Peace and love to you all. I usually wish this to you at the end of every post but today I want to extend it to you first thing. I have nothing smart or new or world-changing to say about current events so I'll just repeat myself: Peace and love to all. I heard from Kathy Donahoo last week. She lives in California now. She's had two pieces of fiction recently placed. "Joey" a short story appears in Water-Stone Review (Volume 18, 2015), which has the theme: All We Cannot … [Read more...]
News, call for submissions, and what’s “just?”
Jan Bottiglieri has a book of poems out—it is called Alloy and it is from Mayapple Press. Here's how Mayapple describes Jan's book: "A butterfly casts the shadow of a man; a homesick mermaid cleans teeth; a young girl pushes a heavy iron, singing. In Alloy, these and others (daughter, mother, astronaut; an occasional zombie or alien) find voice through poems exploring memory in all its shifting sense and purpose: from childhood recollection to adult reckoning, from folklore … [Read more...]
Father’s Day: poems by Bonnie J. Toomey and Susan Mahan
Game Face Too I didn't realize how long he'd been wearing it until it was too late. Mom didn't believe the oncologist. She said Dad must have been poisoned. Until he outgrew it, I didn't realize how long he'd been wearing it - for all of us. Dad left his game face behind. Sometimes, I try it on for size. Sometimes, its the only thing that fits. Bonnie J. Toomey © 2015 Blogger, essayist, and columnist, Bonnie Toomey ruminates myriad issues facing … [Read more...]
Ambivalence, being judge-y, and links
Yesterday on the local talk show from Chicago, Windy City Live, I heard it’s almost been the coldest average February in Chicago since the late 1800s or something—we’re only missing it by a degree or two. It’s a record I don’t care if we break. Ambivalence – it’s a quality I am trying to develop, especially as it applies to wanting something too much. Well, at least that’s what I think this morning. That’s because last night I read Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please and in the … [Read more...]
News on contributors (Desilets, Rodley, Mahan, McConnell, Kirk) notes on rejection
Hello sweeties. Hope you don't have the winter blues and that you are getting enough vitamin D. On January 16 there was a story on NPR by Jason Comely about embracing rejection ("By Making a Game out of Rejection, A Man Conquers Fear"). For a while there I was going to write a post about it, how writers have to embrace rejection. I was trying to think of it in terms of the Pareto principle, the mathematical principle known as the 80-20 rule, but I couldn’t get it … [Read more...]