Soft piano music plays from the parlor as Dahlia hovers in the foyer. Her pink lace jacket is distinctly out of style. Her auburn hair is not ineptly styled, but Poppy is eyeing the white streaks with an affected air.
“They’re all in the
parlor,” Poppy says. “The other ladies are already having their biscoff. It’s
fat free,” she adds.
Dahlia’s shoulders
curl forward over her unshapely form. “That sounds wonderful,” she says, eyes
darting.
Poppy exchanges a
look with Daisy, who is idling by the door the parlor, holding a bottle of red
wine in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. “You can open it,” she says.
Dahlia passes Daisy without looking her in the eye.
‘The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion’ By Sonja Livingston
If you think a woman’s quest to find a statue from the church of her childhood wouldn’t be that engaging a mystery, you’d be wrong. In The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion, Sonja Livingston refuses simple devotion as a motive and keeps digging for the source of religious impulse. As she considers her motive for pursuing an old sanctuary statue, she asks great questions: “Why does the faith of our upbringing leave such a deep imprint?” “How does one wooden virgin’s smile capture a girl’s imagination so completely that, decades later, she will spend months tracking it down?” And, perhaps most importantly, “When else did we bow to something larger than ourselves?”…
Konstantin Nicholas Rega is an internationally published poet, a recent graduate of the University of Kent’s writing program, a columnist at Into the Void, a staff writer at Treble, a fiction editor at Crack the Spine, and a host at Livewire 1350. He’s the author of Waterlight Recollections—a collection of short stories now available on Blurb—and Arrows & Bones—a poetry chapbook soon to be published.
In this episode of Cover to Cover with . . ., Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum chats with Konstantin about experimenting with style and personal circumstance in writing, as well as jazz and other music-related topics.
From death, from darkness A new life emerges Sparks and flares teeming with energy Reside upon the amber obelisk Temporal guardian of the landscape Arise as do the sun
Noon; Orange Tree
Hearts of the earth, bloomed anew Endure the iron fist of the meridian Yet you, burnt orange maple Remain position Sentinel with a thousand arms Overseeing creation, benevolent shade
Evening; Red Tree
Bask within the sol of life Tree within earth’s garden Lit aflame, yet ever standing Flares of spirit empower A maroon body of nature As the sun sets, I await a new sunrise
Note: a Troll Kerfuffle is a baked good that half the people served will politely avoid and the other half will insist that some authoritarian action must take place to ensure no one will ever have to be offended even knowing such a baked good exists.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of indifference to logic
(there is no substitution for this, even if forced)
1/2 cup of self-righteousness
1/4 cup of indignation
1/4 cup of capricious behavior
1/4 cup emotional instability
tbsp. of diversion from original
intent
splash of umbrage
dash of social justice
just a pinch of outrage for taste
(warning, some recipes call for a gallon, use sparingly)
Mix all ingredients together to a
batter and begin beating. This step alone may take years to force the batter to
submit.…
Nan Sanders Pokerwinski was a science writer at the Detroit Free Press for more than a decade, and she worked as a science writer for the University of Michigan News Service for fourteen years. She’s been a contributing editor to Health and Alternative Medicine magazines and has written for More, Fitness, Dallas Morning News, and other print and online publications. Her journalistic byline is Nancy Ross-Flanigan and she’s received a Pulitzer nomination and several awards.
What awards has Mango Rash won so far? How did you come to write it and how long did it take?
Mango Rash won first place in the memoir/nonfiction category of the 2018 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Awards and was a finalist for the Northern Colorado Writers Top of the Mountain Book Award, the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards (twice), and the 43rd New Millennium Writings Literary Awards.…
The church made of ice did not melt despite
the air so hot it smelled like breath exhaled from a mouth full of never-brushed
teeth. Children loosed in the park to
traumatize one another on the monkey bars and cargo nets were the first to see
it, eyes glazing down the long hill as they kicked high on the swings whose
rubber seats burned the undersides of their thighs. They stared and pointed, then screeched for
their harried caregivers, who allowed themselves to be yanked down the path
that drizzled into the valley marking the middle of the park, where a pair of
tattered and abused baseball fields sprouted weeds along the baselines. The dugouts were home to tetanus, used
condoms, empty beer cans.
When the first mother saw what her son was
gawking at, yanking her arm so hard she thought her shoulder would pop out of
its socket, she felt the blood leave her head, the perspiration caked at her
hairline evaporating like a fine mist. …
