She’s waiting for spiders to crawl / from her fingernail ridges and ride / into battle, feeling their history / as they mutate into something new / then forgotten.
Writing
June Writing Challenge, pt. 2
Creative pursuits are a practice, and you have to show up for them or they won't show up for you. Last month, I made sure to answer a writing prompt every day in June. I showed up, even when I really didn't want to, because the next couple of months might mean a step back from creativity in favor of wedding and grad school preparations. Of course, the second you release any expectations on your creativity, story ideas flow, so we'll see how I do. After all, a novelist haunts these bones.
June Writing Challenge
For the month of June, I've challenged myself to answer one prompt out of 642 Things To Write About. So far, so fine. Writing short form is hard for me, so I've focused instead on imagery and making interesting word connections. Only one of those things has happened so far, but the rest of June lies ahead. Thanks for being a part of this accountability project.
Publication Alert
My flash fiction piece "Wellspring Wandering" was published by Bait/Switch, which is a unique journal because it is intensely interdisciplinary and collaborative. My piece was inspired by a sculpture by Victoria Rosenblatt which was inspired by a previous piece put out by the journal. Another neat fact about Bait/Switch is that the editors conduct interviews … Continue reading Publication Alert
Madonna & Child, Delayed
Her knee jiggles. Incessant anxious energy has made its home in her veins, moving through her as steadily as blood. Today, though, the anxiety is a physical manifestation as it plays on her nerves. It is a violation of spirit.
The Least
The young man who lives above the organ rents his room for ten dollars a day. It’s a good deal for a student in the city, especially for one who’s rarely home and doesn’t mind choir practice on Monday and Thursday afternoons and during Sunday services. He’s rarely home on Sundays, anyway, spending those moments instead doing rounds at a community clinic. Though his mother raised him Catholic, he doesn’t spend much time in the sanctuary. He sees God in the world, in the face of the sick, the poor, the forsaken. Being a Christian, he thinks, means that you are a servant as Christ was. To be a Christian, one with absolute faith, your life is in service of love, no matter how painful that love often is.
How I Used to Play the Cello
It’s been such a long time since I saw you on stage, honey dripping from your hair in the spotlight as you transformed from one of those caged birds into a wild falcon. You were all motion and music. And as your violin cried out its sequacious notes, I sat in that uncomfortable auditorium chair with stemmed roses and baby’s breath digging into my forearm. Lateness forced me into the back of the room due to lateness, but you reached me from your perch a dozen yards away, standing before the conductor, swaying in time to his baton.
Frank
In the attic there lives a ghoul. His name is Frank. He is not loud. He does not take up much space. He does not eat food. If you didn’t look hard, you wouldn’t see him at all.
Slivers
In Salem, there are a lot of doors. There are a lot of doors to be seen and a lot of doors to be seen by the right pairs of eyes. Not everyone has the gift; this is just something you’ll have to accept. But, if you do have the gift, then those doors are yours to open. That in itself requires a different set of skills, brave ones, but you can go far on something like bravery. I’ll tell you where one is (a door, that is) if you promise to say anything to anyone. This must remain between us. Here are your instructions.
Projects in Progress, pt. 1
Every year, the master’s students I work with at Harvard give a five-minute presentation on the work they’re doing out in the field. It’s a hard thing to encapsulate months of work in that amount of time (though three or four always go over their allotment), and I admire them for it. Really seems to focus their attention; to help them hone in on what’s important. In that spirit, I will attempt to do the same for myself and those of you on a path of creative exploration and growth.
Bailey Merlin 