Beauty and the Beast

Spring '09

The Hours
"Sarah arrived at the beach rental in the middle of the night. When she stepped out of the front door the moon bathed a wide swatch of sand weaving in and out of the shoreline of brackish moss green waves topped off with yellow tipped foam peaks."

The Jaguar XF

Summer 2009 Photo and Art Archive

Marlow speaks again

Beauty and the Beast

A Toast to Skink by Tom Sheehan

dirty fingernails

she has dirty fingernails

she stops us and asks
for a quarter

Lately

Snowman by Heidi Heimler

Repossession

Personal History

Turn the Page by April Salzano

Freckles by Kim Teeple

Poetry Prompts

"Doris Attinger follows her husband with a gun in Manhattan one day, suspecting he is having an affair with another woman. In her rage, she fires wildly and blindly around the room and at the couple multiple times. One of the bullets hits her husband in the shoulder. His lover escapes unscathed."

Art and Literature from the O

John Milton never attended a Trump rally, but Paradise Lost depicts satanic demagogy and citizens dwindled to mere onlookers, overwhelmed by giant voices. In the great hall of Pandemonium, the rebels against God gather to decide next steps. Giant angels, now tarnished by betrayal, swarm into the vast auditorium. They are too large to fit; Satan downsizes them

Archive:
Collins's stories have appeared in print and online. He lives on the NE edge of the Mojave Desert with his Irish wife, Nicky, and Lefty, their dog. Collins used to have a pet desert tortoise named Fluffy.

Excerpt from Chapter 12, "No Longer a Ward of the State," from "Point of Comfort," by Judith A. Lawrence," a Memoir in two parts, published January, 2023..

"The last weekend of June, Johnny and I drove to Maryland. We applied for our marriage license and were told we would be able to pick it up in two weeks.
We hoped to be married in the same Methodist church as Ben and Elaine.
On a Friday night Johnny pulled up in front of the house in his clunker of a car. I stole down the stairs with my beat up suitcase full of my personal things with a few clothes stuffed in. It would be all I had if Violet would not allow me to retrieve other things when I returned."

There are two constants in the poetry of John Mannone: love and science… And they are intertwined--his poems flow effortlessly between poles of desire and precious, precise knowledge.

In the world of poetry there is no one who can mine science for metaphor the way Mannone does. Nor move to love so naturally.
--Roald Hoffmann, chemist and writer, professor emeritus at Cornell University and co-recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Sam and Frank, old friends, meet on the street. Frank reminisces about his late wife while Sam tries to leave. Frank confronts Sam about his neglect and weight gain. Sam dismisses it. Frank insists on delivering his message.

Shadow People is a short story about three cousins who live in a mansion called Violet Ridge near Seneca Lake. The cousins are David, Trey and Katie, who have different ages, personalities and challenges. David is a schizophrenic who smokes and eats peaches to cope with his condition. Trey is a loyal and protective brother who starts seeing shadowy figures in the woods. Katie is a religious and eccentric girl who loves her dollhouse and teacups. The story explores their relationships, their secrets and their struggles with mental illness, loneliness and family history.

Gilbert Sorrentino was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929. In 1956, Sorrentino founded the literary magazine Neon with friends from Brooklyn College, including friend Hubert Selby Jr. He edited Neon from 1956 to 1960, and then served as editor for Kulchur from 1961 to 1963.

After working closely with Selby on the manuscript of Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964). Sorrentino was an editor at Grove Press from 1965 to 1970, where one of his editorial projects was The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Wendy travels to America to meet her husband Bertram. She is his second wife, his first died in a car crash and she is nervous; insecure about their relationship and her decision to join him as he completes one last work assignment before he retires. Along the way, she encounters various obstacles and challenges that test her courage and faith. The story explores themes of love, and loneliness.