cars. My dad had other reasons for disliking him. He abandoned my mom when she was a girl after her mother died.And before my parents got married, he said my father was a “Jew boy.”

I spun around in my bed, shut my eyes, and felt ill. Was he cranking himself?

My father came up the stairs. He was home from his shift. I turned and he was fixed on my grandfather.

“Jesus, Merle,” my dad said.

In the morning, my grandpa was in the bathroom, water running in the sink, but it was otherwise quiet. He didn’t come out for a long time.

“Dad?” my mother said at the door.

My grandfather emerged holding a razor blade cartridge in one hand, a handle in the other. His expression was blank. My grandpa was sixty-something and forgot how to shave?

In the kitchen, my mother beat eggs with a fork and poured them over onions and mushrooms in her cast iron pan. My grandfather, smelling like aftershave, announced he was going to

make verenekies, and that I’d help.

He searched the cupboards, pulling out my mom’s Five Roses flour and measuring spoons.

“Just tell me what you need,” my mother said.

“You don’t remember?” my grandpa asked. “How many times did we make verenekies when you were a girl?”

She pushed her tongue into her cheek. It’s one thing to ditch a child, another to pretend it didn’t happen.

“Verenekies?” I said.

“They’re Mennonite dumplings,” he answered.

My mom told me he was born in Russia to a Mennonite family. Stalin was waging a war on their people. I don’t know what happened to his birth parents, but he was adopted, and his new mother and father brought him to B.C.

“You’re gonna find us some berries?” Grandpa Merle called to my mother.

“And champagne,” she said from the next room.

My grandfather mixed flour, a bit of salt, baking soda, and water in my mom’s ceramic bowl. Then he pried open an eggshell. He put my mother’s whisk in my hand. I stirred but couldn’t get it to come together, so he took the tool and ran it through the mixture.

I studied the fourth finger on his left hand, cut off at the last knuckle. The tip of his hacked-off digit was round and smooth. If there’d been a scar, it was invisible to me. I pictured him leaning over an engine, his hand getting caught in the fan belt. As I contemplated the accident, my gut felt like I was standing at the

end of the diving board at the Lowertown pool.

Grandpa Merle picked up the dough, dropped it on a cutting board, and pressed his hands into it. He sliced the dough into strips, then gumball sized clumps.

My mom came back and pulled a bag of blueberries from the freezer and placed it on the counter. My grandfather opened the bag and spooned berries into the dough balls, shaping them into pockets. He cupped my hand to show me. His skin was coarse and covered with flour, and my neck muscles stiffened.

My grandpa put the verenekies in boiling water. Soon they floated and he scooped them out with my mom’s slotted spoon. He gazed out the kitchen window at our little backyard and said, “I’ll come back in the summer and build you a treehouse.”

There weren’t any trees that were big enough, so I pictured a wooden structure on stilts. If my mother went back to the psych ward and my dad worked all the time, I’d have a place of my own.

The three of us sat down to eat. Stacked and cooling in my mom’s Pyrex serving dish with pink flowers on its side, the verenekies looked like oversized slugs. They were bland. All that build-up and for what?

My grandfather made smacking sounds as he chewed. His lips were blue from the berries and his false teeth dislodged in his mouth. He fudged around with his tongue to get them back on his gums.

“The recipe calls for baking powder,” he said. “But you put out baking soda.”

My mom rolled her eyes and took her plate to the kitchen. Grandpa Merle trudged up the stairs and I heard him stretch out on the mattress.

I looked through the kitchen window. The yard was covered with snow. Someone’s dog had left fresh turds. As my mother rinsed the dishes, I told her my grandfather said he’d come back and build a treehouse.

My mom set the dish scrubber in the sink.

“I’ve waited forever for him,” she said. “Don’t make that mistake.”

My dad had the next day off. The smell of his coffee in the morning rose up the stairs. He listened to radio news.Areporter on a crackly line was talking about the famine in Ethiopia. I pretended to sleep. My grandpa cleared his throat, got up, and walked downstairs. He told my father he needed to take the station wagon.

“Nothing’s open,” my dad said.

“I won’t be long.”

My father handed my grandpa his keys. My grandfather opened and clanged the car door shut, started it, and drove down the street. When he came back an hour or so later, he told us to come outside. My dad walked out behind my grandpa, and my mom and I followed. My grandfather lifted the trunk door. Inside was a used

Yamaha motorbike that he found in the classifieds. It had tall tires, a long black seat, and a dark green gas tank. Grandpa Merle lifted it out, placed it upright, and brought its kickstand down with his boot. My mother gave him a look and my dad’s jaw clenched.

My grandfather took a white helmet with a blue racing stripe from the trunk, pushed it onto my head, and buckled the chin strap.

“Ask your friends to tell their parents to get them motorbikes too,” he said. “You can make a gang and call yourselves the Red Devils.” I nodded, but if he knew me, he wouldn’t have bought me a motorcycle. I’d have asked for a Walkman, Converse high-tops, or a salamander tank.

Later, my dad drove my grandfather and me to the edge of the city. He parked outside a warehouse that had been converted into an indoor motocross track. Grandpa Merle pushed the bike inside. The building was massive.Adirt track wove around the edge of the place.Acouple of riders whipped past us.

My grandfather straddled the bike and kicked the starter. He turned the handlebar and fired up the engine. Then he motioned for me to get on. My grandpa scooted back, and I sat with his arms around me.

He put theYamaha in gear and released the clutch.As we gained momentum, he shoved my back and hopped off. The bike wobbled and I kept my eyes on the track.

The first couple of loops, I didn’t go that fast. When I passed my grandfather and dad, they were in each other’s faces and ignored

me. Each time I finished a lap, I observed their mouths moving, but couldn’t make out their words through the helmet.

I made three or four loops, pushing myself to go quicker. From the far side of the track, I saw them leave the building.That’s when I lost control of the motorbike and wound up under it, the gas tank pressing against my thigh.

It took a moment to feel a burning sensation. I didn’t push the bike off, because I kind of liked how it hurt, and I lay there a bit longer.

That night, Grandpa Merle left my room and went downstairs. He put on his coat and boots.As he shut the door, the house shook. My room felt empty without him, and his smell lingered.

Someone showed up at the front door. My mom came out of her room and opened it.

“Your father?” a woman’s voice said.

“I’m sorry,” my mother replied. “I’m so sorry.”

“Found him in my garage,” the woman said. “Pants at his ankles.”

My mother exhaled and the neighbour left. My grandfather took off his boots.

“I think you’re confused,” my mom said.

“Who’s the mental case?” he replied.

“There must be a bus tomorrow.”

“You’re pushing me out.”

“You’ve been here for days.”

In the morning, my grandpa hauled his bag from my room. Before he left, he pulled me to him and tousled my head with his hand and finger lobbed off at the knuckle.

“Whatever your mother tells you, don’t forget that I tried,” he said.

My mom rolled up the foamie in my room and I went to the kitchen. I opened the fridge and took out the Pyrex dish with the leftover verenekies. I thought about eating them to fill the void, but I remembered they were tasteless and chalky.

Then I did what no one had done. I took the bin from under the sink and tipped in the dumplings.

Aaron Goodman is a writer based in White Rock, British Columbia. His first novel, "The Imbroglio of Aziel Glogowski," has yet to be published, and he is completing a second book.

The Easter Dress Dawn Major

Her bed trembled, her apartment trembled, her whole body trembled and in her nightmare the brakes from the train screeched—metal on metal like an echo of an old scream. Amid waking and sleep, the engineer blew his horn and light exploded through the sliding glass doors of her balcony. From the gaps between the train’s freight cars flashing red and blue lights bled over from the house on the other side of the tracks. A show of Shadow Fighters played on her bedroom wall; it was a dangerous dance—a figure of a man, a figure of a woman, a boy, a jumping dog, and sirens, the soundtrack. And as quick as it had begun, the dance was over. The train came to a halt. With the ceasefire, the woman jolted awake.

Marietta, GA: In the morning, a CSX train trundled towards her apartment building hauling what not and heading wherever— Atlanta, Montgomery, Mobile—and from where she sat on an aluminum lawn chair on her second story balcony, she watched. Between her apartment building and parking lot there was a

retaining wall and a graveled sloping hill covered with white boulders leading up to the train tracks. Her view sat in direct line with the tracks and maybe fifty yards from her building in Marietta Square there was a train crossing; the train stopped night and day. She hadn’t considered the train when she moved into the apartment and how it would become a constant in her life as much as the movements in the white shotgun house across the tracks.

The coffee was too strong and her hands shook from caffeine and the violence of last night’s nightmare, but mostly from what she saw over the tracks.

It was Good Friday and her “neighbor” had hung her lavender Easter dress on the gutter to dry. While the dress stirred in the breeze it stirred up memories of the flashing red and blue lights of last night’s dream and the familiar presence of police she’d seen there too many times as well in her own ancient reality.

She ought to go inside but like a rubbernecker driving past a car crash, she was fated to watch the mother of the home scooting her son out the door. Every morning, the mother walked him to the end of their driveway where the school bus picked him up.

And though she couldn’t hear the screen door slamming behind the mother and son, the sound of a slamming screen door was an indelible memory—an ageless sound from another slamming screen door from another Easter years ago.

The mother stopped and knelt down to tie her son’s shoe. And like the slamming screen door, that she couldn’t verify, she instinctively superimposed bruises on the mother’s face. Had she

seen the mother grimace in pain when she bent down?

That mother could easily have been her own mother back when her mother was slipping her shoes on, tying laces or securing buckles over her feet.

“First take the end of each lace. See?And make two bunny ears. Good. Daddy and Mommy are very sorry. We promise it’ll never happen again. Now, cross the bunny ears so they make an “X.” Aren’t you excited about the Easter Bunny? Hunting eggs? Pay attention. Loop the bottom bunny ear just so. And there. Easy Peasy.” The woman gave her son a peck on his forehead. He wiped it off.

The bus’s brakes squealed as it came to a stop, the door opened, and the boy hopped, hopped, hopped up the stairs with all his mother’s false promises whispered in his ear.

The mother stood up and waved at the bus.And as though it was a chore she hated; she walked towards her house and climbed the porch steps. Before entering the house she felt her lavender Easter dress. Then the mother opened the screen door and once again from the distance across the tracks and a distance in time the slamming screen door ricocheted her into the past.

Los Angeles, CA: On the Saturday before Easter Sunday when her mother smashed a hamburger in her father’s face and her father smashed his bongo drums into her mother’s back her mother said, “Let’s put the final touches on your Easter dresses.” During the months leading up to Easter, her mother had painstakingly crafted

Easter dresses for the girl and her sisters often making them sit still while she carefully finished sewing a hem or pinned a ruffle just so. It was late afternoon on that fateful Saturday and her father was supposed to grill hamburgers while her mother had their fashion show, a practice round for tomorrow.

Her dress was lavender—the same color as that mother’s Easter dress across the train tracks from her apartment. Her eldest sister, Amy, had chosen a fabric in seafoam green and her middle sister, Jackie, chose baby blue.While her sisters pulled their crinolines up under their dresses, her mother secured the girl’s, itchy and noncompliant, under her dress.

Then her mother handed out white bobby socks that they folded over—the lace encircling their ankles hung low like Christmas tree limbs made too heavy from decorations.

“Be careful not to step on the lace,” her mother warned them as her sisters slipped on new, white, patent leather Mary Janes while her mother tightened gold buckles across her pudgy feet. The straps were stiff creating trenches in her skin, but the girl didn’t mind, it was Easter, Goddammit, and everyone was playing the part, even though her father was getting drunk banging on his bongos and later would start banging on her mother.

Last but not least, from an upper shelf in the closet, her mother took down a white glossy box. Upon seeing the box, the girl and her sisters became wide-eyed. Her mother gave them a secret smile and then set the box on the bed and opened the lid lifting aside peony pink tissue paper. The girl gasped in awe from what lay

inside glowing radiant like the halos of angels.

Her mother then prudently picked out three different sized pairs of fancy white gloves, but right before handing them out she said, “Wait, you washed your hands, right?” to which they all nodded in agreement. Satisfied, her mother proffered them to the girls.

While they shoved their eager fingers into their gloves—oh so pretty with seed pearls sewn into patterns of roses and loopy vines—her mother pulled back another layer of pink tissue and unveiled their Easter purses. Each one was different. Each was selected based on their ages. One for Amy, ten years old, one for Jackie, nine years old, and one for the girl, who everyone called Dandy; she was four years old.

The purses matched the colors of their dresses.Amy’s purse was made of white silk (she being the oldest) and covered in seafoam green lace with a long gold chain and a gold buckle. Amy studied her purse if she were figuring out when she would use it again other than on Easter. Jackie’s was made from baby blue velvet with two, perky, baby blue satin bows on either side covering the clasp in the middle. Jackie opened and closed her purse several times, apparently pleased with the snappy sound it made. The girl’s purse was a white satin dolly bag with a drawstring closure. Lavendar lace flowers seemed to grow out of the bag like Moss Verbena spilling over the rocks in her mother’s garden. Oh, oh, and the very, very, very best part. Strands of clear gold and lavender crystal beads dangled from the bottom of her bag.

Her mother adjusted shoulders and straightened hems and once

done, the three girls pranced white-gloved around, sashaying and singing, “When do we get to dye Easter Eggs, when do we get to die?”Theyswungtheirlavishpursesinrhythm,toandfro,untilher mother said, “Enough, you’ll scuff up the patent leather,” but they didn’t mind because Easter was tomorrow and after Mass there’d be eggs to hunt, baskets to plunder, and their father who never went to church would take their picture and later slice the ham.

Because her mother didn’t want to add to the mess of Easter egg dying and what she had already prepared for Easter dinner, she said, “We’ll have a cookout today and after we clean up we’ll decorate Easter eggs to leave out for the Easter bunny to hide.” Her father’s part was to be lighting the charcoal and grilling the burgers.

After the fashion show, her mother pressed raw meat into hamburger patties and when she saw the girl sneaking chips she said, “Dandy, just a couple of chips—that’s enough now—Daddy’s grilling burgers.” Her mother always made plans for her father that he either didn’t want to do or wouldn’t do. “You’ll spoil your dinner. Go play in the living room,” she suggested.

She trotted to the living room where earlier she had arranged her toys on the floor. The football game was on and her father was in his spot on the couch drinking Coors and occasionally banging his bongos.

“You ever going to light the grill, Peter?” Her mother called from the kitchen.

“……”

“Did you hear me out there?” Her mother yelled louder.

When he still hadn’t responded, her mother walked out from the entrance between the kitchen and dining room to the living room.

She knew her father had heard her mother the first time, but her parents always pretended to not hear each other.

“The burgers, Peter, you said you’d do the burgers.”

“……” He shrugged but didn’t respond other than to start drumming. With the tips of his fingers he struck the edge of the smaller bongo drum then alternated the flats of his fingers with his thumbs to hit the middle of the drum.

The girl liked this melody and sprung up wiggling her butt and shaking her arms up in the air.

“You and those stupid drums,” her mother said with her hands on her hips.

Her mother hated her father’s bongos, but the girl loved dancing to the beats he created. She hadn’t recognized until she was much older that when the drums came out there were consequences.

Her father stopped drumming and leaned down to reach for a beer. He kept his case of beer on the floor next to his leg. He didn’t bother to get up and go to the fridge and if her mother found them in the fridge she threw them out.

“You’re not even fucking,” she said in an almost but not quite inaudible voice, “listening.”

He cracked open the beer, put the can to his lips, sipped off the foam, took a big gulp, and the whole time he never once took his eyes off the TV.

Her mother threw her hands in the air and left her father and the girl with her loot and—her village—spread across the living room. She had almost every Fischer Price Play Family toy in existence: the farm, the schoolhouse, the castle, the hospital, the auto repair shop.

Within less than a minute, her mother had returned and started reciting her weekend speech, which was a little different that weekend from last weekend because it was Easter. She remembered thinking (though not so succinctly when she was that age) that her father wasn’t bothering anyone and if he stayed stuck to the couch he’d just pass out and they’d dye Easter eggs.

“That’s just perfect. What a weekend. Everything’s ready to go and you can’t even light the goddamn-be-careful-your-daughteris-listening-grill.”

Just then, a Bounty paper towel commercial came on and the Quicker Picker Upper lady with the whiny voice started scolding a man who’d just spilled a bowl of soup on her counter. The way the Quicker Picker Upper lady spoke to her customer was sort of how her mother spoke to her father.

Finally, her father said something, “Christ! Can’t I just watch one fucking game? Just one game in peace? Is that too much?” But it didn’t come out so clearly. He slurred between words so that it sounded more like: Frist! Can’t I ust waff one fuckin game? Just one game in pheace? Is it too much to aff?

The girl’s mother barked, “You said that about the last game. The girls are hungry. Everything’s ready. It’s going to spoil. I

should’ve known this was going to happen. Same thing every weekend, and it’s Easter.”

He reluctantly climbed off the couch, removed the strap attached to his bongos from over his shoulders, and tossed his drums on the couch.When he took a step forward one of his bare feet stepped on the ambulance that went with her Fischer Price hospital. He winced and hissed, “Goddammit,” and kicked the toy across the living room.

The girl remained motionless, waiting to see what might happen next. Her father muttered incoherently and made his way towards the kitchen, She heard the screen door leading from the kitchen to the backyard patio slam shut.

The girl scurried around the living room gathering the ambulance and the armless, legless Little People Play Family doctors and nurses and shutting them up in the hospital. By the time she had finished her mother and father returned to the living room with her mother pursuing her father back to the couch, back to his spot. Her mother blocked theTVand the all-important game. Abig no-no.

“The grill doesn’t take two seconds to get hot,” her mother announced. When her father failed to respond, she quickly pivoted around returning to the kitchen.

Years later, the girl recognized that her mother understood the impact of those “big no-no’s,” and that her mother’s frustration sometimes got the better of her to the point that she couldn’t resist poking the bear and that poking the bear gave her a sense of

satisfaction. So her mother would poke and poke, little by little, until the situation escalated into a fight. Then there were other times, when it hadn’t appeared that her mother had poked too much, when her father still knocked-down and dragged her mother throughthehouse.ButonthatEasterweekend,shesawalltheback and forth between the kitchen and the living room as a metaphor for the back and forth game her parents played with their marriage.

When the girl’s mother returned to the kitchen for the umpteenth time, her father picked up his bongos, wrapped the strap over his neck, and started aggressively drumming up his childhood demons. Though he would never speak about them himself, the mother one day offered up an “explanation,” which seemed to justify his actions and why her mother stayed with this poor suffering belowthe-surface manchild.

“What we need, Dandy,” her mother said, “is music.”

She hadn’t heard her mother return, but there she stood in the corner of the dining room near the wooden, Zenith stereo console turning the record tower.

“Tom Jones it is,” she said in a too chirpy voice as she plucked Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas off the rack.

The girl looked at her father’s hardening face. It was not a good sign, so she placed the Fischer Price Queen on top of the castle’s tower and repeated “Daddy, Daddy, look, Daddy, look. She won the war. The back queen is back in power.”

The girl and her sisters employed different tactics to prevent their parents’ fights. Looking back, maybe they’d learned those

tactics from each other, that when one strategy didn’t work the other sister tried her method, and so on, and so forth.

Hers was distraction. Amy’s was avoidance—a hermit, she barely left her room. Jackie’s was the most reasonable tactic and after years of reflecting on the roles she and her sisters played she saw that Jackie’s approach oddly worked more often than not. Jackie actually tried to get them to talk it out. Maybe, it was another type of distraction, though. All that moderating really just delayed the inevitable.

Her mother didn’t actually turn the stereo on or pull the record out of its sleeve. Instead, she acted engrossed by the back of the record.This put the front of the record—ofTom Jones himself—on display. Tom wore tight black pants, a matching vest, and black patent leather boots. Under his vest, he wore a white silky shirt that was unbuttoned so that it revealed his tan chest. Rather than singing into the microphone, he held it straight back behind his right shoulder so it looked like he was going to use the cord as a whip. The photo was taken while he was dancing on a stage—his right thigh thrusted backwards, his left thigh bent towards the audience. His body, a cocked gun. There on that record cover, Tom Jones was forever suspended in a dance move, like her parents were suspended in a perpetual dance of fights and making up. It was the same dance she recognized across the train tracks when the father walked hand and hand with the mother to walk their son to theschoolbusoneday,butlaterintheweekthepolicereturnedlike an unwelcome relative.

Las Vegas was an escape from reality. Every year her mother would starve herself for three months, buy sexy dresses, and head to Las Vegas with the girls from her work to see Tom Jones at Ceasar’s Palace

Disneyland was for the three sisters what Las Vegas was to her mother and maybe what beer, bongos, and the football game was to her father.Areward for keeping secrets. If her parents had a very big fight, her mother took the girl and her sisters to Disneyland; they even stayed in the Disneyland Hotel. It was never planned, always late, and though they oftentimes had school the next day, they skipped it.

In the morning, they rode the monorail into the park and when they asked for over-priced, chocolate-dipped, frozen bananas they got them. At the “Pirates of the Caribbean” she boarded the boats with her sisters and mother and they floated leisurely through the bayou. The Spanish moss on the Cypress trees hung like curtains over the marsh, fireflies popped with light, and crickets chirped to the soft plucking of “Oh! Susanna” playing in the background. Before entering the dark cave, before the boat plunged down a waterfall, a talking skull warned: “Dead men tell no tales!” It went dark, chilly air wafted over the back of her neck slightly blowing her hair up, and cold water splashed onto her petite arms. Even as she sailed towards danger it was better, better than remembering what made her cry the night before. And because nothing during these days at Disneyland was denied no matter the price, she lived in an unending state of magical terrorism.

The room had started to vibrate. Her parents were in one of their standoffs that reminded her of the Westerns she used to watch with her father. But it was her dance move now. So, she switched from the Fischer Price castle to her Barbie mansion and said, “Look at Barbie. She’s going up the elevator. Watch. Watch. You aren’t watching. Mommy, Daddy, watch—”

Her mother held her palm out and said, “Not now, Dandy. I’m talking to your father.”

Since Barbie hadn’t worked, she got up and started to do jumping-jacks. One jumping jack, two jumping jacks, three jumping jacks. While she turned her arms and legs into “X’s” and I’s,” she recited, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pale of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

For a second, she thought she had gotten her father’s attention. But he was just gazing back at her through blurry eyes like he was peering at something very far away.

Her mother finally relented and returned Tom Jones to his spot in the record tower.

“Fine. I’ll do it. On Easter, even on Easter,” the girl’s mother growled, “On Easter, Peter. And, Dandy…” She growled at her in the same tone she used for her father, “you need to clean up your mess. Dinner’s in ten minutes.”

“……” thump, thump, thump.

When she heard the screen door slam again, she started loading her Weeble Wobbles into their treehouse. She pinched herself

when she pushed the treetop down. Dammit, she used to pinch herself on that stupid tree house all the time. It hurt, but the pain was familiar having done it a thousand times. Still, it had made her want to cry. She swallowed it back.

About fifteen minutes later her mother called, “Dinnnnnnerrrr! Come on girls.” She didn’t bother to call for her father. He wasn’t going to budge from his spot. Until later.

After dinner Amy helped her mother clean up. When Amy picked up her father’s plate. her mother shook her head “no” and said, “Leave it,” and Amy put it back down and wiped around the plate.

To Jackie her mother said, “Get the newspapers and spread them out.”

Old papers sat on the seat of what her mother used to refer to as a gossip chair.

When everything was set, her mother filled a pot with water and put it on the burner to boil. From the cabinets she took out vinegar and food coloring.

Relief washed over the girl and her sisters, but they didn’t sigh, not a peep, because anything might jinx this fragile moment and they wouldn’t get to dye Easter eggs like they were promised.

Earlier in the day her mother had boiled the eggs and put them in the refrigerator. When no one was around, the girl and Jackie snuck into the kitchen and pulled the cartons out. They held their cold delicate bodies in their hands and like they had with the colors

of their Easter dresses, decided which eggs would be green, which eggs would be blue and which eggs would be lavender.

Her mother placed two cartons of eggs on the table lining them up like troops next to four cereal bowls containing blue, green, red, and yellow dye. Her sisters were already well-practiced at dying Easter eggs so her mother showed her how to dip the eggs into the different colors.

“I want to make it lavender to match my dress,” she said and her mother gave her a brief smile.

Amy was silent delicately dipping her eggs and Jackie had begun to sing, “Here Comes the Sun.”

When she noticed the tops of her fingers had turned blue she said, “Look, Mommy,” but her mother only hmm-hmmed her, because her mother was solely focused on two things: her father’s hamburger and their orange and avocado green wall clock. There was a secret alarm about to go off inside her mother. She’d seen it throughout the years. Her mother looked at the clock, then looked at the hamburger. The clock, the hamburger, the clock-hamburger, clockhamburger, clockhamburger, CLOCKHAMBURGER.

In her teens, when she replayed the scenes from that night in her head, she often blamed the Easter holiday and all the pomp and circumstance around their Easter dresses and getting everything just so. Sometimes, she thought it was her mother’s fault, her father’s fault, even the clockhamburger’s fault.

From the living room, the girl heard her father snoring and she hoped that this would be it for him for the night. In the morning

when she got up to pee she sometimes found him on the bathroom floor. He was over six feet tall, but managed to look like a baby curled around the toilet on the aquamarine colored tile. She used to put her bare feet on his shoulders and squeeze the skin on his back with her toes. And if he looked cold, she put her blanky—the one she had since she was a baby—over him before going back to bed. When the snoring got louder, her mother paused in the middle of dipping an egg into red dye then dropped its half pink, half white body back in the egg carton and sprung from her chair as if she heard someone knocking on the door. She called behind her, “Want to hear Copa girls?”

There was no reason to ask. She knew the answer, because they loved Barry Manilow.

She still remembered the feeling she had that night. She clearly recalled the anticipation of Copa Cabana coming on, first a silence, then the scratchy sound of the needle making contact with the vinyl, then pure volume.

Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl. With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there. She would merengue, and do the cha-cha. And while she tried to be a star, Tony always tended bar.

Her mother returned, sat back in her chair, and plucked up the egg she had just abused. Pink dye had trickled over the white half of the egg. It looked like the blood that dripped down a horror movie poster. Her mother wore a determined smile while she soundlessly dipped her egg back into the red dye.

…His name was Rico. He wore a diamond. He was escorted to his chair, he saw Lola dancing there. And when she finished, he called her over. But Rico went a bit too far, Tony sailed across the bar.

There was loud scratch. The music, over.

With his bongos lying sideways on his hip, her father lurched zombielike into the kitchen and sort of fell-sat in his chair. The wood on his bongos clinked against the metal edge of his seat.

Slaw juice had leaked through his paper plate. The baked beans were dried out. Her father reached for the ketchup, but before he could lift his bun from the hamburger patty, her mother flew from her chair across the table, snatched up his burger, and smashed it into his face.

She giggled. It was funny seeing her mother smash a hamburger into her father’s face.And for just a second, she forgot who he was and that this wasn’t a big funny joke. Her mother laughed too. Her laugh was more mocking laugh, gleeful at delivering retribution for him ruining Easter weekend.Agotcha, sucker laugh.

With bits of cheese and ground beef still clinging to his goatee, her father rose up like a bear on its hind legs, knocked his chair into the wall behind him and leapt at her mother who had started to run towards the screen door. He managed to catch hold of her mother’s terrycloth tank top and then her shoulder and he pulled her back so that she was facing him. He forcefully swung his fist into her lips. The whole time his bongos swung from side to side.

Bowls of red and blue dye toppled across the table like a river;

when the colors met they turned purple, not quite lavender, but close. The dye streamed over the edge of the table onto the girl and she didn’t know if she should try to clean up the mess or hide from the raging battle. She slid out of her chair and crawled under the table to hide while Easter eggs rained down from the table shattering on the floor. Their cracked shells—like puzzle pieces.

She heard Jackie cry out, “Stop, stop! Just wait,” but no one was listening.

She sawAmy’s legs and she knew she was making a dash for the phone, but her father must have realized this too, because she then sawAmy’s legs lift off the floor as she flew into the gossip chair. She edged closer to check on her sisters and her mother who were frozen in place watching her father as he went for the phone. With both hands he yanked, yanked, yanked until he’d freed the phone from the wall. Then he pulled his shoulder back, much like Tom Jones with his microphone, and pitched the phone into the screen door. The top hinges gave out. The door fell to the side leaving an opening at the bottom for the girl’s LhasaApso, Raffles, who loved her mother, to run inside. Raffles stood between her father and mother snarling at her father and defending her mother who was now kneeling on the linoleum floor. That dog never had any sense of self-preservation when it came to her mother.

Her father backed away from Raffles and her mother. He scanned the scene he’d created as though lost or as if he’d forgotten what had just happened. He sunk into his chair and blindly reached for his fork, but his plate was long gone face down on the floor.The

chip bowl that was still in the middle of the table had survived, however. He grabbed a handful and shoved the chips in his mouth. He hadn’t eaten in over a week.

“Go to Maggie’s! Go!” Her mother screamed, spitting blood from her mouth while she rose from the floor. She moved like a woman who had aged 100 years in the span of the fight. She walked towards the sink, turned on the faucet, and hung her head under the running tap water. She filled her hand with water, slurped, and spit. Bloody saliva as pink as one of the lost Easter eggs oozed into the sink. Her mother had started to moan.

With her mother moaning in the sink, the horror finally set in and the girl and Jackie, who had climbed under the table with her after the phone incident, started sobbing. Only Amy was mute as she cautiously walked past their father towards escape.

From the sink, her mother turned around and yelled, “Go! Go to Maggie’s!” and that’s when she noticed her mother’s torn lip and where her mother’s front tooth once was—a gaping hole. Blood flowed down her chin onto her neck and her terrycloth tank top with one strap torn and dangling.

Realizing that her daughters hadn’t left and that they were glued to the spot shaking and sobbing, her mother screamed again, “Go! Go to Maggie’s!” But how could they leave their mother with the monster her father had turned into?

As her daughters remained frozen with fear, something shifted in her mother. She stopped moaning. Fear was replaced by rage and the rage came off her mother’s body like heatwaves on hot

asphalt. She called him one mean name after the other. She was so full of names and mean things that in an effort to shut her up, her father rose and in one stride and forcefully grabbed the hair on the back of her mother’s head and started banging her mother’s head into the sink basin. Raffles barked and nipped at her father’s ankles but he easily kicked him away, and the dog giving up, scampered outside.

With her father doing his damage at the sink,Amy pulled the girl and Jackie out from under the table and this time they did run.

Amy held the doorbell down while the girl and Jackie banged on the front door.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” She heard from behind the door. The porch light switched on and Maggie, their next door neighbor, opened her front door.

Maggie said, “Oh, my God! What happened?” But this wasn’t the first time the girl and her sisters had shown up on Maggie’s doorstep; she scooped them up.

One of Maggie’s boyfriends was visiting and when he saw the girl and her sisters he asked just like Maggie, “what happened?” and then “Is your mother still there?”

Three little sobbing voices told the same now familiar story. Slamming, pushing, clawing, tearing, pounding. Blood, teeth, hair, bones.

Maggie’s boyfriend went towards the front door, but Maggie told him “no” while she herded the girl and her sisters into the bedroom

and told them to all hide in the closet.

Through the open louver doors, she watched Maggie, who was dressed in one of those sexy long dresses her mother took to go see Tom Jones, standing over the nightstand yelling demands into the phone at who she later realized was the Los Angeles police department.

“When? How long?” Maggie’s voice sounded panicked. She dropped the receiver onto the cradle, dashed to her window, pulled the drapes aside, and peeped through the blinds, repeating, “Come on, Come on.”

Maggie’s boyfriend stood next to Maggie, his arms stiffly at his side with his hands made into fists. He kept saying, “Let me go over there,” and “I’ll take care of him,” but she heard Maggie hiss, “He’s got a gun and he’s used it before. You’re staying. I got this.”

Maggie was the opposite of her mother. She had older kids who didn’t live with her and she had lots of boyfriends. There was always a stream of Cadillacs and Continentals parked in her driveway. Their elongated opulent bodies stretched out unapologetic, ready. Her father used to refer to Maggie as the LA Magdalene; the girl never got the reference until she was in her teens.

The girl was never allowed in Maggie’s bedroom, but sometimes she said she needed to pee and rather than going to the bathroom she sneaked in Maggie’s room. Everything in Maggie’s bedroom was red, white, and gold.The carpeting was a reg shag.Aheavy red and gold, velvet, brocade quilt covered her bed which was

surrounded by layers of sheer red curtains that hung from the ceiling.Thewindowtreatmentsweremadeoutofthesamematerial as the quilt, and on either side of Maggie’s bed were white and gold, faux marble nightstands suspended from the ceiling by thick gold chains. On both nightstands there were always heavy crystal ashtrays full of cigarette butts. Maggie’s room was a throne room for a queen, but looking back, it was more like a tawdry boudoir.

The girl crept into Maggie’s closet, closed her eyes tight and made herself go very small.And even though one of Maggie’s high heels dug into her leg; she ignored it, becoming smaller and smaller, as small as one of her Fisher Price Play Family people. Not invisible, but small enough that if anyone looked inside Maggie’s closet, they’d miss her.

When the police didn’t show, Maggie called again. At one point Maggie broke a nail from frantically dialing the rotary. She breathed, fuck, and sucked her finger. Maggie kept calling, then walking to the window, then calling, and then pacing back and forth. It was a lot like the back and forth that her mother and father did that afternoon.

Once, while Maggie’s boyfriend worked the phone, Maggie came over and sat on the floor outside the closet doors and talked to the girl and her sisters as though they were puppies, “How are my three little pigs? Don’t cry. Shh..shh…don’t cry. Please stop crying. Which little pig gets the brick house, the stick house, the straw?” But they were way past playing games and had retreated into their safehouses.

Amy started counting the number of times Maggie or Maggie’s boyfriend called. One of her hands was a closed fist, the other fingers fixed at five. Jackie hummed, Who shot who? Who shot who? While sucking her thumb and rocking back and forth as if she was sitting on a rocking chair.

To stop crying, the girl became a speck, a speck deep in the haunted caves of Dead Man’s Grotto, back in her safehouse at Disneyland. She had run away with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn to become pirates. Tom and Huck chased her over the bridge to Smuggler’s Cove.

When Maggie called a sixth time,Amy’s index finger shot out as fast as a gunslinger and the girl was back to her normal size. She was back in Maggie’s closet and she knew deep down they weren’t going to wear their Easter dresses, their gloves, their patent leather Mary Janes. There would be no dainty purses. The Easter eggs were ruined. There would be no Easter bunny. No Easter at all.

She tugged Amy’s tee-shirt and, because they were hiding, whispered, “Will we get to wear our dresses?”

Amy shushed her, but she really wanted to know so she tugged on her tee-shirt again and asked, “Do you think the Easter Bunny will still come?”

Her sister turned her head, looked at her in a cruel way, and said, “No! We’re not having Easter!” Then Amy went back to watching Maggie.

She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. She gave into sobbing, “No Easter, no, no, no Easter Bunny, no, no, no.”

On the seventh time Maggie called, she didn’t ask “when” or “how long?” She cursed those lazy-useless-good-for-nothing cops up and down. She was seething and spewing evil words. And when she later envisioned Maggie surrounded by all that red and gold it seemed as though Maggie’s bedroom was hell, that they were in hell, and Maggie was witch, who had invoked demons— Lucifer, Lilith, Beelzebub, Ashura, Mephistopheles, Hades, Loki because only then after cursing them, did the police show themselves.

That night after Maggie’s boyfriend left, she slept in Maggie’s fancy bed between her sisters. Blue and red lights from the police cars and the ambulance flashed through Maggie’s red sheer curtains. Her mother had shown her how to turn red and blue into purple. She told her if she didn’t leave her Easter egg in the purple dye too long, it would turn lavender like her dress. So, that’s what she did that night before Easter Sunday. She made lavender Easter eggs out of the lights streaming through the curtains of Maggie’s bed.

A month later from that horrendous night when everything was stitched up, when bruises had faded, and they were a happy family again, the girl helped mother get her into her Easter dress. Before they left for Mass, her father took a picture of their pretend Easter in their front yard and when they got home from church, huge Easter baskets were waiting. Their old Easter baskets had been replaced by huge baskets—monuments brimming with candy, bigger than any of her friend’s baskets. After she hunted Easter

eggs in the backyard, she sat in the dining room to eat “Easter” dinner and her father forked ham out onto her plate. Easy Peasy.

She recognized that woman and mother across the tracks with her lavender dress. She spoke her language. Stay. Don’t run away. Pretend. And when it all goes to shit, there’s Disneyland. She’d spent a good amount of time at Disneyland when she was a child.

She knew that mother and son’s story like she knew that in the morning come Easter Sunday that woman would hide Easter eggs and later her son would hunt them like he had discovered gems right there in his own backyard even if “Easter” was ten days later, a monthlater,he’dgethishappyfamilyandhisGoddamEasterbasket.

She knew that story by heart. If she could have leapt across the tracks, she’d grab up that little boy, and tell him it was all bullshit.To hop, hop, hop away. But she did none of that; she just watched the wind whipping the woman’s lavender dress dry.

Later in the afternoon, when the mother brought an ironing board outtotheporchsheonceagainimaginedthesoundofthescreendoor slammingbehindthemotherlikesheimaginedtheshrillsoundofthe ironing board’s metal collapsible legs when the mother unfolded them.

She watched as the mother plugged the iron into a socket, set the iron on the ironing board, and then rose on her tippy toes to take down her lavender dress.

For a minute or two, waiting for the iron to heat, the mother regarded the empty train tracks. Maybe the mother was observing

her,thiswomanwhosatonherbalconywatchingtrainsgoby,butthe mother only looked over for a moment before licking her finger and lightly touching the iron.

The mother delicately placed her lavender Easter dress on the ironing board. She sprayed a light coat of starch over the dress. She picked up the iron and with the hot metal iron she pressed out its wounds, made clean lines where there were once scratches.

Abreezehadpickedupandforasecondshestoppedobservingthe mother in order to gaze at the sky. She breathed in minerals, or petrichor. Raindrops dusted the asphalt parking lot below her balcony. Spring rain to wash it all away. With the rainstorm, the mother stopped ironing. She folded her lavender Easter dress over one arm, then yanked the iron’s cord out of the socket and ran inside with both the dress and the hot iron.

This time she swore she heard the screen door slam.

And then as quickly as the rain began, it was over. Here comes the sun. The slick bluish-black asphalt dried to gray. The rain washed yellow pollen off the white rocks from the slope below the train tracks and the red clay blushed a deep coral color.

Her own mother’s bruises had faded long ago.

In the distance, she heard that familiar sound of a train approaching and she wondered how big the son’s Easter basket would be. Would the little boy wear a lavender bow tie to match his mother’slavenderdress?WouldhisfathertaketheirEasterphotoand later slice the ham?

Yes, yes.All of it.

Dawn Major’s debut novel, The Bystanders, was named finalist for 2024 Georgia Author of the Year for Best First Novel. Major is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and advocates for southern authors via her blog, Southernread. Her literary awards include the following: the Dr. Robert Driscoll Award, Reinhardt University’s Faculty Choice Award, and the James Dickey Review Literary Fellowship. Major is a member of the William Gay Archive and has edited and helped publish the works of the late author. She serves on the board for Broadleaf Writers Association and is also a member of M’ville, an Atlanta-based artist salon. Major lives in the Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta, GA and is working on her next novel, The Dandy Chronicles.

The ekphrastic technique is a method I often use to write short stories. Essentially, I use a particular piece of art as inspiration for a story. In the case of my short story, “The Easter Dress,” I used a family photo my father took of me, my sisters, my mom, (and my Nana, though she isn’t in the story) at Eastertime. But then I went a step further and sort of reversed the technique and I commissioned an artist, Sherri Hanna, paint a painting using my story as well the photo as inspiration. When I think about the Easter holiday, I automatically envision bright cheerful colors. But while I incorporated vivid colors here, the story itself is by no means bright and cheerful. I hoped to turn something ugly and very traumatic into a beautiful painting. It’s a kind of therapy. She’s my cousin’s wife— though I believe I can officially claim her as my cousin now—and I’m really attracted to her abstract art. I specifically like her color combinations and the sweeping quality you see in her paintings. Also, I was intrigued by what would come of our collaboration and what emotions she would unlock in order to create painting “The Easter Dress.” I think she nailed it!

ABOUT SHERRI HANNA:

My art is a journey into the depths of human emotion and imagination, inviting viewers to explore their own inner landscapes. Inspired by the majestic beauty of nature—dawn breaking over tranquil pools, the vibrant hues of coastal sunsets, and the everchanging colors of the ocean—my abstract creations evoke a sense of wonder and connection. With a background rooted in south Florida and nurtured in California, my artistic path is a testament to the transformative power of creativity. My process is as dynamic as my art: sometimes guided by a clear vision, other times allowing colors to unfold into subconscious imagery. This blend of intention and spontaneity results in pieces that are both deeply personal and universally relatable. As I immerse myself in the creative flow, I find joy and renewal. My art extends this experience to viewers, inviting them to discover the joy of being alive through their own interpretations and connections. Whether found in corporate offices or private homes, my art is a reminder that creativity is a universal call, urging us all to explore and express our inner worlds.

Tender

Souad Zakarani

From the window of their apartment, Will watched Juma downstairs fumble with her keys. The man beside her was looking at the dirty ground. The gate stuck. Then they were upstairs. She had not been crying, but there was the strain of cheerfulness all over her. She unbuttoned her coat.

“Will,” she said, “it’s Marcus. You remember Marcus.”

“We’ve never met,” said Will. He stuck out his hand. In fact, though he had seen a photograph of Marcus just a few days ago, slipped out from between the pages of Juma’s journal, he still wouldn’t have been able to recognize the man standing in front of him without a bit of prompting. This Marcus had a scrappy beard. There were holes in his tennis shoes, and his jeans were baggy and smeared with dirt. The smell coming off him was intensely physical, sour and frighteningly animal. Like an aura, it quivered around him, slowly expanding to fill the room.

Marcus’s hand was warm and dry. But he wouldn’t look up to meet Will’s eyes.

“Good to meet you, man,” said Will.

Juma had hung her coat up, now she was standing there in the foyer, eyeing them both. “Marcus,” she said. “The bathroom’s just over here. I’ll get you a towel and you can have a hot shower.”

Marcus nodded. While he wouldn’t look at Will, he would look at her, at Juma. She tugged at her hair. Her eyes were on him.

“Are you hungry? You must be hungry,” said Juma.

“I’m fine.” His voice was deep and dry, somewhat distant.

“You can wash up and we’ll make dinner.”

He shrugged. “Don’t put yourself out.”

When they heard the water go on, Juma said, “I should just chuck his clothes, right?”

“What’s he going to wear?”

“I thought he could borrow something of yours.”

“Won’t he feel offended if you throw his clothes away?”

“I guess we could just wash them. Should we just wash them?”

It was strange for Will to see Juma like this, so uncertain.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any clothes he can borrow?”

“Not really.”

“Okay,” she said. She put one of her shoes back on, hard and shiny, leather with a sharp heel. “I’ll go and get some clothes for him.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know.” Her lips became full, and her eyes, a redness coming into her face. It looked like anger.

“Come here,” he said.

She would not, so he went to her, and put his arms around her. She smelled clean, of lemon and vanilla, and salt. She put her fists against him, but her body softened. “I have to go get him some new clothes.”

“I have clothes,” he said. Holding her, he was soothed, she was his. “They’ll be big on him. It’s okay.”

Marcus stayed in the shower a long time. He had worked the smell off him by the time he came out.As they sat at the table, Will tried not to watch Marcus eat. His actions were careful and mannered, each mouthful he brought to his chapped lips. More than anything, it was the cast of his face that dared each person to put their eyes on him. Juma carried on a long and unbending conversation with almost no help from anyone else. She talked about the cases she was working on, the books she had read, even, sometimes, about the weather. She looked from Marcus to Will to Marcus, as though seeking approval or assurance from each face, Marcus who could not give it, Will who couldn’t bring himself to. Finally Marcus said, “What happened to your paintings?”

“Oh,” she said. “It felt sort of weird having them around.”

“So what, you got rid of them?”

“They’re in my parents’garage.”

“And you’re done?”

“Yes,” she said, color coming into her face. “I’m done.”

“You see them, Will?”

But Will had arrived to Juma too late to see the paintings—all but one. It was a huge fleshy nude, intentionally grotesque, and he

was glad not to have it displayed in their living room.Anyway, the paintings had become a source of pain to her, and at one point she had talked about destroying them. Instead, they sat still untouched in her parents’garage, their faces turned to the wall.

“Marcus, is the food okay?”

“Yeah, great,” said Marcus.

“Will’s a good cook,” said Juma.

“One of us had to be.”

“Yeah, Juma can’t cook for shit,” said Marcus.

“I’m getting better,” she said.

“She isn’t,” said Will.

“Marcus is pretty good too,” said Juma. “He knows how to roast a chicken, anyway.”

“Still do,” said Marcus, lifting his eyes for only a moment.

Marcus helped clean up after dinner and then shaved in the bathroom with a borrowed razor. Will was feeling aimless. The dishes were done, and drying, the leftovers put away. He would normally sit and watchTVwith a beer and Juma in the living room, but with Marcus here he couldn’t do that. He sat at the kitchen table instead and watched Juma plumping the pillows until Marcus came out of the bathroom. Without the beard, Marcus looked different, very clean. His cheeks were whiskey-brown and smooth. His hair too, he had trimmed, bringing it very close to his scalp. He patted his face with a towel. Will offered him a beer, he declined. He was smaller than Will, shorter than him and firmly compacted, skinny, actually. And it was true, Will had put on some weight in the last

couple years. The clothes on Marcus made him look especially small.

A long silence. Then Juma came and offered him everything: coffee, tea, beer, water, juice, and more milk. Marcus shook his head. His body seemed tense in his loose clothes. Juma looked different next to Marcus, like a color that brightens when seen next to its complement. Did they want to be left alone? For a few moments, Will, stubbornly, stayed where he was. But Juma was freezing him out, refusing to fill the air with talk like she had at dinner. Will gave in and went to brush his teeth and lay in bed. He was not at all tired, though, and tried to read a book. He could hear Juma and Marcus speaking from the other room. Her voice changed as she spoke to him. It was less firm—she phrased normal sentences like questions. Marcus’s voice, on the other hand, seemed sure, he spoke little, used few words, and the silence that contracted around him made him powerful. She asked him how his mother was doing, he said that she had died. He used the words passed on. There was a small, tight silence, where Will imagined Juma gathering herself. Are you doing alright, Juma asked him.Yes fine, said Marcus, with a small, dry laugh. I’m fine. Then Juma was embarrassed for her question and changed the subject, asking if he needed anything from the grocery store. Marcus said no. You are tired, said Juma, finally. Were they touching? Had she laid her hand on his? Then the chair scraped as she stood, or he did, someone went to the bathroom, someone went about turning off all the lights, the bedroom door opened and

closed and Juma was pulling her nightclothes from the dresser.

“What time is it?”

“Almost nine,” he said, putting down his book. He watched her as she unbuttoned her shirt, facing away from him, reaching back to unhook the beige-colored bra. The muscles of her shoulders were tense under the skin, horse’s muscles, he thought. In her nightgown, and into bed, her body slid next to his, she lay face down and began to cry.

“Juma,” he said.

She would not lift her face from the pillow. He reached for her, but she curled away from him, and lay on her side, near silent, smothering her busy breathing with the pillow as he sat beside her. He picked up his book but was too angry to read it. She sat up, wiped her face, and saw him, his clenched jaw.

Then she let him hold her. She seemed to fall asleep almost immediately after he turned off the light, a talent she had, while Will lay awake for several hours. A sigh from the other room, a cough, even the body turning over on the inflatable mattress pulled him awake when he found himself sliding into the black gully. His dream was so subtle he didn’t realize he was dreaming, until, with an enormous breath, his body threw itself awake. His eyes felt blurry and he couldn’t make out the time. But he could feel Marcus’s presence very strongly in the other room. Will got out of bed. Blue light from the window: Juma looked beautiful and dead. When he could not sleep and she could, he felt shut out of her mind unfairly. Every time he saw her like this, he had to resist the urge

to wake her up.

The light was on in the kitchen. Marcus was sitting at the table. He had trimmed and scrubbed his fingernails, but there was still grit in the creases where the nail met the soft pad of flesh. A metal tumbler sweating in his hands, in the warmth of the apartment, warmth that their three bodies had made.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Warm enough?”

“Fine,” said Marcus, looking into the cup again.

Will filled a glass of water at the sink, suddenly thirsty. He stood there at the sink and drank it quickly, tipping his head back. But he felt vulnerable with his throat exposed and he slowed down and just sipped. He filled his glass again. Water, milk, whiskey: what was in Marcus’s tumbler?

“We’re getting married. Next year, September.”

“Juma told me.”

“She’s changed a lot.”

“I know.”

The famous Marcus. For years, Will had imagined him, and the man in front of him was not the person he had imagined. His eyes strangest of all. They were deep, reflected copper in the light, and when they looked at him, for the first time since he’d arrived, Will felt them pass over him like an X-ray, finding and recording every flaw. It was the terror of his imagination—or was it? Marcus took a long pull at the tumbler, Will, unsettled, left the room. In bed,

Juma was warm. She had thrown off the comforter, sweating. She slept sometimes as if she was swimming, with her arms flung out. However, as he lay down next to her she accepted his body, almost burying herself in it, his coolness. Sleep came just before dawn.

Juma and Marcus had met one afternoon at the public library. She was nineteen and he was twenty-three. She sat down on the opposite end of the table from Marcus and glanced up at him from time to time, when she thought he wasn’t looking. But he was looking. When he smiled at her she was ashamed of herself and looked back down at her book. She was studying for her art history final. She looked up again. He was still looking, still smiling. He got up and introduced himself. He was a junior at City College, a philosophy major. And she? She seemed like an artist, was she? There was paint in her fingernails, no lucky guess, just an observant eye, but she looked startled at him like a mind reader. Let me guess, a painter? She nodded. In those days, she was shy. Would you like to get a drink with me? She said that it was only three. Okay, a coffee? But then she changed her mind and said, no, a drink. She followed him down the steps of the library and out to the street. Feeling nineteen, wholly nineteen, impulsive, fullbodied and young. He had terrific posture and wore a white shirt with a pressed collar, looking, as he moved down the street, like a waiter or a dancer. It was dark in the bar he chose, he bought her a

beer. Each time the door opened the light fell directly onto his face, curving over his clean cheeks, his wet eyes. He was from Baltimore, the first of his family to go to college, they thought he was crazy for studying philosophy. Try getting a degree in fine art, she told him. About the same, he said. Equally crazy. As soon as she had finished her beer she wanted to kiss him, but she still held herself away, not touching him, not even turning her body toward him, but pointing it straight ahead and resting her elbows on the bar. It was her face she turned slightly and her eyes. You want another? She shook her head. Four thirty, but late in winter and the sun was going down as they left. And where to now? She said she should go home and study for her art history test. He admitted he needed to write his philosophy paper. I went to the library so I would not get distracted, he said.

Me too, she said, but I always get distracted.

Always someone who wants to distract you, I bet. They were standing in front of her bus stop. When he smiled, she saw the sweet jumble of his teeth. He kissed her mouth; she felt it immediately and all over. Juma, nineteen, fully reckless: she took him home with her. He stayed four years. Some Saturday mornings, he made her eggs, and brought them to her in bed, read Kierkegaard aloud during lazy afternoons as she fell into a warm doze: his voice troubled the surface of her dreams, made them halflucid. On their second Christmas, he brought her to Baltimore to meet his mother, Nelda. Marcus and Nelda had the same delicate bones, though Nelda’s face had grown wide and soft, burying some

of the beauty that had once been there. She greeted Juma with what felt to Juma like suspicion, but later she thought it might actually have been fear: Juma’s fine coat, her glossy hair and her straight teeth looked expensive, a girl accustomed to comfort and fine things. But Nelda made them tea, and brought out the customary albums of Marcus’s babyhood and childhood, and the awkward years of his adolescence.There was a deep and obvious pride in the way she touched Marcus’s face in the pictures, even the years of slouching, frowning.

You a painter? Will you paint my house? Nelda said.

Sure, Juma said, What color?

Green and yellow, like an Easter egg.

I thought they only paint houses colors like that in New Orleans. Those are my favorite colors. The smile she offered Juma told her that she had been teasing, and they were, suddenly, friends.

The next morning, they opened presents, and she marveled at the gentleness between Marcus and Nelda. She got him a sweater, he had gotten her a yellow teapot and a bathrobe. Nelda gave Juma a present too, three kinds of fruit-scented lotions in a plastic pack. Juma gave her chocolates. The whole event had a tender hesitancy that was almost unbearable—each person made a great performance of delight when they opened their presents. There were tears in Nelda’s eyes when they said good-bye; she brushed them away, not at all ashamed.

Juma’s fights with Marcus were fierce and unfair. There were things she said that angered him, innocent things, she thought. They were young; she felt a terror, at times, of drowning in him. Worse yet, when the fights became bitter, and Marcus began pulling into himself, retreating into silence. And she would move to the opposite direction, screaming at him, waving her hands in his face, sometimes pulling crazily at her own hair. In the dark hours of morning, out of sheer exhaustion, they apologized and slept, though neither the sleep nor the apology was ever satisfying enough. They seemed to make do.

One New Year’s Eve, they fought at a party and Juma left in a huff an hour until midnight. She expected Marcus to follow her but he did not. The bus was roiling with happy drunks; just before twelve, it deposited her in her quiet neighborhood.

You have fun at the party?

Acting like he hadn’t heard her but she could see his body register her voice. The smooth muscles in his back as he lifted his shirt above his head, dark skin under the white T-shirt, darker than her skin, but warm. She wanted to press her face to it.

Marcus?

He went to the bathroom. She could hear the shower running. She began to cry. When he came out, she wiped her face and said again, Marcus?

He dressed in clean clothes. His graceful body tired. Still moving like he hadn’t heard her, didn’t see her in the room. If Marcus had turned to her, if he had said one thing—not even an apology—she would have asked him to stay. And he would have stayed. He knew this. He kept quiet. She bit her lips and watched him calmly pack up his belongings into suitcases and garbage bags, leaving nothing behind to pick up later.

She moved across town, shut her paintings up in her parents’ garage, and turned, to their relief, to law. She was unhappy for a time, and then she was busy, and forgot to be. One day she walked out into the cold morning of winter, and felt, with surprise, the sun falling warm on her face, the clear blue of the sky.

In the morning, Juma had made coffee by the time Will woke, had already scrubbed out the shower from the night’s grime, and was dressed for work. He found her paused in the doorway of the living room, where Marcus slept. His deep breaths whistled out of him. Morning and his skin had a kind of flatness to it, and his hair. Even in sleep, his face looked weary. Juma started.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.

“I just woke up.”

They went to the kitchen. He needed coffee, lots of it, and

poured himself a generous amount.

“Didn’t sleep too well, huh?”

“No,” he said. The coffee was not hot, only a little warm. “Do you know how long he’s staying?”

“We haven’t talked about it yet.”

“You didn’t think this through.”

“I didn’t.”

Her face looked wretched, and despite the apparent ease of her slumber, unslept.

“You love him,” he said.

She laid her head against his palm, open on the table. “Not like that.”

Her cheek was hot. Will said, almost cruelly, “You should be somebody’s mother.”

WhenWill got home, though the apartment was empty, he began to feel as though Marcus was still in the room. He could see Marcus sitting beside him on the couch, looking down at his clasped hands, sitting in formidable silence.Was he gone for good? It seemed like it, yet the thought did not bring Will relief. He had another beer. When Juma came home, a little later than usual, she was loaded down with things. Clothes for Marcus, and shoes that fit, socks, bars of soap, a warm hat, new toothbrush, deodorant and toothpaste. She was alone and rumpled. She kissedWill at the door.

“I was worried.”

“I called you. I left a message.”

His phone confirmed this. “I don’t know how I missed it.”

“Where’s Marcus?”

“I thought he might be with you.”

“He didn’t come back here?”

“Not that I can see.”

She was putting her coat back on.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to go look for him.”

“What are you going to do if you find him? Drag him bodily back to the apartment?”

“He needs help, Will.”

“Sweetheart, what can wepossibly do for him?” He followed her out the door, pulling on a jacket. Dark had fallen, the streetlights blinkedon.Jumawalkedfuriouslydownthestreet,lookingintothe faces of all the people she passed. Will stayed a few paces behind, just watching her.

Juma had loosed herself from the crowd she was crossing and began to move very quickly down the street. She turned the corner and began to climb a hill so steep there were stairs etched into the sidewalk. Will followed her. Her quick pace was sagging.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She put a hand to her forehead. “I feel like I’m dreaming.Are you?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What are we going to do with all that stuff I bought?”

“Give it to Glide.” Then he said, “Juma, do you remember me?” “What do you mean?” Her eyes were fixed on him. They were sad, dark. When he looked at her, he was used to seeing himself reflected in her face, and now, he looked and looked for that sign of himself. Perhaps he’d been imagining it all along. She kissed his hand, her soft lips. Was it enough? “Of course I do.”

She saw him. She didn’t speak. She just stood there. Soon he felt her eyes on him and looked up, and an eerie feeling went through him... Juma: the force of the word through his lips had heft, velocity. In her face, he could see how low he had become. Biting her lips red.

“Marcus,” she said. Suddenly it felt precious, his name. He didn’t want it in her mouth.

He let her take him home, like he had all those years ago, coming to it, this time, unwilling, dazed. Language returned to him slowly—he spoke very little in his new life. But by dinner he wanted to ask if she was enjoying it. It would be to wound her: her distress was plain. Her well-intentioned distress, that some part of the world had slipped out of order, and it was her task to tuck it back into place. Groom him and feed him and let him sleep—and then? Let him go on his merry way, so she could return to the task

of planning and managing current and future happiness, her trips, her wedding, her dinner parties. How different she was from the girl he had loved. It’s not like he didn’t remember her pettiness, her unthinking comments. And yet, he could see her through the thick screen of memory, twenty-two, full of uncertainty, drunk, dancing shyly at a party to the Talking Heads. Glancing back at him with a smile, wearing that short green dress, looking self-conscious, tugging at the hem, but dancing, with her firm legs, her long soft arms, asking with her eyes, like a child asks her parent, do you see me? Do you see me?And his eyes had said yes, I see you.

***

When he woke in their apartment in the morning, she was standing in the doorway. She whispered, “Are you awake? Marcus?”

He closed his eyes, moving away from her, falling into a thin sleep. It was warm. He had a good dream, his mother was there. He couldn’t see her face but it was good to be close to her. When he woke the second time, the apartment was empty, and it was time to leave.And go—where? They had taken his clothes to wash, but he found them in a garbage bag in the hall closet and put them on, dirty.

Then he walked away.

Souad Zakaran, Poetess & translator. Publications in Anthologie: Frühlings Anthologie 2025 beim Thomas Opfermann, Lyrischer Lorbeer’24 ,“Regenbogeninsel” Anthologie. Im Fadenkreuz der Archetypen, Märchen, Sex & Gender beim Wiener Verlag. 4times successful publication of Contemporary Poetry beim Brentano Gesellschaft, Frankfurter Bibliothek. Essays & Poems in Magazines: KKL Magazine /Barcelona Adabia/ Raven Cage / Poetry Planet / Global Poets and Poetry.

7 Days Into the Week of a Childless Woman

Zoé Mahfouz

DAY 1

I wake up around 11 a.m. and decide to go out for brunch. On the way home, I impulsively book a spin class, followed by a weightlifting session, followed by a trampoline class because my pelvic floor is still intact. Feeling motivated, I confidently head to the gym. After my workout, I grab a protein smoothie from my favorite smoothie shop and chat with the owner, John, a Colombian man who insists on giving me his unsold goods as a token of appreciation. I graciously accept and pretend to eat them because I’m a good person who understands the rules of social interaction.

While we’re chatting, I witness a child throwing a tantrum after spilling juice all over her dress. Her mother frantically searches for napkins, only for the child to grab what’s left of the juice and hurl it directly into her mother’s face. I go home, put on The Mindy Project, and watch two episodes. Then I take a nap.

DAY 2

The weather is amazing, so I take the bus to the park. I end up walking through three different parks over the span of two to three hours, petting random poodles and feeding a mix of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries to squirrels that take them straight from my hand, making me feel like Snow White.

In the distance, I spot a child deliberately kicking one of the squirrels while her mother tries to stop her but can’t keep up. She then gets into a heated argument with her husband about whose responsibility this is, but he’s too busy ogling a 20-year-old jogger to care.

On my way back, I notice a showing of Wicked at a nearby movie theater. Even though I’ve already seen it twice, I decide to go for a third round. All that walking and watching has exhausted me, so when I get home, I take a nap.

DAY 3

I wake up with my Korean face mask still on and gently peel it off, admiring my glass-skin effect. My hair, soaked in overnight oil and wrapped in a towel, gets a thorough wash because today I have a photoshoot. I savor the solitude of my bathroom, enjoying the silence.

I pack my small suitcase and head to the shoot, where my hair and makeup are done professionally. I post a few TikToks for fun and end up having a fantastic photoshoot that lasts longer than

expected. The photographer casually tells me I have a great body, unlike his wife, “whose body has been ruined by two pregnancies.” He then confides in me that they’ve decided to become polyamorous.

On my way back, I stop at the grocery store and have a quick chat with the security guard. Meanwhile, a child launches himself into a man’s shopping cart, causing it to topple over and send cucumbers, tomatoes, and celery rolling everywhere. The kid bursts into hysterical tears as his mother gets bombarded with judgmental stares and disapproving nods from surrounding shoppers.

When I get home, I start a load of laundry and hear on the radio news that a woman has been arrested for putting her two-year-old in a washing machine. I then have an uninterrupted, hour-and-ahalf-long phone call with my mom.After that, I take a nap.

DAY 4

It’s raining, so I decide to spend the afternoon at a museum. I grab a protein bar and head out around lunchtime.

At the ticket counter, I notice a group of children wailing because their mother wants to take them to the museum restaurant instead of McDonald’s. They retaliate by attempting to destroy a 100-year-old statue, which results in them being thrown out by security guards who immediately regret touching them upon realizing their hands are now inexplicably sticky.

I take an audio guide and stroll leisurely through the exhibit,

taking my time in front of each painting. Feeling sufficiently cultured, I stop by a local pizzeria I often order from on UberEats and finally try their pizza in person. I savor a giant pepperoni pizza with a side of garlic dip because I’m not planning on kissing anyone today.

A family walks in with strollers and crying babies, prompting a waiter to rush over and inform them that they don’t have a kids’ menu or highchairs. Chaos ensues as the children start rolling on the floor, shrieking, “I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” while the rest of the restaurant shoots the mother dirty looks.

Satisfied with my day, I go home and take a nap.

DAY 5

Before leaving for my screenwriting class, I mop my apartment floors and leave the windows open to dry them. I feel comfortable leaving my home unattended because I know everything will still be exactly as I left it when I return.

Since I arrive at class early, I stop by the protein shop to stock up on coconut bars and chat with my favorite employee, Dayo, who looks like death warmed over. He tells me his toddler is teething and hasn’t slept in days.

When I finally get to class, the secretary informs us that the lesson will be conducted online because the instructor couldn’t find daycare due to a strike and is now quarantined at home with her kids, who have lice. I endure the awkward virtual class, then go home and take a nap.

DAY 6

I have a long weekend ahead, so I decide to book a trip to Italy with my mom. We’re thrilled to find a hotel with a pool until we read TripAdvisor reviews warning that it’s frequently closed because parents keep bringing their diapered children in, and, well... let’s just say the water gets contaminated beyond repair.

We wisely opt for an adults-only hotel instead.

To celebrate, we put on some music to get into vacation mode. Moments later, there’s furious banging on the front door. It’s our downstairs neighbor, barefoot and enraged, ranting that our music woke up his toddler and now their afternoon is ruined. Too bad, because now I feel exhausted and am about to take a well-deserved nap.

DAY 7

I take my spotless car out for a drive, rent an entire bouncy castle just for myself, strip naked, and gleefully jump around while watching the live Academy Awards ceremony on my phone and devouring ice cream in every flavor imaginable, because I can. Then, I call my GPto inquire about the procedure for getting my uterus removed. This conversation fills me with an unexpected surge of excitement.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a day, so I take a nap.

Zoé Mahfouz is a multi-talented artist—an award-winning bilingual actress, screenwriter, and writer whose works span fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, featured in 40+ literary magazines worldwide. Her comedic scripts, including I Follow You and Commercial Actress, have garnered recognition at festivals like Hollywood Comedy Shorts, Filmmatic, Scriptation Showcase, and Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival.

The Classic Escape Micah Ward

The sun doesn’t rise dramatically over the landscape of smoke stacks and bare limbed trees. The day simply becomes lighter, as if a bulb is gradually intensifying its light. Rhonda emerges from the back seat of the car onto the sidewalk in front of her house. Smoke wafts from the exhaust. Giggles and laughs follow her as she waves and weaves her way to the porch and front door.

In the kitchen her mother scrambles eggs and eyes Rhonda with disgust.

“Your shift starts in an hour and I can smell the liquor on you all the way over here. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you getting serious with your life? Ever since the divorce and moving back in with your father and me, all you do is go out with those hoodlum girlfriends of yours and drink all night. Is that why Tony left you? Is this what you did when you were married to him?”

Rhonda pours a cup of coffee, “Leave Tony out of this. I’m just

trying to have a little fun for a change.”

“Your little fun will get you fired. Go wash that stink off before you go to work.”

Rhonda labors up the staircase feeling the impending hangover that she will take with her to the mill and her work station where she will watch the clock tick toward morning break. Then lunch. Then afternoon break and gloriously, quitting time. Another changeless day leading to a silent and reproachful dinner with her parents.

At the end of this day, she returns to her childhood bedroom and naps until her phone rings.

“Oh, hell yeah, I’ll be ready in half an hour.”

Rhonda is on her feet and heading to the bathroom to freshen up. She trots down the stairs and sees the waiting car at the sidewalk and hears her mother’s, “Oh, for the love of God Rhonda, not again tonight!”

“I’ll be early, don’t wait up,” and Rhonda is gone.

Her father doesn’t turn his attention from the television.

The girls giggle and pass a bottle of bottom shelf scotch around the car. Six of them packed into a clunker that is older than any one of its occupants. A fog of cigarette smoke leaks from the windows of the car as they pull into the parking lot of their favorite dive.

Dodging mud and sliding on patches of ice they laugh their way across the lot and into the tavern. Smoke pools near the ceiling and billiard balls clack loud enough to be heard over the blare of the jukebox. Greetings are shouted and returned in every direction.

One of Rhonda’s friends nudges her with her elbow and says, “Look who’s over there.”

Rhonda looks and sees Tony. He sees her. They manage to simultaneously ignore and sneak glances at each other for the next hour. The inevitable must happen. It always does for those whose poor choices begat even poorer ones. Rhonda borrows the car keys and follows Tony outside. There is no conversation. The windows steam into gray curtains. The ancient shocks of the car squeak as it rocks back and forth.

Afterwards, they fumble to close zippers and button various pieces of clothing and Tony asks, “Are you still working at the mill?”

“What else am I going to do around here? Join the country club?”

They climb out of the car and light cigarettes in the cold Minnesota night. Tony leans against the fender and says, “I’m getting out of here Rhonda.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve joined theArmy. I leave for boot camp next Tuesday.”

The two stand there in silence shivering slightly as the wind increases.

“TheArmy,” she says.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I’ve been out of work for most of the last three months and they said I could learn how to operate heavy equipment in the engineers. Hey, at least I get out of this mill town and see some of the rest of the world.”

Rhonda shakes her head and ponders the classic escape from small-town frustration. Join theArmy.

Two months later she sits at the breakfast table with her parents before they all leave for work.

“This is a pleasant change,” her mother says. “Like the old days when you weren’t hung over every morning and we had nice meals together.”

Rhonda looks at her mother and says, “Yeah, mom, some things have to change sooner or later. I’ve had my fun running with the girls. I’ve got to do something better than just living here and working in that mill for the rest of my life.”

Her father looks up with a curious expression.

Rhonda drops the bombshell, “I’m joining theArmy.”

When the stunned silence has stretched long enough Rhonda continues, “The recruiter told me that my test scores qualify for medic training. When I get out the GI Bill will pay for college. I could be a nurse someday. Army pay’s not great but it beats the mill and maybe I’ll get to see some of the world.”

Silence descends again until Rhonda’s mother looks at her husband and speaks. “Ralph, say something.”

Ralph glances at his wife then looks Rhonda directly in the eyes. “I believe that’s the smartest damn thing you’ve said since high school. Good luck.”

Rhonda smiles at her old man and then kisses his bald head as she leaves the kitchen. She pulls her coat snug against the winter chill. She thinks that she would like to be stationed in a warm

climate.Anything to get out of the northern Minnesota winters. She thinks about being a nurse someday and her eyes fill with tears as she thinks about a decision she must make. She thinks about the bathroom before she left the house and the test strip that read positive.

Micah Ward writes, runs, and enjoys craft beer in middle Tennessee. His short stories have been published in Well Read and in anthologies produced by the Colorado Springs Fiction Writers and the Amelia Island Writers clubs. Micah has received three Honorable Mentions from the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was also named Outstanding Club Writer of the year by the Road Runners Club of America for his articles on running.

Buried Treasure Celia Miles

We sisters were fools for burying our treasures—and for digging them up. In the sunlight we pulled the battered shoebox from the shallow hole where we’d placed it two days earlier. All there— only slightly grimy: three buckeyes, a blue bottle with water diluting the smell of Evening in Paris, my lucky, run-over-by-atrain penny. Satisfied, my sisters and I tucked our treasures in our pockets and headed toward home.

We lived near the Jaspers. Mr. and Mrs. Jasper boarded three city men, men who were scouting for stands of curly walnut. They had a lot of money, wallets bulging with it. So they enjoyed flipping pennies to us if we drifted over to the fringes of the Jasper yard in the last glimmer of sunlight. They’d been well fed and sat in rocking chairs on the front porch with their feet stretched out in front of them. Their cigars were a wonder to us. We knew not to bother the paying guests, not to get too close. When they caught sight of us, the men dug into their pockets for loose change. They grinned when we scrambled for the coins. I heard one of them

mutter, “Like little chickens, aren’t they?”

Anyway, we kept our pennies and nickels in small, red-checked bags with drawstrings that Mrs. Jasper had made out of cloth scraps. After we picked up pennies and even a silver dime that evening, Georgie, a neighbor boy, intercepted us. He gathered us around to tell us about his adventure at the traveling carnival. “I heard the dangest story from the world’s oldest man,” he said. His voice cracked just a little; at thirteen we never knew exactly how he’d sound.

“What? Tell us.” My sisters were big-eyed. Georgie didn’t pay much attention to them usually. I hung back, not exactly trusting him and his practical jokes.

“Well, this man—older than Jericho, I reckon—this man said he knew for a fact that if you planted money just at the right time of the year and the right time of the moon, it’d grow! That’s what he said.”

“And you believe that?” I weighed my little bag of money in my overalls’pocket.

“He swore it up and down. You can ask Mack. Me and Mack went by ourselves. He swore it worked and he told us the very time, the one time of the year that it worked.” Georgie squatted, just at my sisters’ eye-level. He looked deadly serious. Susie and Sissy didn’t blink.

“When is the very time?” I asked.

“Tomorrow night, that’s what he said. He said the carnival’d be

over in Whittier then, so he could find the perfect spot to bury his money. It’s got to be close to water and to a big oak. Not just anyplace will do. Graveyards is best, he said. But old oaks and pure water’s the next best thing. I’ll tell you something—” He stopped and shook his head.

We waited. My little bag didn’t seem quite so heavy now.

“I’ll tell you what,” Georgie said. “I’m a-gonna bury my money. I don’t see how in the world I can lose. The world’s oldest man swore he’d seen it happen, and I’m a-gonna try it. I expect I’ll be rich in a year or two.” He stood up and dusted off his hands on his pants.

“Can we bury ours too?” Sissy asked.

Susie chimed in, “I want to be rich too.”

“Well,” Georgie said, “I don’t know. It’s yours, not mine to say.”

Susie and Sissy turned to me, their older sister at age seven and a half. I jiggled the bag of coins in my pocket. It was a temptation to think my money would grow. I knew—knew it would not, but it was a mighty temptation to think it might.

“That old man, I mean he’s the oldest man in the world, that’s what the carnival said, he swore it worked. And I, for one, am bound to try it.” Georgie started to walk away, then looked back. “It’s got to be done tomorrow night, not a day later. I know the exact spot. I’ve already thought about it.”

“Where, where?” my sisters whispered.

“Well, naturally, I ain’t telling you where, not unless you’re with

me. I’ve checked, though, and I know the certain spot. Got to be done tomorrow, not a minute later than thirty-seven minutes past seven, that’s what he said, and not a minute sooner than seventeen minutes past seven. Sevens is special. It’s got to be when the moon and stars is lined up exactly.”

My sisters just knew we’d be rich. Our money bags would grow—somehow; some magic was in the air, in the oak and water. I wanted to believe.

The next night we scurried behind Georgie through a field and up to an abandoned well, territory forbidden to us. The old well was overgrown with honeysuckle vines, and wild rose bushes surrounded it. At different times, someone concerned with the safety of children or drunks would put boards over its opening. They rotted and sank inward. Within a few yards stood a huge oak, dripping leaves and acorns.

With ceremony, Georgie determined the exact spot where his money bag was to be planted. Susie, Sissy, and I chose spots close to his, sure that if his crop was plentiful, so would ours be. Georgie used a short-handled shovel for his work; with a trowel and two spoons, we three followed his instructions and dug just as he had. We placed our cloth bags with the coins in the shallow holes.

“You don’t want them too deep,” Georgie said. “Seeds too deep don’t do so well.”

That made sense. We scooped little mounds of soft dirt over the three money plots. Each one of us found a twig or rock and marked

our spot. “You don’t want to take any chances on getting them mixed up,” Georgie said. Satisfied with our investment, we trooped back home. My pocket really felt light without its eighteen cents, but I was excited about the possibility, the assurance, of seeing our money grow. I could not quite imagine it, so I stopped trying.After all, Mama had declared one day, “Child, you let your imagination run away with you half the time.”

So I just believed.

We mentioned our money plots to each other every day and checked on our “gardens” whenever we could sneak off from Mama and the baby. We even watered them one day when no rain had fallen in over two weeks. “This water may not help a bit,” Susie declared. “It’s not from the well.”

“It’s pure, though,” I told her. “It’s from Jasper’s branch, straight up the mountain.” Still, I wondered.And I missed the heaviness of the coins in my pocket. I thought and thought about just how that money could grow. I wanted to ask Daddy, but he was always tired or had his eyes set on something over my head.

“Let’s go check on our money,” I said. I saw Georgie, who had been working at his uncle’s for three weeks, coming around the corner of the house. “We’re worried,” I told him.

“Why, that money’s not going to come up just like that,” he said. “It’s heavier than ordinary seeds. It’s bound to take longer.”

“We’re going anyway.”

Georgie came with us. We walked carefully around the mounds

that looked like little graves for birds. It looked like the forked stick on my plot had been moved, but I couldn’t be sure. I said, “I’m going to dig down and see if anything’s happening.” It seemed to me Georgie wasn’t taking us seriously. He had a halfway grin on his squinty-eyed face.

While Georgie stood there, we set to it with sharp sticks and our hands, digging down three inches or so. I knew it before I saw it for sure: my plot was empty. No coins. No bag. Sissy and Susie found the same thing. Nothing. Sissy started bawling. She cried even louder when Susie said, “Some old witch probably come by and dug it up.”

“Well, that old man never said it’d just disappear.” Georgie scratched his head. I stared at him. Susie jabbed her stick in Georgie’s plot and started digging.

“Hey, leave mine alone. It’s likely sprouting this very minute.”

Georgie grabbed Susie’s hand but she scraped off the dirt. There was his little leather pouch. Sissy kept crying. Susie and I eyed the pouch.

“Guess maybe it’s just gonna work for men,” Georgie declared. With his foot he covered the hole again. “I’ve got to get on home. You better come with me. Your mama’ll skin you alive for being up here at this well by yourselves.”

Whistling a ragged tune, Georgie swaggered off. We followed, feet dragging. Our money was gone and no old witch had got it.

And the curly-walnut men had left the area.

Celia Miles, retired NC community college instructor, lives and writes in Asheville. Her Appalachian heritage, her interest in old water-powered grist mills, and her exploration of Britain's neolithic stone circles are evident in her thirteen novels, two collections of short stories, and some poetry. and photography. website: celiamiles.com

IAm TheAnimal

Don Edwards

I am the animal that knows that it knows

Closer still to grizzly than to Jesus, The barrel chested creature

Strewing slobber and poetry throughout its den — Tripping over the broken skulls of symbols, Gnawing on the discarded femurs of cadence and rhyme.

I can think a bridge or posit a concept.

I can build a portfolio and retire to the islands.

I can kick you across the face and break your jaw.

I can steal your wife and make her forget who you are.

I can make children like any monkey

And claim them to be uniquely soulful.

But that won’t be enough —

Give me the ring for catharsis

So I can stay between the lines.

There I’ll lose the itch that followed me in.

Crawl on after if you wish And take that if you dare to And that and that as well.

Help make my knotted disposition unwind.

Yes I am the animal still acknowledging consequence

But often lacking regard,

The one who follows gods and women,

While sniffing the air for my next kill, Then kneeling before a pool of water and stone altars

To get me through another day.

See me for what I am — reaching for heaven

While eating the dirt of the world I inhabit And applying a healing violence

To calm my furry soul.

Don Edwards has previously published five books of poetry. Mr Edwards is also the founding member of True Gospel Bookstore which records his poems as songs which are available to hear on Spotify and all streaming services. Mr Edwards lives in Los Angeles.

An ocean of pink and fuchsia spreads across Roan Mountain, undulant waves of clustered blooms of rhododendron, known to many as mountain laurel.

Ahard, determined wind ruffles and blurs lavender and rose across the dense green leaves of bushes twelve or more feet high.

Underneath, spindly bare limbs twist skyward, pushing foliage and flowers to the sun and building below a skeleton and clear ground flecked with nodding patches of light.

In this labyrinth of bones, the hells, bears spearhead trails, as they shoulder and pad their way through the shadows at the bottom of the dazzling sea.

Roan Mountain

Malcolm Glass

Malcolm Glass has published fifteen books of poetry and non-fiction. His work has appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Sewanee Review, and The Write Launch. In 2018, Finishing Line Press published his chapbook Mirrors, Myths, and Dreams; and next year Finishing Line will release his triple-hybrid collection, Her Infinite Variety. Also an artist and photographer, Glass has had artwork juried into dozens of exhibitions and galleries, including The Hilliard Gallery, Art Fluent, Photo Artfolio, and Nuu Contemporary Art. Hiswork haswon dozens ofawards,from honorable mention to Best of Show.

The Greatest Everything But Neth Williams

He was the guy anyone could turn to at any time. He had a terminal disease; the need to please. His shoulders were soaked from the tears of mankind. He was paid in praise; It charged him for days. At the drop of a hat, he was gone to console. While I sat alone; Crying at home. He was the greatest of all in a therapist role. But not to me; Never for me.

All who needed a hand needed only to call. Available on demand; Previous plans be damned. Travel plans and dinner dates started to fall.

None of that mattered; Relationships tattered. Strangers’obligations were first on the poll. Home only to rest; After others got his best. He was the greatest of all in a supporting role. But not to me; Never for me.

He could motivate the downtrodden to carry on. Help them dig deep; Put worries to sleep.

Staying with many people until the break of dawn. Ignoring the home; Leaving me alone.

He would help strangers at the expense of his soul. Taking on their pain; Letting himself drain. He was the greatest of all in a motivating role. But not to me; Never for me.

He was the greatest everything to everyone. Acall away; To save the day. He would put in hours until the job was done.

Overexerting; Always hurting. Everyone in town was better off, so what? I paid the price; For him being nice. He was the greatest everything, but But not to me; Never for me.

Neth is an award-winning paralegal who has used legal research and writing experience to pen hundreds of articles for business firms, marketing companies, and healthcare providers. His poetry has been published in Stray Words Magazine (UK) and Black Coffee Poetry (Australia). His storytelling was shared across Nashville, TN, where he performed on many stages, including Zanies Comedy Club.

HELLO

WRITERS &ARTISTS

CALLFOR SUBMISSIONS IS OPEN!

*No prompts or themes - no boundaries*

WELL READ is looking for submissions from writers and artists who have stories to tell – through words and art. We combine new and established voices from diverse backgrounds and celebrate different perspectives. We want people who aren’t afraid to shake things up, speak their mind, and share their humanity.

Click here for SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please follow the guidelines - all submissions must be sent as attachments and include an author photo and short bio.

CLAIRE CONSIDERS

Gravewater Lake: A Thriller

by A.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent

Review of Gravewater Lake: A Thriller by

A.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent

Claire Hamner Matturro

In Gravewater Lake: A Thriller (Thomas & Mercer 2025), two related storylines told in alternating chapters collide in a surprisingly unforeseeable, yet deadly climax. Authors A.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent masterfully weave together these narratives, each brimming with conflict, tension, and the breathless suspense of a grand psychological thriller. The result is an engrossing, satisfying read.

The novel incorporates classic gothic elements—a vulnerable young woman, a brooding and secretive man, and a remote, mysterious mansion. With betrayal, lies, and gaslighting at every turn, the protagonist’s struggle to separate reality from illusion is palpable. At times, she seems gullible, slow to piece together the clues, but her bravery is undeniable. Whether she is truly smart remains in question—until the climactic reveal.

The protagonist is a young woman, beautiful and wealthy, named eitherAdria orAnna. Or is she?The prologue teases readers by introducingAdria in the midst of a deadly conflict.Then chapter one introduces a wounded woman crawling from a frigid lake with no memory of who she is and why she nearly drowned. She fights her way to consciousness and has only one clue as to who she is—a

CLAIRE

bracelet with the letterA. On the verge of hypothermia, with a head wound and blackening eye, she struggles toward the only light she sees in the remote, wooded Vermont landscape. She arrives at the door of a stranger, barely alive.

The stranger is a blue-eyed man named Gregg. Or is he? He takes her into a grand but eerie mansion, once the summer retreat of a robber baron and the perfect setting for the gothic thriller that soon follows. He seems friendly and appears to want to help her. But does he? Making a guess at her name from the bracelet, the man calls the woman Anna. It’s January, there’s a blizzard, and he tells her the bridge is out, the roads impassable, the cell phones don’t work, and the landlines and internet are down. Or, are they?

Meanwhile in the parallel story,Adria is married to a man whose name is Peter. Or is it? Peter is incidentally also a blue-eyed handsome man and might not be whoAdria believes him to be. But who is in this tale? Readers learn in theAdria chapters that she is a trust-fund kid but works hard and honestly at her grandfather’s charitable foundation. Peter also works diligently at the foundation. Or does he?

At the mansion on Gravewater Lake, Anna senses she and the man called Gregg are not alone, though he asserts repeatedly that they are. She hears voices arguing, sees fleeting shadows, discovers shattered bottles leaking dark liquid, and spots a knifewielding figure trailing her. Gregg convinces her—or tries to convince her—that these incidences are only her imagination, or hallucinations.After all, she barely survived either an accident—or

an attempt on her life—and has amnesia.

Trapped in the house with Gregg, Anna becomes increasingly aware of the danger she is in. Back in the tale of Adria and Peter, Adria is also aware of the danger she is in. Neither Peter nor Gregg seems trustworthy. Neither seems to be who he says he is. Anna’s safety depends largely on the compassion of Gregg. But can Anna rely on Gregg? Meanwhile Anna’s life is complicated further by a neighbor on the lake named Helene, who claims to be on an author finishing up edits on her manuscript.Then there’s a crude man who claims to be another neighbor on the lake and friend of Gregg’s. But are they?And if neither of them is who they say they are, then who are they?

The name of the lake—Gravewater—comes from a historic, abandoned cemetery that is slowly being submerged beneath the rising waters. Anna’s discovery of the graveyard is just one of many atmospheric scenes that give the novel its wonderfully eerie, chilling quality.

As the dual plotlines converge, questions and dangers come faster and faster for both Adria and Anna. The fast pace and the layers of mysteries, the appealing main character of Anna/Adria, and the sheer cleverness of the ultimate plot are so well done, who cares if the story tilts close to melodrama at times. All in all, this twisty gothic tale is an engaging and wholly readable story.

Be warned: once you start reading Gravewater Lake, you won’t want to stop. Each chapter ends with a hook, pulling you deeper into this chilling gothic mystery. And when you reach the end,

CLAIRE CONSIDERS

Gravewater Lake: A Thriller by A.M. Strong & Sonya Sargent

please do not spoil the final twist. You’ll want to discuss it, but let others uncover the ending’s surprise on their own.

Husband-and-wife teamA.M. Strong and Sonya Sargent, known for their previous collaborations including I Will Find Her and The Last Girl Left, once again deliver a thrilling, unputdownable novel. Strong, originally from the U.K., now splits his time between Florida and Maine, as does co-author Sonya Sargent. Strong has worked as a graphic designer, newspaper journalist, artist, and actor. Sargent has a degree in design, a “passion for anything dogs, travel, and the arts” per Strong’s website.

CLAIRE CONSIDERS

“I’ve spent the last twenty years or so deliberately choosing to cultivate happiness…”

Annie McDonnell asks Kerry Schafer

Q: How would you like to die?

A: Suddenly and without warning while I’m in the middle of doing something I love. Family lore has it that my great grandfather was out on a mountainside collecting firewood the day a tree fell on his head and abruptly ended him. He was in his eighties. I’ve always felt that this was a good way to die. In a perfect world, I will have just finished typing those two glorious little wordsTHE END when the tree drops on me.

Q: What is your motto?

A: Depends on which day you’re asking. I have many and they change with my mood, the seasons, and how disruptive my menagerie of neurotic rescue animals has been of late. But they all seem to be more or less directly connected to these lines from Tennyson’s Ulysses:

“Yet

all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little…”

Q: Who is your hero of fiction?

A: Oh my God, Jack Reacher. In real life, I’m a peaceable sort of person. I believe in forgiveness and second chances and I can twist myself into all sorts of knots trying to cut people slack and understand why they’ve done the heinous thing they’ve just done. But in fiction, I do adore living vicariously through Jack. It’s so immensely satisfying to travel around with him, smiting the bad guys and delivering unto them the justice which they deserve.

Q: What do you most value in your friends?

A. The ability to find the bright side. Not that we don’t have bitch and swear sessions, because I also have a dark side. But the ability to switch out of that and look for silver linings and good things and find the good in people and to laugh about pretty much anything is top of the list for me.

Q: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

A: Being stuck in the creative doldrums. Any set of life or psychological circumstances that keep me from involving myself in some sort of satisfying, challenging, creative project – that’s when I’m most miserable.

Q: When and where were you happiest?

A: Now, really. I’ve spent the last twenty years or so deliberately choosing to cultivate happiness. It has less to do with actual life circumstances or the state of the world than people tend to believe – and pretty much everything to do with choosing habits of thought and attention. That said – my life at this time revolves around books and writing and other creative projects and I live in a place surrounded by trees rather than houses and traffic, which is idyllic for me.

Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

A: The word awesome. I say it – and write it – far too frequently.

Q: On what occasion do you lie?

A: I’m a terrible liar in general, so I don’t make a practice of it. Usually if I lie it’s to spare someone's feelings over something they don’t need my opinion on. Like – what possible good will it do them to know that I do not like their dress or that those pants DO make their butt look big? You know what I mean.

Q: What is your greatest extravagance?

A: Coffee and books. I don’t even want to tell you how much

money I spend on books. As for coffee – I’ve discovered a notquite-local roaster whose secret mojo is that he doesn’t roast the beans until AFTER they are ordered. So every week I order my beans on Sunday in order to get them on Tuesday. He drops them off at the local florist in my small town (this is for real, not making this up) and emails me that the beans are ready and I go pick them up. Yes, they cost a little more. But they are worth it. I will cut out protein and veggies before I give up my books and my fresh roast coffee. Oh – and I grind them as needed (of course!) and make each cup via pour over. Life is good.

Q: What is your favorite occupation?

A: Does reading count as an occupation? Because that would probably come first. If not, then writing.

Kerry Schafer (aka Kerry Anne King) is the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of fourteen novels. An incorrigible genre hopper, Kerry has written fantasy, paranormal mystery, and book club fiction. Known for her lyrical writing and memorable characters, Kerry weaves deep emotional insights, humor, and often a touch of magic into all of her tales. Her most recent writing venture is an amateur sleuth novel, Party Planning Can Be Murder, in stores now.

In addition to writing, Kerry co-hosts the One Happy Thing podcast with bestselling authors Jennifer Moorman and Maddie

Dawson and runs Author Genie, where she provides virtual assistant services to fellow authors.

Kerry lives in a small town in northeastern Washington with her real-life Viking and a crew of neurotic rescue animals—two dogs and four cats—whose favorite pastime is interrupting her writing.

"Darkly hilarious and utterly unputdownable, Party Planning Can Be Murder delivers a fresh, sharp-witted mystery with a twist no one saw coming. Addy Winters is a firecracker of a protagonist-equal parts savvy, stubborn, and snarky-as she juggles party planning, nosy small-town drama, and a suspiciously premature death. The banter crackles, the mystery keeps you guessing, and the sizzling chemistry with Leno's broodingly handsome brother? Chef's kiss. If you love a mystery that's as clever as it is thrilling, with a side of humor and heart, clear your schedule-this one's a must-read!" -

Jennifer Moorman,

bestselling author of The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds

Party Planning Can Be Murder: A Party Planner

Mystery

Kerry Schafer and Kerry Anne King

Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places

THE WRITER’S EYE

with Susan Beckham Zurenda and guest author Peter Schmitt

Welcome back to our new column that examines unexpected ways authors find inspiration for their writing. This month we hear from poet Peter Schmitt, a literature and writing professor and at the University of Miami. I hope you enjoy some of his discoveries turned into delightful poems, as much as this writer did:

For years I have compiled a list of classic typos, malaprops, bloopers, and spoonerisms committed by my college students in their essays, short stories, and poems: A long, buffet style table full of finger foods and pasties lined the right wall… Throughout the mass the whole congregation would sin, in Arabic… 12 years old and about to enter adolescents… Such gaffes relieve the tedium of grading, and every instructor, whether they’ve saved these goofs or not, has enjoyed them. Many stories from the bible mention the use of water by Christ; for example, one famous story about Christ turning wine into water… I like to walk the beach in the morning with my fishing rod in the hope of catching a snook to have my Grandfather grilled for lunch…

Although I’ve sent my assemblage of bungles to colleagues and friends over the years, only recently did I realize that a poem might be waiting amid this material—something brief, ideally, that would try to capture the earnest spirit of these blunders. Here, from my collection, Goodbye, Apostrophe, is that poem:

Typos

I urge my students to watch for typos: how do I know that you mean tap dancer when I’m staring hard at a lap dancer?

And your performing unasked-for lipo on the great and ancient Chinese poet is unintentional, I’m sure, but lacks respect, all the same. Pubic goes public too often these days—to what do we owe it?— (no stanza break) loins are lions when the mood’s conducive, and immoral, yes, has proved immortal since probably time immemorial, but your paper’s not the place to prove it. Did old poets write with rhyme and meaner? Or with a more cheerful misdemeanor?

The point is that inspiration for poems—or for stories, plays, novels, you name it—can come from virtually anywhere, even the unintentionally amusing things students say when they don’t bother toproofread. Personalexperience,andmemory,havealwaysproved my most reliable sources for generating poems, but in Goodbye, Apostrophe alone, a newspaper article, a bird’s egg wedged into a window crank, a life-size model skeleton, a postcard, a stash of weapons my father secreted around the house, a 19th C. photo from Tombstone, Arizona, a gas station encounter, a mattress, a condom, an old man falling, Scrabble, a set of old golf clubs—all these launching points, and more, have found their way into my work. Of course, it takes more than mere inspiration to create a poem—or a successful poem anyway (at least for me). Metaphor, language, and some kind of insight—some call it “perception,” or “epiphany,” or “message”—all have to come together to begin the

THE WRITER’S EYE with Susan Beckham Zurenda & guest author Peter Schmitt

process that culminates in the experience of a fully realized poem. It doesn’t happen often, this alchemy of elements—again, at least for me it doesn’t—and one needs to be alert when the signs are there. But it does start with that spark, that hunch, that here might be something worth writing about, that would fulfill what my college writing instructor Barry Goldensohn had in mind when he asked, and answered, the question, Why do we write poems? To express something urgent, and to say it as beautifully as we can. Here is one more, prompted by a painful brush with the natural world:

Instinct

The wasp that stung your pretty lip that time you strayed too near its nest, merely obeyed its instinct— much the way I find my mouth moving toward yours whenever you allow yourself to slip within my vicinity.

THE WRITER’S EYE with Susan Beckham Zurenda & guest author Peter Schmitt

Peter Schmitt is the author of six collections of poems, including four full-length collections. Goodbye, Apostrophe is his latest collection, published by Regal House. Some of his poetry awards include The Julia Peterkin Award (Converse University); The LavanAward (Academy ofAmerican Poets);The “Discovery”/The Nation Prize; grants from The FloridaArts Council; and an Ingram Merrill Fellowship.

“Life is too short to read poorly edited books.”

WORKING WITH AN EDITOR

Jennifer Silva Redmond

Most writers have a phobia about editors. Editors are seen as some alien race—bred to be persnickety and snippy—who sit around looking for errors in everything they come in contact with, from advertisements to love letters.

My friends always apologize about errors in their emails to me, as if I will reject them outright for having spelled wired as weird. In fact, I make plenty of mistakes in my emails, in my Facebook and IG posts, and in my tweets. Why is that, you say? Because those things are ephemeral—here today, gone tomorrow—in short, they will never be published. Why should I spend my precious brain power on spell-checking a comment on a retweet?

Now, as far as a book goes, that is a different thing altogether.A manuscript goes through quite a few levels of editing, hopefully, and yet I find errors in printed books all the time. I would go so far as to say that I have never read a published book that didn’t have at least one typo. Publishing a book means that error will stay an error for the rest of your life, unless the publisher cares to take the time—and spend the money—to correct it.Agood book will be in print for at least ten years, maybe twenty or more, with that same error on page 18. And the ebook will live on, with that same page 18 error intact, unless it is spotted and corrected, living on digitally, forever.

I once spoke to an author who said he published his books as ebooks in order to raise money to publish his books hard copy. I read one of his ebooks, and have never read another. Why should I? I have better things to do than to read an author’s rough draft for free, wincing at every misspelled word or missing comma. After all, that is what I get paid to do.

You want to be published, I get that.And you have been working on your manuscript for years, and everyone who has read it loved it, so, why not e-publish it? It doesn’t cost much to publish an ebook, and there’s free cover art available on the internet, so it won’t look too bad, and who knows, maybe it will become a runaway bestseller on Kindle and pretty soon, a publishing house will knock on your door and…

No. Just no. This will not happen. I don’t mean that it has never happened, but it will not happen with a book that has never been edited. It just won’t. (I must say that there is a one in ten million shot here, so yeah, it could, but still, no, it won’t.) There are too many good books out there that have been carefully rewritten and also gone through the process of workshopping and editing, plus been copyedited and well packaged, for someone to take change on reading your ebook with the homemade cover and the typo on page 1. Why would we? Life is too short to read poorly edited books.

What we are talking about is, in the words of Michael Steven Gregory, aka MSG, of the Southern California Writer’s Conference (SCWC), is premature e-publication. Sounds nasty,

doesn’t it? “If you suffer from premature e-publication, try our new drug, Editrixian…”

But, seriously, this is a real problem...I moderated a panel on this subject at SCWC, with two top agents and two fine publisher/ editors, and there was one thing we all agreed on: too many writers get so excited about being able to publish easily/cheaply that they don't worry enough about publishing a well-edited, well-designed book.

All too often new e-books, on Kindle and other ebook formats, have been rushed to "press" with no obvious effort having been given to what we in the biz call give the initials EDP—Editorial, Design, and Production.

Not only do they suffer from terrible, uninteresting covers— which can be the death of a book marketed solely through online networking—but the editing is either amateurish or is a step which appears to have been left out altogether. Yes, it's exciting to have a book published—but wouldn't you rather have your book be well received and well respected for years?

I advise every author who aspires to publication to think of themselves as a one-book publisher—whether they plan to selfpublish or not—and to think of the time/money they spend on research and refining as an investment in their career and the future of their work.

Do your homework, take time to edit and polish your book, and to learn about and truly know your audience. If you do selfpublish, you'll be ready to take the world (meaning your specific

niche) by storm; if you find an agent or editor is interested in your manuscript, they will be impressed with all your preparations. Put together an imaginative, workable, and inexpensive marketing plan, and your publisher will be forever in your debt!

So, the first step, after writing (and rewriting) the manuscript, is to get some other authors to read it. Sure you can have your honeypie read it, and your mom and your best friend, but don’t assume that their praise will be mirrored by the rest of us.Those people can be yourAlpha readers, but you definitely need Beta readers.

Like a new computer software, a manuscript has a Beta phase, where you invite other writers, and any friends you have that are really discerning readers, to read and critique it. This can also happen at your local read and critique group or writers group (you belong to a writers group don’t you?). This Beta stage is to make sure that your precious MS can, and should, actually become a book. Some cannot and never should. Some of my own first drafts couldn’t and never did, but that is neither here nor there.

Beta readers work for free, which is to say, for your undying gratitude. Or for a $25 gift card should you like. You will, of course, read their MS for them, when the time comes, and that is the quid pro quo. Beta readers can be super helpful by pointing out that your character’s husband was named Scott until Chapter 23, when he became Dave. Or that the character’s child suddenly disappeared in Chapter 14, never to be mentioned again. Or that it was spring when the story started and yet it was autumn on page 3. And, most especially, that there is a story that has a beginning, a

middle, and an end. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. Your Beta readers will tell you that.

I much prefer to read manuscripts that have already been to Beta readers, unless the author is a really diligent worker who is fastidious about their own self-editing process, like my friend and client Gayle Carline, who I’ve worked with on seven or eight books. It is your choice whether to bring your MS to a professional first or after the Beta readers, but my advice is always to have writers go through the Beta process first; so I don’t have to spend time (and money) telling you about Scott and Dave, the missing kid, and the spring/autumn issue. If the big problems have been eliminated, I can concentrate on the story and character arcs, plus any serious structural flaws.

Authors should always self-edit their first (or fifteenth) draft as much as they can prior to sending it to their friends or Beta readers. Try to get as many eyes on the manuscript as possible before you start spending on an editor.

Not only will it save you money and time, but we editors can do a much better job if we are not hired to simply improve something that is clearly flawed, but rather asked to make something good into something great.

This next point should be obvious, but getting more eyes on a project is especially important when one is self-publishing!

NOTE: People always want to know how much editing costs and how long it takes. Nowadays, that is nearly impossible to say, since there are a million overpriced editors out there. I can only tell

you that the average MS that I edit for content and structure costs around $1000, and the second pass, the line edit, usually runs $1500 to $1800. My first pass, the content and structure edit, takes about a month, and line editing can often take twice that long.

Jennifer Silva Redmond is a freelance editor and a popular writing instructor and speaker. Her award-winning memoir Honeymoon at Sea: How I Found Myself Living on a Small Boat was published by Re:Books of Toronto. Long-time editor-in-chief and acquisitions editor at award-winning Sunbelt Publications, she is now their editorat-large. She is on staff at the Southern California Writers Conference and San Diego Writers, Ink, was prose editor forA Year in Ink Vol 3, and co-founder of the critically acclaimed Sea of Cortez Review. Her essays, articles, and fiction have been published in anthologies, magazines, and books, including Latinos in Lotusland and A Year in Ink; More info, a select list of edited books, and client testimonials can be found at www.jennyredbug.com

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Nestled in the shadow of Pine Log Mountain for the perfect writing experience, the Etowah Valley is a bridge betweenAtlanta and theAppalachian South, where nature meets culture.

At Reinhardt University’s Etowah Valley Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Low-Residency Program writers create a literature that is story-driven and grounded in the places where we live, whether rural or urban.

Each summer, students visit our beautiful campus in North Georgia for a 10-day intensive residency to be immerses in writing daily writing workshops, craft classes, experiential excursions into natural and urban environments, and nightly readings on campus from our visiting writers. Our students travel from all over the United States to attend the summer residency to learn from some of the finest writers. In doing so, they embody a unique mixture of cultural traditions and lifestyles.Amid the thrivingAtlanta film scene and Southern environmentalism, we believe in the art of storytelling that develops voice and meaning to the individual artist.

For more information, visit the MFAwebsite: https://www.reinhardt.edu/academics/degrees-and-programs/mfa-creative-writing/ or contact the MFAdirector, William Walsh, at bjw@reinhardt.edu

Core Faculty:

Anjali Enjeti (creative non-fiction/ fiction)

Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change

The Parted Earth

Jessica Handler (creative nonfiction/fiction)

The Magnetic Girl

Invisible Sisters

Soniah Kamal (fiction)

An Isolated Incident

Unmarriageable

Donna Coffey Little (poetry/fiction)

Fire Street

Wofford’s Blood

Michael Lucker (screenwriting)

Crash! Boom! Bang! How to Write Action Movies

Rule One

Laura Newbern (poetry)

Love and the Eye

A Night in the Country

Gray Stewart (fiction)

Haylow

Megan Volpert (poetry/creative nonfiction)

Why Alanis Morissette Matters

Boss Broad

William Walsh (poetry/fiction)

Haircuts for the Dead Fly Fishing in Times Square

John Williams (fiction/creative nonfiction)

End Times

Monroeville and the Stage Production of To Kill a Mockingbird

Past Visiting Writers:

Adrian Blevins, Daniel Black, David Bottoms, Richard Blanco, Earl Braggs, Jericho Brown, Annemarie Ni Churreáin, Denise Duhamel, Stephen Dunn, Pam Durban, Alice Friman, Anthony Grooms, Beth Gylys, Ann Hite, Kristie Robin Johnson, Andrea Jurjević, John Lane, Ellen Malphrus, Reginald McKnight, Christopher Noel, Robert Olmstead, Janisse Ray, Megan Sexton, George Singleton, Sharon Strange, Chika Unigwe, Monica Lee Weatherly

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A monthly column that takes us off the page and into the life of

Metaphorically Speaking

I am home from my travels and sitting here on my deck watching the River of Atkins flow to the Coosa and eventually to the sea. It used to be named the Etowah, and I live just south of it, but I took the notion to rename it, so that is what I did. As you know, renaming bodies of water has become all the rage in recent days, and I didn’t want to miss out. I haven’t heard back from Rand-McNally yet, or Google, but it has only been a few days since I let them know, and I’m sure they will go along. It’s just a little river, after all, barely a blue squiggle on the map. If you read this column much you know I spent the last two months in Italy, and now that I am back I find I am going to have to adjust. No, it’s not what you think. Admittedly the day-to-day reality of life in America changed for the worse while I was gone, and things are not what they used to be, and there are folks out there who think that is just great, although maybe not quite as many as there were in January. But you know, things are never what they used to be. I am old enough to remember the chaos of the Sixties, which was replaced by the chaos of the Seventies, which was replaced by the chaos of the Eighties, and on and on

until the current bedlam. It will all eventually resolve itself into some semblance of a new normal, and we will each adjust to that as best we can, and then it will begin again.

But what I want to share with you is how much my time in Italy changed me. My wife and I visited some pretty awesome places during our visit, but most of our time was spent in an old villa in a little mountain town in Tuscany you have probably never heard of before, called Sassetta. The town is mostly inside of the remains of a castle wall that dates to 1100 AD, a castle that was built according to legend on the spot where a dragon was killed by the founder of the town. I am guessing he build this edifice to perhaps to protect against future dragonly incursions if the dragon had a brother. The newest home in the village is probably 200 years old. There are three separate roads leading to the place, each steeper and more winding than the last. 350 souls make their homes there, and their lives. It is a magical place.

I will miss rising in the mornings to a cold stone house and stoking the stove while the coffee brews. I will miss sitting on my little balcony as the fog drifts over the mountain valley watching the thirteen or so children of the town walk to the little school, chattering in Italian and sounding like children everywhere. I will miss the ageless and timeless little lady across the way splitting her firewood for the day. I will miss walking to the little bottega every morning with my shopping bag to buy a piece of fruit or a few slices of prosciutto and a loaf of fresh bread, still warm. I will miss my cup of cappuccino in the afternoon at the osteria surrounded by

townsfolk who don’t understand what I am saying but who understand me nonetheless. I will miss the old guy in the next villa who went from frowning at me to nodding, to smiling, to the occasional grudging buongiorno. I will miss navigating the narrow cobblestone streets that were built for horses and carts but which must now accommodate cars. I will miss the hour and the half-hour being chimed from the belltower of the 16th century church across the plaza. These are just a few of the many images I brought home with me, and they comfort me.

If I ever decide to relocate from my longtime home on the banks of the Atkins, it will be to Sassetta, or to a town just like it. In Sassetta, the scale of life is smaller, and the pace of life is slower, and both of these facets just seemed to plug into my consciousness and take root. In America, at least in my own life, and maybe in yours as well, the days are built around faster and bigger, and newer and better, but faster and newer and bigger and better aren’t always enough. Sometimes we all just need to take a breath, slow down, and have a glass of good wine.

An incident from my childhood came to my mind as I was writing this, an incident that taught me early on that we are not all equal, and that the powerful are always at work behind the scenes. My father was career military, so when I was a child I lived on a succession of military bases, and in those days it was expected by all parents and especially by my sainted mother that children should leave the house right after their bowl of breakfast cereal and not return until just before dark. Those were different times, and

actually it may have been a law, but whatever the reason, that is what we did.

Sometime around 1964 I lived on a SAC base in Northern Michigan. For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, SAC stands for StrategicAir Command, and it was from these scattered and usually remote bases that the B-52s rumbled into the night with their nuclear cargoes as they kept constant patrol against incursions from our mortal enemies at that time, China and especially the Soviet Union.

It was there that my two buddies and I discovered the magic of the base dump, and it was a life changer for three eight-year-old boys.As a side note, if you ever want to seeACTUALgovernment waste, go back in time to a 1960s-era military base and look in the dump. Anyway, we dragged stuff out of that dump for a week— plywood, rope, tools, window panes, furniture, tools—and with these materials we built what may have been the greatest treehouse ever. Well, it seemed like it to us, anyway.

One day we were just hanging out in our great treehouse loving life when along came our arch enemy, Marty Tingley. He was two or three years older than us and a bully on top of that, and at one time or another he had pounded each of us, so we had reason to dislike him. Marty demanded to come up into our treehouse, but we had pulled up the ladder (a great aluminum one fresh from the dump) when we saw him coming and refused him. This was all a long time ago, you understand, and my memory is hazy sometimes, but in the interest of full disclosure I need to admit that

rocks may have been thrown at that point, in both directions. Yes, I realize that was the passive voice, but ignore that and stay with me here.

The next day after breakfast we arrived at our treehouse, and to our dismay it had been totally destroyed, and all of our hard work lay in piles on the ground. Marty Tingley and some of his rough buddies had slunk out in the night, and if they could not enjoy the treehouse, then no one could. My buddies and I complained to our fathers, but they were mere sergeants, and Marty Tingley was a general’s son, so we received no justice.Well, that is not quite true. We three were punished for stealing from the dump and for fighting. As far as I know, Marty walked away clean, although I like to think that he at least had to forgo dessert that night.

As a postscript to this incident, at the next rotation one of my buddy’s dads was sent to Korea, another, who was up for promotion, waited two more years for that stripe and sewed it on in Saigon, and my father was sent to a remote radar site up on the DEW line in northern Alaska to bond with the polar bears for a year. To be clear, they may have been sent to these remote postings anyway, but I have always found the timing to be a bit suspect.

So that is my little homily. The powerful have always been in charge of our lives, and the only things protecting us from total subjugation have been the laws of our nation and the framework of our government. Now both of these protections are seemingly at risk. If you don’t see this, please take another look. The signs are there. The foxes are in charge of the henhouse. They seem intent

upon appropriating the eggs, eating the chickens, and then, just like Marty Tingley all those years ago, burning down the henhouse so no one else can have it.

Rocks may need to be thrown. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Mandy Haynes, Editor-in-Chief, Designer, Publisher, & Founder

Mandy Haynes is the author of two short story collections, Walking the Wrong Way Home, Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth Eva and Other Stories, and a novella, Oliver. Her stories have appeared in several anthologies and literary journals. She is the editor and designer of Encounters with Nature, a collaboration ofAmelia Island Writers and Artists, The WELL READ's Best of 2023 anthologies, and also the co-editor of The Best of the Shortest: A Southern Writers Reading Reunion.

Raymond L.Atkins, Contributing Editor for OFF THE PAGE

Raymond L. Atkins resides in Rome, Georgia, on the banks of the Etowah River in an old house with a patient wife and a lazy cat. His hobbies include people-watching, reading, and watching movies that have no hope of ever achieving credibility. His first novel, The Front Porch Prophet, was published in 2008 and was awarded the Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novel. Camp Redemption, was awarded the Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction and the 2014 Georgia Author of the Year Award for Fiction. Sweetwater Blues was a Townsend Prize nominee, the 2015 GeorgiaAuthor of the Year runner-up for fiction, and the 2016 selection for One Book, Many Voices. South of the Etowah, his first creative non-fiction book, was released in 2016. It was nominated for a Push-cart Prize and was the 2016 GeorgiaAuthor of theYearAward runner-up for essay. In 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Georgia Writers Association.

Robert Gwaltney, Contributing Editor for INSIDE VOICES

Robert Gwaltney, award winning author of southern fiction, is a graduate of Florida State University. He resides in Atlanta Georgia with his partner, where he is an active member of the Atlanta literary community. Robert’s work has appeared in such publications as The Signal Mountain Review and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. His debut novel, The Cicada Tree, won the Somerset Award for literary fiction. In 2023, Gwaltney was named Georgia Author of the Year for first novel.

Meet the staff

Ann Hite, Contributing Editor for MOUNTAIN MAGIC

In September of 2011 Gallery, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published Ann Hite’s first novel, Ghost on Black Mountain. In 2012 this novel was shortlisted for the Townsend Prize, Georgia’s oldest literary award. In the same year, Ghost on Black Mountain won Hite Georgia Author of the Year. She went on to publish four more novels, a novella, memoir, and most recently Haints On Black Mountain: A Haunted Short Story Collection from Mercer University Press. In December 2022, Haints On Black Mountain was one of ten finalist for the Townsend Prize. The collection was a Bronze Winner in Foreword IndieAward 2023 and GeorgiaAuthor of the Year Second Place Winner for Short Stories 2023. Ann received a scholarship to the Appalachian Witers Workshop Hindman Settlement in the summer of 2020 and was invited back in 2021. Her passion for history influences all her work.

Jeffrey Dale Lofton, Contributing Editor for INSIDE VOICES

Jeffrey Dale Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia. His years telling the stories of playwrights and scriptwriters as a stage and screen actor taught him the pull of a powerful story arc. Today, he is Senior Advisor at the Library of Congress, surrounded by books and people who love them. Red Clay Suzie is his debut novel, a fictionalized memoir written through his lens—gay and living with a disability—in a conservative family in the Deep South. It was longlisted for the 2023 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and awarded the Seven Hills Literary Prize for Fiction, among other distinctions.

Dawn Major, Contributing Editor for TRIPLIT with D Major

Dawn Major’s debut novel, The Bystanders, was named finalist for 2024 GeorgiaAuthor of the Year for Best First Novel. Major is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and advocates for southern authors via her blog, Southernread. Her literary awards include the following: the Dr. Robert Driscoll Award, Reinhardt University’s Faculty ChoiceAward, and the James Dickey Review Literary Fellowship. Major is a member of the William Gay Archive and has edited and helped publish the works of the late author. She serves on the board for Broadleaf Writers Association and is also a member of M’ville, anAtlanta-based artist salon. Major lives in the Old Fourth Ward inAtlanta, GA and is working on her next novel, The Dandy Chronicles.

Claire Hamner Matturro , Contributing Editor for CLAIRE CONSIDERS

Claire Hamner Matturro is a former attorney, former university writing instructor, avid reader, and the author of seven novels, including four published by HarperCollins. Her poetry appears in various journals including Slant and Lascaux Review. She is an associate editor ofThe Southern LiteraryReview and lives happily in Florida with her cross-eyed rescued black cat and her husband.

Annie McDonnell, Contributing Editor forANNIEASKS

Founder of The Write Review Literary Community, Podcaster, Book Reviewer, Author Consultant and Matchmaker. She also teaches workshops on top of all of this!Annie has been introducing us to books and authors since 2006, when she began reviewing books for Elle Magazine. Proud Stiff Person Syndrome Warrior, and several other illnesses.

Susan Beckham Zurenda, Contributing Editor for THE WRITER’S EYE

Susan Beckham Zurenda taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level toAP students. She is author of the award-winning Southern literary novel, Bells for Eli, and the recipient of numerous awards for her short fiction, including the South Carolina Fiction Awards, twice. Her second novel, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel (Mercer University Press, September 2023), was the recipient of the 2024 Patricia Winn Award in Southern Fiction, Gold Medal winner in the 2024 IPPY Awards for Southeast Fiction, a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, a Shelf Unbound 2023 Notable 100 books, and a finalist in theAmerican Book FestAwards. Susan lives in Spartanburg, SC.

Junebug Fischer by

Mandy Haynes

Junebug Fischer will be ninety-six come June. She's ready to set the record straight and let you know what really happened the summer she turned fifteen. It’s true, she killed someone, but she never killed nobody on purpose. That was purely accidental.

“I don’t know what caused me to shoot the arrow. I didn’t think about it. I just did it. Was it fear or was it pride?”

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most compelling story/book writers in America.

“Outstanding book. Intelligent, and yet creative, in the best sense of the word. The story/book keeps you engaged right up until the final page. Great, great book!!!”

5.0 out of 5 stars Will leave you wanting more!

“Junebug Fischer is the kind of strong, feisty young lady hero we love, and Mandy's writing of her story draws you in from the start. You'll feel like you're sitting on that porch with her, and I guarantee you'll want more. Her characters come to life in all of her stories, and I recommend you read everything Mandy has written, and will write! You won't be disappointed.”

5.0 out of 5 stars A Southern Voice to Remember

“There's an echo of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in the voice of the central character here, and I mean that as a high compliment. You'll like her after the first two sentences and root for her the rest of this short but powerful book. I don't want to give anything away. Buy it and read for yourself. 5 stars.”