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…
Guest Post: Too Complicated for You by Gene Goldfarb
The conclusion of an interaction with your doctor, or any doctor, or any other medical professional, is often likely to be a bill you don’t understand. We hope it would instead be your good health, but I must leave that…
Guest Post: Storytelling: What a Beautiful Word by Mathieu Cailler
The only job I ever had in which no bellyaching existed was when I was nine, and I’d ride my bike around town, knocking on doors, asking neighbors if they needed any work done in their homes. (I watched a…
Guest Post: Let’s All Be Quiet and Talk About How Alice Munro Destroyed the Cathedral or, Some Observations on the State of Short Fiction in 2016 by Patrick E. Gabbard
It’s ironic that since Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2013 after being hailed as “…a master of the contemporary short story,” that the popularity of the form appears to be on the decline, as the legions of…
Review: The Coachman Rat: Goodbye, Cinderella
The Coachman Rat: Goodbye Cinderella. A Review by Stephanie Vannello Not too long ago I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications, a minor in Writing, and over twenty plus books from the university’s library. Each month the library randomly…