I was called a secretary again. When I hear the word, it makes my blood boil. I know my master’s degree is sitting on the shelf laughing at the way my face contorts when my co-workers spew their venom. The…
A Conversation with Vanessa Blakeslee
An interview by Alicia Cole. Vanessa Blakeslee is the author of the debut novel, Juventud (Curbside Splendor, 2015), hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a “tale of self-discovery and intense first love.” Her story collection, Train Shots (Burrow Press) won the…
Guest Post: A-merica, our home and native land… by Garreth Chan
I spent two months of my summer entangled and confused in an endless jungle of a fantastically exotic city. Glass and cement twisted into a permanent tango, childish handwriting in chalk emblazoned across uneven sidewalks, slowly scrubbed away by the…
A Conversation with Kate Samworth
An interview by Alicia Cole. Kate Samworth grew up in the DC area, where she played bass in a band and made art before moving to New Orleans. She studied and then taught painting at the New Orleans Academy of…
Guest Post: You Are Stronger Than You Think You Are by J. B. Howard
As a child, I had terrible asthma. I spent hours every evening breathing fumes out of a noisy machine called a “nebulizer,” and most days I required puffs from my collection of inhalers—the blue one made me shaky, but the…
Guest Post: Fantastic Voyage: The Phenomenon of Human Emotion – Part II by Dr. Jodi De Luca
Life within itself is a fantastic voyage. And during this journey of our lives, more often than not we can unexpectedly find ourselves hurled into un-chartered territory, especially where emotions are concerned. Perhaps the fact that we can’t ‘see’ our…
Guest Post: Pull That Trigger (and I Don’t Mean Guns) by Tobi Alfier
In the old days (think Centennial by James Michener), I was afraid of nothing and no one. I flew hot air balloons, jumped out of airplanes, was kicked awake by the police while sleeping on a pier in Monte Carlo,…
The Fierce and Fragile Journey of Sidestepping Landmines by Catherine Adel West
With every word I write, I try to sidestep a landmine. Avoid disaster. Writing my first novel, I was hoping to find some blueprint on how to vividly dissect and then construct the complex and celebrated distinctions of black women….
Guest Post: Traditional publishing versus self-publishing: my experience by David Haight
So your manuscript is finished. If you’re anything like me and knew you were a writer from an early age, it was probably your dream to publish your novel (or book of poetry or collection of short stories). After years…
Guest Post: Blurring the Lines of Genre by Gwen Goodkin
It’s likely that anyone who writes in multiple genres has a main genre he or she identifies with first. For me, that genre is fiction. I’ve spent the most time and effort in the fiction realm. I am now to…
Guest Post: Snapshots in Time: The Phenomenon of Human Emotion, Part I by Dr. Jodi De Luca
As human beings, we have the unique capacity of experiencing the past and the future in the present. Our memories and fantasies allow us to view our lives as ‘snapshots’ in time. For example, all of us have heard a…
Guest Post: Lying in Poetry, or Hey! Guess What I Dreamed Of by Babette Cieskowski
It started and ended with dolphins. As a child, when asked by my mother what I dreamed about the night before, I would lie and say I had the most spectacular, mythical adventure doing something relating to dolphins. At ten…