Jessica Simpkiss is a published poet and fiction writer who resides in Virginia Beach with her husband and young daughter. Her debut novel, The Spaewife’s Secret, was released in November of 2018 via Solstice Publishing and revolves around a man who returns home to his remote island following the death of his estranged mother and is forced to face the real and imagined ghosts he left behind. Her second novel, Bone in the Blood, is forthcoming later this year. Please visit her website for more information on publications, release dates, and upcoming projects.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Simpkiss about her novels, her publications with The Bookends Review, True Detective S3, Scottish folklore, and more!…
Fall approaches. The novel scurries into corners, a rat-like beastie, and you attempt to slip the leash back on. You know this book will kill you in these next months, where the light fades and days shorten into stunted, despairing winter.
1. Smarmy with self confidence, you read the first draft for the English Department in your Thursday seminars. You discover “experimental” does not mean “entertaining.” Lined up like the Supreme Court, they purse their mouths like sucking lemon juice through straws. They suck all your optimism away.
2. In your epic novel of a prisoner-of-war camp, you discover your depraved commandant is a Roman Catholic. Your publisher, Holy Trinity College of San Luis Obisbo, won’t like this. Oh no! The commandant is gay.
Ari Rosenschein is a Seattle-based writer whose essays and fiction appear in Entropy, Noisey, Drunk Monkeys, P.S. I Love You, Observer, The Big Takeover, PopMatters, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch Los Angeles. A lifelong musician, Ari currently records and performs with his bands, The Royal Oui and STAHV. He lives with his wife and dog and enjoys the woods, the rain, and the coffee of his chosen region. Coasting is his first book.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Rosenschein about the creation and reception of Coasting, as well as his experiences as a musician and music journalist.
Women tend to apologize. I, a woman, toss apologies here
& there, as if playing ring toss to win the world. I do not aim at a
singular target. I pick up ducks whose colored dots mean something—a different
reason for guilt. & guilt-trips, though they are inherently trips, burrow me,
the traveler, in inner-city first-floor hotel rooms, where the view is dark &
damp; frankly there is no view at all. Women, my apologies. I am #sorrynotsorry
for the #sorrynotsorry movement, which did not win the war on apology, but did
equip the troops with a bossier attitude. People who interact with me, including
women, take my apologies for granted; another shipment lies in wait.
The apology
epidemic extends to women writers, specifically those writing nonfiction.…
RW Spryszak is Editor at Large at Thrice Fiction and Thrice Publishing. He’s been a creative writer for several decades, with a special interest in alternative/surrealist/outsider writing and zines. His first novel, Edju, was published last September and may or may not be “the first pulse of a trilogy.”
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Founder and Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Spryszak about Edju, Thrice Fiction, the debate over paying/non-paying journals, the world of surrealist writing, music (of course), and much more!
An award-winning California poet, writer, and public school principal, Dr. Mary Langer Thompson was born in Illinois. She is active in the California Writer’s Club, High Desert Branch, and was California’s Senior Poet Laureate. She has given poetry and writing workshops and has authored poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. Her books can be found on Amazon.
Your recent book, The Gull Who Thought He Was Dull, is a beautifully color-illustrated book for young children about the adventures of Gus on the theme of self-worth. Your engaging word choices echo your background as a poet. How did you come to write it?
Thank you. Back in the ’90s, my husband and I were on a road trip, and we do a lot of word play all the time. We came up with a title, Gull Ibble, theGullible Gull, and for years I mulled over trouble a seagull could get into.…
Who can guess
which poems become yours? You can be
taught to read poetry and you can be taught to analyze – but only some poems
place you on the stage of your life, in front of your own footlights. And what is it? – Aesthetic reaction, emotive
creation, a phrase or a word that triggers neural firing across your mind as
intense as a lightning storm and as subdued as moth’s wings that brush at the
edges of consciousness. Don’t analyze,
don’t read: listen to the poem, listen
deeper into yourself.
Pam Uschuk’s piece
“Who Today Needs Poetry” comes dense and roiling in image, chattering with
ambiguity, rife with sensory ties to the reader. She starts …
“Who Today Needs Poetry” Not the California quail clucking for millet or gold finches glutting on thistle seed, not last night’s bats jittering between the end of desert heat and Cygnus rising … …
