

Montclair Write Group Sampler 2018

Published by Strange Worlds Publishing

Copyright 2018 Hank Quense

All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN 9780463995327

Published by Strange Worlds Publishing at Smashwords 2018

First Publication 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Fiction

Memoir

Poetry

Other Stuff

About This Book

Dedication

(Return to the Table of Contents)

This Sampler is dedicated to Harriet Halpern, a founding member and indomitable spirit behind the success of the Write Group. Her commitment to the Write Group, based on her philosophy that good writing matters, will always inspire us.

Harriet's picture was taken by Lorraine Ash, a Write Group member and published author.

Acknowledgements

(Return to the Table of Contents)

Montclair Write Group Sampler 2018 Staff

This book didn't happen by accident. It required a lot of work by a lot of people performing a lot of tasks. Voluntarily! These volunteers and their assignments are listed below.

Project Director:

Hank Quense

Data Manager:

Eliisa Goldman

Readers:

Donna O'Donnell Figurski

Rose Blessing

Keith Biesiada:

Jeneil Stephen

Mirela Trofin

Erin Roll

Nancy Taiani

reg e gaines

Ron Bremner

Elissa Goldman

Helen Lippman

Steve Weinstock

Copy editors:

Martha Moffet

Ethel Lee-Miller

Formatting & Production:

Hank Quense

Publisher:

Strange Worlds Publishing

The cover was designed by Gary Tenuta, an artist who creates all the Strange Worlds Publishing covers. Visit Gary's website by following this link: http://garyvaltenuta.blogspot.com

Our 2018 Sampler cover features tulips photographed at the Avis Campbell Gardens, which bloom next door to the Montclair Public Library (where the Montclair Write Group meets). Photo by Rose Blessing.

FICTION

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Raccoons

By Ron Bremner

On those frigid nights, we'd pop up from the subway wind tunnel into the blustery city street, padding past the lamplit haze, chuckling, our blood humming, eager for the ales and the warmth of the table talk.

We'd leave behind a trail of smoky breath, sailing upward and vanishing, vanishing like the breadcrumbs dropped by Hansel and Gretel, vanishing like those theories, those arguments and conjectures, those powerful words and mystical ideas that would soon leap out onto the table before us. So clear, so near, we never thought to try and catch them, to hold and save them. They were there. They would always be there. Wouldn't they?

Inside, the black furnace hummed. Our backs snuggled up against its heat, shivers surging the lengths of our spines. Puff-faced and bleary-eyed, we'd speak loudly, forage each other's minds for the food of the soul, that naïve socialist optimism, the camaraderie of intellect and spirit so compatible with good bitter ale.

And as the old man swept the sawdust-covered floor, and the plump cat dozed under the table, we'd pack up our reassured faiths, gather our torn coats and years of rich promise, and set ourselves for the long dark cold path to the subway.

How little we understood then of the greyish smoke of our ale-worn words, so easily seized and muted by the cold darkness of the night around us.

(first published in Every Writer's Resource, January 12, 2014)

~~~

Author Bio: R. Bremner of Glen Ridge via Lyndhurst, NJ, USA, writes of incense, peppermints, and the color of time in such venues as International Poetry Review, Anthem: a Leonard Cohen Tribute Anthology, Climate of Change: Sigmund Freud in Poetry, Quarterday, Paterson Literary Review, Oleander Review, Journal of Formal Poetry, Passaic Review, etc., etc. He has thrice won Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg awards (2016, 2017, 2018), and his latest book is Hungry Words (Alien Buddha Press). Ron invites you to visit his Instagram poetry at beat_poet1 and Absurdist_poet.

PAST PARDON Excerpt

By Virginia Ashton

Prologue

Three carriages stood at the edge of the meadow in the gray dawn light. The surgeon remained inside his carriage huddled in his great-coat against the morning damp.

Viscount Heyden leaned against the side of his curricle, lazily smoking a cheroot. Edward Torrance, the challenger, had already tried each pistol, checking their weight and sighting down the barrels before he made his choice. The pistols were a matched set made especially for the viscount by Manton, one of the foremost gunsmiths in England. Heyden had wounded enough men on the dueling field to know either pistol would do for him.

His second, the Honorable Harry Carlyle, swiftly loaded the viscount's pistol as Geoffrey Hastings slowly and methodically loaded the other. When Geoffrey finished, he nodded to Edward. Torrance moved forward and took his pistol. Viscount Heyden threw down the stub of his cheroot and picked up his weapon.

Both men made their way across the field. Carlyle had already paced the field digging two spots in the grass with his pen knife. They stood on their marks facing each other, fifty paces apart. Both men wore dark coats buttoned to the throat with no hint of white shirting or silver buttons to present a target.

The viscount sneered at his opponent, impatient to be done. He had no notion why the young man before him had picked the quarrel, but, no man who named him cheat could go unpunished. Out of deference to his uncle, the duke, who held the purse strings, the viscount generally made certain to wound, rather than kill, but the boy's public accusation had cut him to the quick. If his shot killed Edward Torrance, so be it. It made little difference. Carlyle would back him against the Hastings boy, if it came to a trial, but it would never come to that. He was a peer of the realm and the heir to a dukedom after all. Edward Torrance, on the other hand, was a country gentleman with no standing in society.

Both men stood calmly waiting for the handkerchief to drop.

~~~

A man leapt from the hackney coach with a quickness that was surprising in one so large. He tossed a coin to the jarvey, and made his way up the steps to the house. The knocker's staccato raps echoed through the silent square like gun shots, but the man kept up the incessant drill until someone finally came to answer.

It was a young footman who opened the door, too young to be much good in the face of the giant he found on the doorstep. As the man pushed himself inside, driving the boy backwards before him, the butler came up the stairs, pulling his morning coat on as he came.

"I must see the earl. It's most urgent," the stranger said to the elderly servant.

"His lordship is still abed. I should think," the butler replied with cold formality.

"Then, wake him, man. The matter is urgent. There's no time to waste!"

"I cannot think his lordship would know anyone of your ilk," the old man snapped, as he pulled the cord for reinforcements. "If it were not for gross negligence, you would never have gotten in the door," the butler went on, turning his gaze on the hapless footmen.

The stranger was steps ahead of the servant. "Before you summon the troops you'd best hear me out. Master Geoffrey's involved himself in a duel, and if I can't get his lordship's help to stop it, there's going to be the devil of a row."

These words gave the old retainer pause. Raising a hand to stay the progress of the two footmen entering the hall behind him, he turned back to the stranger, his face stiff with disapproval. "You may wait here. I will ascertain if his lordship will see you."

Before he could put a foot on the stair, a key was heard in the front door lock and a gentleman in evening dress stepped into the hall. Evelyn Ardsley, Fifth Earl of Dorne, was a tall man in his mid-thirties. His face was long and thin with a square jaw and steel gray eyes, framed by black locks, graying at the temples. He was a Corinthian who followed the dictates of Brummell in terms of dress. His black coat fit like a second skin with a white brocade waistcoat, a lawn shirt, an intricately tied cravat and no ornament but a small diamond stickpin at his throat and his quizzing glass to relieve the austerity of his outfit. He quickly took in the scene in the hall. The earl said nothing, but one eyebrow rose as he noted the ill-kempt stranger, while he calmly handed his hat, cane, and gloves to the footman.

"Rather early for visitors, wouldn't you say, Hills?" he said, with cool urbanity.

"I beg your pardon, my lord. This person insists he must see you."

"Indeed," his lordship said, lifting his eyeglass. "Have I your acquaintance, sir?" he went on, raking the man from head to foot with a look.

Few were able to withstand his lordship's glass with equanimity, but the man before him paid no heed to the perusal.

"Oliver Bascomb, m' lord. At your service. I'm sorry to disrupt your household at such an hour, but as I told your man here, your ward has involved himself in a duel. And, if you can't help me stop it, sir, I don't know who can."

In an instant, his lordship's manner changed. He knew Geoffrey to be a mild-mannered, scholarly boy; the last person he would have expected to do anything of a volatile nature. His curiosity was piqued. However, the earl was not about to have a discussion of his ward's peccadilloes in front of his butler and three footmen.

"It appears we are rather crowded here," he said with a look that made the two extra footmen quickly remove themselves from the hall.

"Hills, if you will have my curricle brought round, I will attend to Mr. Bascomb's problem in the library."

Assuming Bascomb's compliance, the earl turned to the library door. He crossed the room to a credenza and poured himself a glass of brandy from the drinks tray set upon it.

"Will you join me, Bascomb?" he asked, raising the decanter.

The large man shook his head. The earl shrugged and perched himself on the edge of a Sheridan desk. Unconsciously swirling the snifter, he studied the stranger who now stood before the mantle, twisting his hat in his hands. The man held himself well in check, but he was clearly impatient to be off. Though of the lower orders, his carriage and the cut of his clothes proclaimed him to be of the military. The earl guessed him to be Edward Torrance's servant. If he remembered rightly, Bascomb had served as batman to the boy's father until that officer's death. Geoffrey had spoken of the man with respect. The earl began to wonder why Oliver Bascomb could not handle a boy's quarrel himself.

"You are Ned Torrance's man?"

"Aye, m' lord."

"From your words I take it my ward has involved himself in this match, standing as second. Though he counts Edward friend, I don't hesitate to tell you I'm astounded he should do so. Now, I think on it, I'm inclined to believe Geoff will reconcile the pair, and they'll be off to breakfast by the time we reach them, "he said, taking a leisurely sip of his drink.

"Meaning no slight to Master Geoffrey, the situation is more serious than you imagine m'lord. If Edward gave the Viscount Heyden the public insult I suspect . . . ."

"Heyden?" the earl said, the lazy cynicism of a moment ago completely gone.

"Good god, man . . . . . Are you saying you've let Torrance pick a quarrel with one of the premiere rakes in the realm?"

The big man flushed under the earl's scathing look.

"Heyden could well make it a killing matter," the earl went on in clipped tones, as he put down the glass of brandy. "We'll walk round to the mews and see if we can bestir my people . . . . On the way, you'd best give me the details."

"I'm obliged to you, m' lord. You're in the right of it, sir. I shouldn't 've let it happen. I was called away to m'sister. I should've seen it for a ruse, but her husband's been ailing, and I set off without thinking," Mr. Bascomb said, as he followed the earl from the room.

In the hall, they could hear hoof beats in the street outside.

"That'll be Gibb," the earl said, as he crossed to the door.

Blindly taking his hat and gloves from the footman, he stepped outside with Bascomb on his heels.

The earl gave his groom a nod of approval as he hopped into the curricle. He was surprised to see the swiftness with which his companion joined him. Though the carriage dipped under his weight such was the economy of his movements that the earl's restive blacks took no notice.

"Now what park do you think they'll favor?" his lordship mused, as he pulled on his gloves.

"Beggin' your pardon, m' lord. It'll be Regents Park. I overheard when Master Geoffrey bespoke the carriage," the groom put in, as he swung up behind them.

"Thank you, Gibb . . . . It'll be a near run thing," his lordship said, as his looked at the light growing in the eastern sky, before giving his horses the office.

The earl found himself thinking of Edward Torrance, the one time he had seen him. He was young, too damn young to be facing someone of Heyden's stamp.

"Let me get clear of the square. Then, I'll hear a round tale, if you please," he said, as he neatly took the turn out of the gates of the square, like the consummate whipster he was.

So, it happened that Oliver Bascomb told the Earl of Dorne his master's business, as they raced along the streets in the fading darkness. When Bascomb had finished the tale, his lordship's face was set with as grim a look as his own.

Sometime later, they pulled up next to three carriages in the far meadow of Regents Park. They heard the shots fired between the figures in the distance, and knew they were too late. As the earl threw the reins to Gibb and leapt from the carriage, he heard Bascomb swear, and knew, at least, one of them had been hit.

They ran across the grass to find Viscount Heyden lying on the ground with the surgeon attempting to staunch the flow of blood from a mortal wound in his chest. His second, the Honorable Harry Carlyle, knelt beside him. But, the viscount only had eyes for the young man who stood at his feet.

"Why?" the dying man croaked.

"Helena Dauntry," the young man said, bending his head to speak to the man.

Edward Torrance was wounded in his left shoulder, but he seemed unaware of it, so intent was he on the man lying before him.

"You!" the older man gasped as if he suddenly recognized his opponent. Then, he coughed, spouting blood. His eyes widened for a moment. There was a sickening gurgle in his throat, then, his head lolled to the side, and Viscount Heyden was dead. The surgeon watched him for a moment. Then, he rose, shaking his head. Taking up the viscount's greatcoat, he covered the body on the ground.

"You've killed him," Carlyle said, in an astonished whisper.

"Yes," the young man replied, staring down at death. When the surgeon had finished covering the body, Edward Torrance seemed to come out of his reverie. He looked up and saw Oliver Bascomb.

"Ollie," he said, swaying where he stood. "Get me home."

Bascomb moved forward and the group around the body broke up. The doctor turned to the young man, saying,

"Best let me see to your wound, sir."

"No," man and servant said together.

Bascomb spoke up quickly, even as the young man sagged against him.

"Our neighbor's a doctor, back at our lodgings," he said as he pulled off his neckerchief and packed it into the young man's coat, "He promised to await our return."

Then, he turned to the earl, "If we could use the carriage, m'lord?"

"Of course," the earl nodded, quickly moving forward to assuage the affronted surgeon.

"Geoff, give John Coachman Edward's direction," he said over his shoulder.

Geoffrey Hastings had been standing a few steps away. He was pale with shock, but he quickly rallied at the earl's brusque tone, and set about helping his friend.

The earl spoke to the surgeon, slipping some coins in his hand, and nodded to Carlyle as he walked the doctor to his carriage. Then, he crossed the grass to the coach.

Geoffrey was intent on joining his friend. The earl ordered him off the steps in tones that brooked no argument.

"Enough Geoff, you delay them with this brangling."

He leaned in the doorway, speaking to Bascomb as Geoffrey stepped down.

"The carriage is at your disposal. Use it as you will," the earl said, as he stepped up and tucked some notes into Bascomb's pocket. When the man looked as if he might argue, the earl cut him off,

"Use your head, man. There's no time to argue. Get Torrance out of the country while you can. I assume you've no wish to see him stand trial."

Bascomb's face turned white at the thought. He nodded.

Edward Torrance opened his eyes.

"Tell Geoff . . . I'm sorry," he said, straining to talk against the pain. "I stand in your debt, my lord, and Geoffrey's. I won't forget it," he went on in a thready whisper.

The earl found himself looking into dark brown eyes wide with shock and desolation. He was unexpectedly touched that the young man retained enough strength of mind to recognize such meager help.

"Just get away safely. That will cancel any debt between us," the earl said, but Edward Torrance had closed his eyes again, leaning back against the squabs, the pallor of his face clear in the dawn light.

The earl stepped down. A footman folded up the steps and closed the door, then he swung up behind as John Coachman pulled the carriage out onto the road.

~~~

Author Bio: Virginia Ashton has worked as a professional Actress, a Public Relations Researcher, a Teacher's Aide, and a Crafts Teacher. She has a great love for the writings of Jane Austin. On discovering the Regency Romance genre over twenty years ago, she began reading and collecting the novels. Past Pardon is her contribution to the genre.

Special thanks to The Write Group Members for their advice and support.

LAURA RIDING'S CRACKER HOUSE

By Martha Moffett

At the end of a long obituary in the London Guardian, I found that Laura Riding, "one of the most remarkable figures in modern American literature," had died at the age of 90. The article stated that some fifty years ago, she abruptly ceased to write poetry and retired to a Cracker house in a Florida orange grove.

I was surprised by this news. I believed I had come to live in South Florida through a lack of choice. Here was someone who had voluntarily turned her back on the world – and, I imagined, a more interesting world than the one I had left – for the heat and mosquitoes and hurricanes of Florida. Reading the obit, I think I actually made a loud, disbelieving noise. And I thought, "Half a century in a Florida orange grove!"

First, I was amazed that the poet had lived so long, after the accident in London when she was a young woman. Still, anyone determined enough to throw herself out of a window to win an argument must be determined enough to live on. "Defenestration," she later called it, turning it into a philosophical stance.

Second, I was surprised that a renowned poet whose name was familiar to me had settled not so very far from the sandy little Florida fishing town where I had come to live with the feeling of being isolated and cut off from the world of publishing that I had experienced in the years I spent in New York City. I now lived in exile, and thought I lived there alone. But the Cracker house that had sheltered the reclusive poet was less than a hundred miles from where I sat reading. And a hundred miles is no distance on I-95.

~~~

I suddenly felt I had to see that house. It came to me in the form of obsession.

I have always been fascinated by obsession, by people who are obsessed. There is some clarity, however unreasonable, about knowing exactly what it is you want and then wanting it single-mindedly, to the exclusion of everything else.

I never wanted to be obsessed, you understand, merely to observe the compulsion in others. In fact, I had lived most of my life without once being subjected to obsession, until I read the Guardian and the barb of involuntary desire reached out and hooked me. And then all I wanted was to visit a particular house. I didn't want to live in it or to buy it or even necessarily to enter it. I just wanted to look at it.

A Cracker house – the hand-built wooden house of early rural Florida – is simple in shape, the proportions are pleasing, the materials modest, generally pine logs or planking with a tin roof and a broad, shady porch to ward off the Florida sun. The examples that are left can be found moldering into extinction on leafy hammocks off dirt roads. They give a peculiar pleasure to an eye tired of contemporary Florida – trailers, cement block houses, developments. Already, as I read her obituary, I was imagining Laura Riding's house. According to the Guardian, in some years the rows of citrus grew right up to the front steps.

What I knew about her life came mostly from the autobiographical writings of the Bloomsbury group and other writers of the 1920s and '30s. Lucky for us that they were such gossips, right? I knew she had lived on a houseboat in London, in a handmade house in Mallorca, and in a chateau in France. How did she find the coastal fruit-packing village of Wabasso? How did she find her Cracker house?

I mentioned that I was surprised to learn that Laura Riding had lived into the 1990s. I remembered reading that in London in 1929 during an argument with Robert Graves involving his wife Nancy and the young man who made up their foursome, their four-member "marriage," to carry her point she had thrown herself from a window. Or as Laura put it, "I left the room. By the window, of course."

Graves, racing down the stairs to reach her, told himself before he arrived at the next landing that she could not have survived the fall. Unwilling to live without her, he opened a window overlooking the stone basement where her body lay and flung himself out after her.

He was not seriously hurt; Laura broke her back so critically that she was not expected to live.

I recalled, too, the extraordinary portrait of her by John Aldridge, an artist she was rumored to love. In the painting, Laura gazes straight out from the canvas, conveying in a look everything that was attributed to her: power, intellect, will, and a lack of charm and humor. Graves, on the contrary, whom she dominated completely during those years, possessed an abundance of charm; in his letters to friends and family, the warmth rises from the page. Graves was willingly in thrall. He allowed her to edit his writings – even to the point of telling him what was worth writing about and what was not – and to decide where he lived and who his friends were to be. Laura, he said, "made things happen" by the "strong pulling force of her bladed mind."

Laura Riding went into exile twice in her life: first, when she left the United States, where she had been a student at Cornell and a sometime member of The Fugitives, the Nashville literary group that formed around Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren, to live as an expatriate in Europe, where she was one of a circle of writers who invented 20th-century literature. From 1927 to 1939 she lived with Robert Graves in England and in a village on Mallorca, writing poetry and criticism and engaging with him in a famous literary partnership. Whenever they needed money Graves would come through with a bestseller – Goodbye to All That and I, Claudius. Laura was scornful of these efforts. "Anyone can write a popular book," she said. But when she sat down to do it, she failed.

Just before Laura's 38th birthday, Time magazine reviewed eleven contemporary poets, naming Laura Riding and Rainer Maria Rilke as the only true poets on the list. The reviewer was Schuyler Jackson, a writer and farmer (and poetry editor of Time), who lived with his wife and four children on a farm near New Hope, Pennsylvania. A series of decisions, letters, friends in common and the situation in Europe led Laura and Robert to leave for America to visit friends and meet Schuyler Jackson. For Mrs. Jackson, Riding must have seemed the houseguest from hell.

As if it was fated, Laura and Schuyler fell in love. Robert was not given the news gently. Laura summoned him to her bedroom in the guest wing of the farmhouse. Robert opened the door to find her in bed with Schuyler.

In her second exile, Laura turned her back on poetry and came to live with Schuyler Jackson, whom she married, in the small Florida town of Wabasso – not even a town, a rural hamlet, a crossroads, not found on the Rand-McNally road map. It was less than a hundred miles away from my house just south of West Palm Beach. They called the house, which had been built around 1910, The Place. I wanted to see that house. I wanted to see the house she had found.

It was not that I loved her poetry. I found it brittle and abstract. I like a bloodier kind of poetry. Although sometimes I found in her work a foreshadowing of women poets whom I do like: for example, her cool, detached look at her body in "Body's Head" reminds me of Sylvia Plath's equally cool self-regard in the line: "What a thrill--/My thumb instead of an onion."

I called the small newspaper in nearby Sebastian and requested a copy of the obit that had appeared two weeks earlier. There was information on Riding's activities on behalf of the Pelican Island Audubon Society but nothing that told me where to find the house.

I called the reporter who wrote the column and asked her about the house. Yes, she knew where the house was, but she was reluctant to tell me, as the house was empty and she felt a certain responsibility.

"Tell me, if I were to drive up on my own and look for it, would I find it?" I asked her.

"I don't think you would," she replied. "It's almost impossible to find even when you know where it is." She offered to give me the name of Riding's lawyer who was the executor of her estate.

When I reached Riding's lawyer, I couldn't think of an excuse for my request. But when I told him that I was a writer, that I was familiar with Riding's work, and that I felt that I had to see her house, he made it easy for me.

"Of course you want to see it, my dear," he said without surprise. He sounded somehow Dickensian, as if he were wearing a waistcoat. "Everyone who sees it falls under its spell. But her literary executor and biographer will allow no one to see the house. It is too fragile now that Laura is gone. It must not become public. It must be protected."

I ground my teeth in frustration, but then obsession made me cunning. "I know a writer who is compiling a book on Florida writers. I'm not sure he is aware that Laura Riding lived here. May I give him your number?"

"That would be quite all right."

I sent the writer my material – the obit from the Guardian, the obit in the Sebastian Press-Journal, a Xerox of the remarkable Aldridge portrait. "All I ask," I told him, "is that if you're allowed to go up to see the house you take me along."

A few weeks later I ran into the writer at a book party and repeated my request. "Just pick me up on the way – I can be ready in a minute."

His book was published later that year, and as his articles on Laura Riding began to appear it became apparent that he had made his pilgrimage without me.

Then it came to my attention – I can't remember if I read it or if someone told me – that the house was to be given to the Environmental Learning Center in Sebastian and moved east of U.S.1, over to the watered, manicured and developed side of the Intercoastal. If I was going to see the house in its natural setting – in its original clearing surrounded by citrus groves – it would have to be soon.

Eventually I found myself talking to a young librarian at the small library in the town next to Wabasso. I had called, I said, to ask what materials the library had on Laura Riding. We chatted for a while, and then the librarian asked, "Have you read Robert Graves: The Years with Laura?" By the way she asked, I knew it was a test.

Obsession teaches strategy. The book she referred to was a tell-all by Graves's nephew. "I couldn't put it down!" I exclaimed. She sighed. Soon I was jotting down directions.

"Watch for an overgrown lane with a mailbox," she finished. "There's a migrant worker's house facing the road, but that's not it. The lane goes back along an old fence. You'll think there's nothing there, that the lane has ended, but keep going. You'll suddenly come into a clearing – and another world."

"Thank you," I said, feeling I had been given not only the house but the key as well. "Thank you so much."

I drove up the coast on a brilliant day. Luckily the librarian had mentioned the large citrus packing plant – it was the only landmark around, and impossible to miss. As a grove owner, Laura must have sold her oranges, grapefruit and tangerines to this plant.

I found the lane and followed it, coming out into a wide bowl of weedy grass. The house was in front of my eyes. I knew it. I recognized it. It was as good as I dreamed it would be.

The wood frame house was white with a faded green trim around the windows and at the roofline. The roof itself was red, the paint fading. The house was set in a grove of shortleaf pines, taller than the roof. The clearing was huge and peaceful, the wall that protected it from the outside world an impenetrable tangle of scrub oak, Australian pine and palm.

I walked around the house slowly, taking my time, my camera hanging from my neck. There was an outdoor open shed where someone painted – jars of dried paint were still standing. It was Laura, of course. I had read that she sometimes put down her writing and took up her sketch pad and pencil. There was the skeleton of an old outhouse. At the back of the house, traditionally, a kitchen had been added. Thinking of the building and restoration Laura did on Mallorca with Robert Graves, I wondered if she designed the kitchen herself. It was set on blocks and attached by a door to the main house at such an angle that it had windows on all four sides to catch any breeze. The air even moved under the kitchen, to take away the heat of cooking.

I had no desire to enter the house, but finding the screen door unlatched, I walked onto the front porch and sat down in a rustic armchair made of bent saplings. There was a round table, also handmade, and other chairs. Laura must have sat here in the evenings, sometimes with Jackson, sometimes with guests, watching the light under the pine trees fade when the winter solstice brought early darkness. Was she amazed – I'm always amazed – at the wintry darkness coming on such balmy air? It struck me then that at the time I left Manhattan with my children to come and live in Florida, there was already a nuclear power station on this coast – and at that time Laura was still lighting the wick of a kerosene lamp for light. Not until the last five years of her life had she allowed electricity into the house.

She is published now in a way that eluded her in life. Her early poems, long thought lost, are now in print, and two of her books are being reissued. One biography has come out in London, another is soon to appear in America. The New York Review of Books has reassessed her poetry. The New York Times reviewed several related books under the heading "Laura Riding Roughshod." And in 1996 Cornell University had a major exhibition and symposium on her work. The obscure work and the obscure life were becoming known.

Robert Graves said of Riding, "She is a great natural fact like fire or trees, and either one appreciates her or one doesn't but it is quite useless trying to argue that she should be other than she is."

I sat on her porch until I was satisfied with sitting, sated with the house. I wanted to see it and now I had. It was the place, I saw, of the final settling down of an intransigent character of extraordinary gifts and energy. A settling down without mess or tragedy. The thing that one hopes for.

Before I left, I walked up to the side of the house and looked into Laura's bedroom. It was small and spare. There was a narrow cot, neatly made. Nothing had been disturbed. On her bedside table there was a box of tissues, a flashlight, a bottle of hand lotion, a reading lamp, a stack of books.

So ordinary, and yet I was gratified by the sight. These are the things I keep on my bedside table. No matter how far we go, the stuff of life surrounds and comforts us. I raised my camera. The house was mine.

~~~

Author Bio: MARTHA LEATHERWOOD MOFFETT was born at the end of a dirt road in St. Clair County , Alabama. She worked in publishing in New York City (GQ, New Book of Knowledge, American Heritage Dictionary, Ladies' Home Journal) and wrote for Cosmopolitan, New York Magazine, British Heritage, and others. She returned to a small southern town (Lantana, Florida, another dirt road), where she was chief librarian at AMI for several years ("Many years," she corrects). Asked what that was like, she says, "It was like being flung into a Victorian workhouse." Last year she won the William Faulkner Award for the Novella.

She has written in several forms – children's books, novels, short stories and essays, ghostwriting and travel articles. She has taught school and worked as a newspaper librarian, and is currently a freelance line editor in Bloomfield, NJ. She has three daughters and six grandchildren.

Gingerbread House.

By Debby Huvaere

The older my daughter gets, the guiltier I feel. I mean, sure, she's short of nothing material. A lot of kids are far worse off than she ever will be. But I can't shake the feeling that she may be missing out on something perhaps more important than toys and outfits to wear: Time—with me.

Don't get me wrong—this is not a stay-at-home-mom plea. I love my job. My mother didn't work and was around all the time, and it didn't necessarily make me a better person. If anything, I suffocated under her constant reign and counted the days to finishing high school and running for the most distant college I could get in to. I wouldn't want to hover over Cecilia like that for the next fourteen years.

My little girl is turning six soon and she's so beautiful, I'm sometimes absolutely stunned she's mine. Ours. Daniel's and mine. But I started to notice at dinner that when she's recounting her day, most of her stories include other people. Not me. "Grandma took me the store today," she'll say. Or, "Frederica and I drew a castle for a princess!" when Frederica babysat her after school.

Daniel's mother is a blessing, truly, living so close and allowing us to save on after-school care and babysitters as much as we do. And Frederica? Don't get me started—the girl is godsend. But I really need to create some memories with my child, or she'll grow up to be eighteen and run off to college; not to escape my reign so much as my absence. Why would she ever feel like staying if she doesn't know I care at all?

So, yes, I admit the plan was guilt-driven. I took off work that afternoon and picked Cecilia up from school, which surprised her so much she didn't even talk for the first ten minutes she sat in the backseat of my car. She just glared at me, suspiciously, as if I were a fata morgana and could—poof!—disappear in an instant. It took wandering through the grocery store and elaborating on my plan for the afternoon for her to finally open up.

"We're gonna make a gingerbread house this afternoon, sweetie!" I explained enthusiastically, rolling the cart through the aisles and touching her freckled nose with mine as she sat facing me in the cart.

My daughter's eyes are the color of olives—the green ones—with specks of gold in them. Daniel has eyes just like that. Not exactly the same, of course; eyes are as unique as fingerprints. Once I was brave enough to look Daniel that deep in the eyes to notice that remarkable color, infused with drops of gold, I knew I would marry him. Looking into Cecilia's eyes always reminds me of that.

Anyway.

Her eyes grew a size in surprise, and I was so delighted to share something with her that could transform her face like that. And for a moment, I was actually proud, but I dismissed that feeling almost immediately. I mean, what mother feels proud because she decides to spend a couple of hours with her kid?

"Can you think of colors of icing we'll need, honey?" I asked, determined to get her involved in the whole gingerbread-building process from start to finish.

She sucked on the left side of her bottom lip. I smiled—she's done that ever since her little brain started to reason and think.

"What house are we making?" Cecilia asked.

"A gingerbread house, my little mouse," I rhymed.

"Yes . . . but what style?" she asked. And that threw me off a little. I mean . . . are you kidding me? She's five. I looked around the store to see if anyone had heard the same question and perhaps could give me a pointer. What style?

"Ahem . . . just, you know . . . regular style, I guess, pumpkin," I replied. What was I supposed to say? Colonial?

"Can we make it Bavarian style?" she asked then, and I'm telling you, I didn't know whether to say 'Yes,' 'No,' or grab my phone to Google this Bavarian style she was talking about. I was fairly certain she was making up words, but I wasn't entirely sure. And with every second I hesitated, valuable gingerbread-making time was ticking away. If I said "Yes," I would have to follow her directions and possibly reveal I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn't think it would befit me as her mother to put myself in such a position. If I said "No, honey, let's just keep it regular style," she might think that I didn't support her design decisions. And then, while my thoughts were rolling and stumbling over each other and I began to doubt my parenting skills altogether, Cecilia stated, "Bavaria is a state in Germany. Munich is its capital."

I stopped dead in my tracks right there by the frozen peas. I have no idea where she got that from, but at least I had a sense of direction of where she wanted to go with the architecture of this gingerbread-house challenge: Munich, I remembered, was where they held Oktoberfest. The real one, the one Daniel dreamed of visiting when we were in college.

So, Bavarian style. Lederhosen, dark-stained wood balconies and sloped roofs with ornate trims along their sides. My kid possibly had had a minor stroke at some point and was now filled with knowledge that didn't belong in her little head, but I pushed the cart forward and said, matter-of-factly: "Right. We'll need a lot of white frosting, a very good cutting knife and an engineer to tell us how to make those balconies."

She giggled at that, as if the fact that we might need an engineer to build a gingerbread house was more absurd than her knowing the capital of freakin' Bavaria.

The whole conversation just stressed what I already knew: I had been spending too little time with my daughter. Clearly, she was brighter than even I was aware of. I put a reminder in my phone to talk to Daniel tonight, perhaps investigate that club for very smart people—Mena? Meda? Mazda?—I couldn't remember off the top of my head what it was called exactly, but the fact that I had to put a reminder in my phone to schedule a rather important talk with my husband, was a clear sign she didn't get it from me.

The rest of the afternoon unfolded as I had originally anticipated: Cecilia and I had fun. I let her take bites of the gingerbread, dipping bits in white icing. I honestly almost forgot about the whole thing, until Daniel entered the kitchen just as I had put her to bed and was scraping leftover frosting off the counter. He literally froze mid-movement when he noticed the gingerbread house—a hand tugging at his scarf, a wide loop around his neck, as if he were catching a lasso or something. My alarm went off at exactly the same time, and I knew it was 8.30 p.m.

"Oh, honey! There's something we need to talk about!"

~~~

About the Author: Debby Huvaere is a writer, copywriter and interior designer. When not writing commercial copy or short stories, she's working on a novel. Originally from Belgium, she wrote a column for the mindful magazine "Change", and writes advice columns for Belgian millennials joining the workforce. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey where she plots her next adventure.

The Pomona Pitchfork Company

By Keith Biesiada

The sales meeting of the Pomona Pitchfork Company was scheduled to start at 9:00 AM. A PowerPoint slide was projected onto the screen at the front of the room, but when the wall clock ticked 9:01 AM, the meeting had still not begun. The presenter was late.

Coffee had been served, and there was an espresso machine at the rear of the room for the connoisseurs of extreme caffeine. Sweet buns and bagels were arrayed on silver trays within easy reach on the rectangular, Formica table. Butter and cream cheese were provided to spread on the bagels.

Ken poured a cup of decaf. "Is there any almond milk?" he asked.

There was no almond milk.

Ten more minutes passed. The presenter had still not appeared.

The PowerPoint slide was entitled, Sales Objectives for the Year 2012.

Ten more minutes passed.

Fran sliced a fresh garlic and onion bagel. "Is there any lox?" she asked.

There was no lox. Neither was there a presenter.

"He must be caught in traffic," Ben stated with conviction.

Emphatic assents and dissents greeted the proposition. Conviction be damned!

At 9:30 AM, Jan raised her hand for permission to speak. The presenter remained absent, and since only he had the authority to grant that permission, Jan lowered her hand. In another ten minutes, she found the courage to speak without official clearance.

"What year is it?" she asked, pointing at the PowerPoint slide.

The members of the sales force of the Pomona Pitchfork Company turned their heads in unison toward the illuminated slide which was entitled, Sales Objectives for the Year 2012.

"It's 2012, isn't it?" said Ken. "Look," he said, gesturing at the slide on the screen. "It says 2012."

"That's right," said Ben. "The title is Sales Objectives for the Year 2012."

"So, it must be 2012," Ken concluded.

"Yeah," said Jan, "but didn't we just have an election in 2016?"

"Wait a minute," said Ben. "I think I remember something about that."

"Are you sure?" Fran asked. She continued looking for the lox, but there was none.

A brief conference ensued, in which arguments for both 2012 and 2016 were raised. Without a presenter, however, no agreement was possible. There was only one thing to do.

"To the smart phones," Ken declared.

"What's the Wi-Fi password?" Ben asked.

More time passed. The wall clock advanced to 10:00 AM, and then to 11:00 AM. Everyone studied their smart phones.

"Is the air-conditioning on?" asked Ben. He loosened his Pomona Pitchfork Company tie.

There was no air-conditioning.

A further forty-five minutes elapsed. Morning morphed into afternoon. By 1:00 PM only God knew where the presenter might be.

"Maybe we got the wrong day?" said Fran.

"It's getting hot in here," said Ben. "Can we open that door and let in some air?"

They could not open the door.

"It's stuck," said Ken, who pulled and kicked the door without success. The members of the sales force of the Pomona Pitchfork Company strained at the handle, either singularly or in tandem, but could not open the door.

It was stuck.

The afternoon dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.

"I think it might be 2018," said Jan.

"Let's see your research," Ben demanded.

By 5:50 PM, each member of the sales force of the Pomona Pitchfork Company had sweated through their clothing. Their smart phones had been set aside as they concentrated on eating the sweet buns and bagels, with butter and cream cheese but no lox, and drinking coffee or espresso, without almond milk.

"Where's the bathroom?" asked Fran.

There was no bathroom, but there was a gong, somewhere, and when the gong gonged to announce the 6:00 PM hour, the handle of the door turned.

The door was pushed open. Hot air flooded the room. A tall man emerged from the shadows. It was the presenter. He had arrived, at last.

"Hello. Please forgive my tardiness." The presenter closed the door.

No one could deny that the presenter was a handsome, well-dressed man. He wore a red Giorgio Armani suit, which was accessorized with a red Stefano Ricci crocodile belt. His shirt and tie were the same color as his suit and his feet were covered by matching support hose and Berluti Scritto leather slip-on dress shoes. His black hair and goatee were groomed to a shine and his iridescent eyes were crowned by thin, black eyebrows. The presenter's face, neck, hands and pointed ears were red, as if he'd been on the beach too long without sun block.

"I hope he doesn't get skin cancer," whispered Jan.

"I've really got to go," Fran said, in more of a whimper than a whisper.

The presenter held a pitchfork in one hand, no doubt a new addition to the company's product line.

"Has anyone seen the test results for the new pitchforks?" Ben whispered.

"Ah! Espresso!" The presenter exclaimed. He strode to the rear of the room, thumping the pitchfork on the floor with every other step. He dragged a long, pointed red tail behind him. Jan stared at the tail. Ken nudged her.

"Don't stare at the tail," Ken warned. "Birth defect."

"Oh!" Jan averted her eyes, and then she whispered to Ken. "That poor man. It must be terrible to go through life with a disfigurement like that. I wonder if it hurts."

The presenter returned to the front of the room. He sipped his espresso and smacked his lips with satisfaction.

"Thank you for waiting." The presenter was about to start the presentation when he looked at the first slide and stopped to rub his goateed chin. "Wrong slide," he said with a grin, and then clicked forward.

The next slide was entitled, Souls Objectives for the Year 1492.

"Shouldn't that be Sales Objectives?" Ben murmured. Ken and Jan shushed him. Fran grimaced and squeezed her legs tight. Her bladder was under siege.

"1492 was a great year for us," the presenter continued, "and I think it would be useful to review positive results with an eye toward the future." He clicked ahead. The following slide contained a table with three columns, labeled, in left-to-right order, Souls, Lost Souls and Net Pitchforks. Each row represented a sales region. The presenter carried on:

"As you can see," he continued, using his pitchfork as a pointer, "net pitchforks were up in all sectors. Vatican City was a pleasant surprise that year." He grinned. His android phone rang.

"Excuse me," he said.

"I think American sales were disappointing," Ben whispered.

"That was an emerging market," said Jan. "Stop staring at my cleavage."

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave for a few minutes," the presenter announced. "A big deal is imminent at a place called Mar-a-Lago. I must strike while the iron is hot, so they say, but I expect to return, shortly. So, help yourselves to coffee, sweet buns and bagels. I regret that there is no lox."

"Where's the bathroom?" Fran bleated.

"Bathroom? Just go out the door," the presenter said, "turn to the right and the bathroom is the third door on the left."

"But the door is stuck," said Ken.

"How can that be? I just opened it," said the presenter. However, when he turned the handle and pulled on the door it wouldn't budge. "Oh, I see. You can only open it from the outside. Hmm. I'm going to have to do something about that." A sheet of poster board materialized in the presenter's hand. He wrote on it with a marking pen. Then he taped the board onto the door. He had written, in large red letters:

NO EXIT. DOOR UNDER REPAIR.

"That should do it," said the presenter. "I shouldn't be long. Stay cool!" He grinned, thumped the pitchfork on the floor one time, and then egressed through the open door. He shut it behind him.

Fran rushed to the door and pulled. "It's still stuck!" she cried.

Again, the sales force of the Pomona Pitchfork Company, despite an exhausting team effort, was unable to open the door.

"It's stuck," said Ken.

"Now what am I going to do?" Fran wailed.

There was nothing anybody could do.

The sun faded, and the room darkened. Everyone made themselves as comfortable as possible while they waited for the presenter to return. Fran made herself very comfortable. They tried to amuse themselves with their smart phones, but there was a problem.

"The WiFi password doesn't work!" Ben screamed.

~~~

Author Bio: Summing me up in exactly two-hundred words. I was born. Some would say hatched. Since my life started with Truman and now we have Trump, you might say I am a "trum." I write short fiction and aspire to write a novel. I have spent a lot of time trying to define myself as a writer. What is my genre? Since every story is a love story, I suppose I write love stories, but none of my stories would deserve a jacket showing a dark-haired, muscular guy without a shirt and some panting young woman admiring his pectorals. Cross off "romantic" and also "erotic." Presto! I've just lost half the adult reading public. Science fiction? No. Horror? No... well once. Literary? Hah! Sports? Yeah, for a while, but not anymore. Speculative? Maybe. Satire? Judge for yourself. Among my writing heroes are William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne, Mark Twain, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Steve Pulley, Gore Vidal and Bernard Cornwell. I also enjoy the poetry of Ogden Nash and Stephen Leacock. My wife, Diana, is my beta reader, but please don't tell her that I'm supposed to pay her. Our children are fictional characters.

The Weber House

By Mark Lance

December 3

It was cold and the sun had already dropped behind the mountains. Nicole got off the bus and was all alone. Frowning, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the covered bridge. The icicles hanging down from the arched entrance looked like sharp teeth in a giant, open mouth. Nicole stepped into the shadows. When she emerged, Nicole looked down into the ravine she had just crossed. It was a long way to the bottom, one solid, jagged piece of ice. She started into the woods. It's less than a half a mile from here, Nicole thought. No birds at this hour and not much light, either.

For a moment, there was a glimpse of the moon but clouds quickly blotted it out. Then it was dark again. She felt the cold wind coming off the ocean and in the distance, heard the surf crashing on the rocks. She pulled her hat down over her ears.

But not long after she started walking, Nicole suddenly stopped. What was that? She thought, spinning around to look behind her. It sounded like something jingling on the bridge.

"Who's there?" Nicole called out. But there was no answer. She started walking again, faster.

Nicole heard it again and whirled around a second time, trying to fight down a feeling of terror. "Who's there?" she managed to call out again into the darkness. But the sound from the bridge, if there was a sound, had stopped.

Nicole started walking again but a lot faster. Maybe she was imagining things. She stopped again, listened and breathed a sigh of relief. Silence never sounded so good. But then she heard the jingling again and felt her blood run cold. Fighting off panic, Nicole shut her eyes and concentrated, listening. She heard the sound again and then it stopped.

Nicole started running, her heart pounding in her chest, her backpack weighing a ton. She thought she heard the sound again, only now it was closer. She kept running, trying not to slip, but her house was still a long way off. Then she heard a growling sound behind her. Like an animal, a big animal, a dog. For an instant, the moon broke through the clouds and Nicole saw an opening in the bushes on her right. She dropped her backpack and plunged into the hedge, the branches whipping her face and tearing at her hands.

Nicole was on a narrow path. She rushed forward in the dark, thorns snagging her pants, icy branches stinging her face. She didn't care. She had no idea what was ahead but she had to get away from whatever was chasing her. Faster! Was all she could think. Keep running!

The path twisted and turned. Her chest burned. Nicole felt like she'd been running forever. She stopped to rest—she had to—and to listen. She heard something rustle in the bushes, and the growling again. Nicole fought back a scream and started running once more. She plunged ahead into the darkness.

Nicole was running downhill. She started going faster—too fast! She lost her balance and knew she was falling. She closed her eyes and put her arms over her face—and then something grabbed her from behind. Nicole started to scream but a bony hand covered her mouth. She twisted and turned to get away but now two strong hands were holding her tight. For a moment, the moon broke through the clouds and Nicole saw the face of her captor. The craggy face came closer and Nicole saw that it was an old woman. For an instant Nicole thought she had seen her before.

With one hand still covering Nicole's mouth, the old woman turned Nicole back in the direction she had been running and pointed a bony finger downward. Nicole squinted into the darkness and saw...nothing. But she felt wind in her face and she heard a crashing sound below her. Nicole looked straight down. Far below, reflected in a moment of moonlight, there were moving shadows and hissing streaks of white. She tried to focus. The shapes were waves pounding onto the jagged rocks. Nicole had nearly run over the cliff!

Then she heard something moving through the underbrush and felt another wave of terror: the dog!

The old woman bent down and whispered into Nicole's ear. "Shhh."

Petrified, Nicole obeyed and listened as the sounds came closer. Slowly, the old woman took her hand from Nicole's face. Nicole stared into her dark eyes, pinpoints of light. Silently, the woman pulled back a tree branch and pointed to a narrow path through the bushes. "Go," she whispered.

Nicole got to her feet started to ask, "Who are..." but the old woman put a cold finger over her mouth.

"Go!" she said in a raspy voice. She coughed into her tattered sleeve. "Go!"

Nicole hurried a few steps onto the path and then turned around. The old woman was gone.

Once again, clouds covered the moon and Nicole was surrounded by darkness. She crept a few steps down the path the old woman had pointed out until she heard the growling again. The dog had to be just a few steps and a few branches away, near the spot where Nicole had stumbled. The old woman had to be nearby as well. Nicole's heart was pounding but she tried not to move or touch anything. The growling stopped and she thought she heard whispering. After a few seconds Nicole heard the jingling sound again. It sounded like the dog was going away. Nicole waited.

She heard something else, something bigger, coming through the brush but the sound was more distant. Then Nicole heard an animal cry out in pain.

She waited until the woods were quiet. The only sound came from the waves at the bottom of the cliff. Nicole looked at her hands. They were shaking, and not just from the cold. Quietly, she started up the path the old woman had shown her. The snow was deep and the path was slippery. She could barely see where she was going. She thought of the cliff and the waves and rocks far below. When Nicole finally saw the lights from her house shining through the trees, she started to run, stumbling through the snow. As she came out of the woods and into the yard, Nicole looked over her shoulder, back toward the dark forest.

Stumbling, crying, she ran for her house as fast as she could.

~~~

Author bio: Mark is a former seaman and currently works as an industrial electrician. He also teaches writing and math in a GED program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. He graduated from Boston College with a BA in English literature. The Weber House is his first novel.

Talking Shadows

By John Piccoli

Chapter 1: The Last Supper

"When you're done eating your supper, Trenton, you got to go. You can't say here no more," said Pat, calmly. Pat was my mother's boyfriend. He was a small Italian guy with a tattoo of a Hawaiian dancer on his muscular forearm that he got in the army back in the olden days. He'd been living with us for about four or five years, since I was about 11. I looked up towards Mom. She was facing the kitchen sink with her back to me, wearing a worn patterned house dress. Her short overweight body was squeezed in between the kitchen table and the sink. She didn't say anything or turn to me. Mom just stood, playing like she was washing dishes, but I understood, without being told, that she was part of the plan to kick me out. I looked down at my supper. It was a small simple meal made up of a boiled potato, a burned pork chop, and some canned string beans. It wouldn't take too long to finish. Pat went back to his chair, sat down, and continued to eat his stinking pork chops.

The tiny old kitchen space was taken up with a single sink, stove, refrigerator and a small kitchen table with four chairs. It all felt like it was slowly imploding in on me. The pressing dirty yellow walls seemed to thin the air. I began breathing deeper to get as much air that I could inside. My heart burned. Two months earlier, my mom, Pat, younger brother Sonny, and I moved into the two bedroom apartment from a Newark housing project where we've lived for the last 8 years. Many of the people down there were vicious and mean. At the time, it was the breath of freedom to finally escape that hell hole, even though the floors in our new apartment were tilted, like a beached ship on a deserted riverbank. One week ago, I finished painting the dilapidated bedrooms for us, saving Pat work and money. But Pat was done using me now. I was like a used hamburger wrapper that he just tossed out of his car window while joy riding up the street. I knew what it was. Every day I was there, I was costing them money. I was eating their food, using their hot water, and their electricity. There was no other reason for my mom and Pat to throw me out. All the emotional connections, I thought I had, with him and my mom must have been held together with worn dried out rubber bands that were stretching and snapping, letting go one by one. I looked up at a picture of Jesus's last supper and his disciples hanging over the kitchen door by a frayed wire on a rusty nail. I examined the faces. One of them was a traitor. Which one, I couldn't tell. But I knew who the traitors were here. I thought Pat liked me and mom loved me. My thoughts about their feelings for me must have been built on a melting ice foundation. I never picked up that their feelings changed along the way and the money it cost my mother and Pat to feed me was most important. I was surprised, when I realized that everything that I thought was true about my mother and Pat had all turned out to be wrong.

I fiddled and picked at my tasteless food. Pat's choice of words and timing for telling me seemed so final. I searched my brain, but couldn't find any words to argue or negotiate the decision. I waited for my mother to say something. But I would be still sitting there if I didn't eat, stuff a plastic garbage bag with my clothes and leave. The silence in the apartment was so thick that, from the far corner of the room, I heard the final buzzing sounds from the wings of a dying fly trapped in a spider's web. Finally, I was done. No reason for me to prolong it.

I said, "I'll see ya."

As I left, Mom came to the open door, broke her silence, and asked, "Where will you sleep?"

I stopped, turned back to her, and said, "I'll sleep at a friend's house." Although I didn't have any idea where I would go.

I turned and headed down the dimly lit narrow flight of hallway steps. I heard the door close shut behind me. I didn't turn to look back. Last time I'll be here, I thought, as I opened the exit door to the avenue. Never to come back, just like my older sister that left home years ago. I knew that this part of my life had ended and I felt sad. I threw the plastic bag over my shoulder and started walking. Dragging my feet, while my thoughts sped and spun around in my head at cocaine speed. I believed that I would be stuck with broken hurt feelings, until I could find a way to bury and imprison them deep inside of myself for a life sentence. For now, I had to walk alone. Where was I gonna get the strength to carry on, the strength to stand alone? I didn't like it, but I guess things happen this way, sometimes. I had similar feelings a few months earlier, when I got kicked out of high school. I was in the tenth grade. I remembered just how long the walk home felt. I knew, then, that there was no turning back. It was so final. I was out of school with no direction and not one dream left in my brain to fuel me to go forward.

I moved along with sleep filled steps, not seeing anything around me. It was a sunless cool day in early spring. The air was fresh and clean. When a slight breeze shook me, I realized I walked three miles to Broadway in Newark. Broadway was two blocks up from the Grafton Avenue Housing Projects that we moved out of. I had an old broken down car parked on a nearby side street. I tossed my stuff on the sidewalk and sat down on a familiar stoop in front of a vacant store to rest. I looked forward to finding one of my friends that I could hang around with. But instead, I sat alone for hours watching cars, buses, and people walking by. I felt like a stranger that nobody could see. Invisible. I needed somebody to distract my mind, but nobody was around. I wondered where everybody was. I had lots of friends and I really needed one now. I heard an old song, 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay', by Otis Redding, blaring out of a passing car window. It didn't take much to imagine what it was like sitting on that dock wasting time. Only the stink from dead fish and salt in the air was missing, where I sat. It was replaced with disgusting exhaust fumes. There was loneliness in that song and loneliness in my heart.

Nobody that I wanted to talk to passed my way, so I sat there in a daze for the rest of the day and into the night telling myself that there are some things I can't undo. When I got tired, I went up the street to my junky car, unlocked the trunk, and threw my bag of clothes in. I climbed in the back seat. It wasn't as big and comfortable as some of the older cars that I owned, but it was good enough. I drove this old Chevy just as far as I could, then pulled the license plates off and left it right on the spot where it died. It wasn't the only abandoned car parked on the street, because the city streets were full of them. Some stolen and stripped of their valuable parts and left, like dinosaur bones, others were just pieces of worthless junk. This Chevy was the best car that I ever owned. I raced and abused it from day one, and now it is my new home.

To fight my boredom and loneliness, I turned the radio on low, so not to kill the battery. Until Bob Dylan came on, then I had to turn up the sound. His songs always gave me a feeling that he was talking to me, and right now, I needed someone to talk to me. Time moved forward and I began to feel a little better and at peace. As I lay there, I thought about my mother and what a quiet person she was. Maybe, it was that she didn't talk much to me. She'd been unhappy; as far back as I could remember. Mom blamed us kids for ruining her life. I remembered how I made sure I wasn't in the apartment, when I thought she'd be coming home. Now, I am 16 and Pat and Mom were playing good cop, bad cop. Pat was cheap and miserable and she never wanted kids. But I always thought my welfare concerned my mom. It turned out that the opposite was true. The odds were not in my favor.

When I shut my eyes, my mother's boyfriend's words came back into my head over and over, like an old skipping record. It wasn't just what Pat said to me. It was more his choice of words that bothered me. Pat said I couldn't stay there no more, as if I was only visiting. That I was a visitor in my own house and not there for a long stay. I always thought that it was my home and family, and it was Pat who was the visitor trying out for a spot. That I was permanent. That turned out to be all wrong too. The way I was looking at the world was badly blurred and slanted. My memory of my past has been rearranged. When I began my last supper, I didn't realize, until it was too late, that the road had ended and it was time to go.

My thoughts seamlessly moved into a dreamless sleep.

~~~

Author Bio: I was brought up in a housing project in Newark NJ. I currently live in Caldwell NJ with my wife, Lenore, and my cat, Ratso Rizzo. I didn't go too far into high school before dropping out. I changed direction and joined the Navy. There, I earned a GED. After my service to our country, I went back to school and earned a BA and MA in Art from Montclair State. Afterwards, I taught art in the Newark Public Schools and later in Paterson. I have been in art shows throughout my life in NJ and NY. Recently, I began writing middle and YA Fiction novels. Most often, I am writing books with multicultural characters set in an inner city. I am still in the creation stage of writing Talking Shadows. My other three books are self- published and available from online book sellers:

Between the Races, YA novel 2016

My Lousy Stinking Journal, YA novel, 2015

The Curse of the Trapped Soul, middle-grade fiction, 2014

Blessed Veil

By Elaine Durbach

A woman is coming towards me smiling with so much affection, I smile back out of politeness, though I don't want to. For some reason, the sight of her makes me angry. She swept in from the outside world like a gust of fresh air—and my heart started thudding.

"Hi, Mom. How are you? Have you had a chance to read . . .?"

The sister, the one with a broad bottom and peppermint breath, Sister Baker? Ba/rker? something with a B, notices I have a problem. "Palpitations," I mouth to her, hoping she will bring my pills.

She waddles over and leans in much too close. "Isn't this nice, Mrs. G! Your daughter has come to see you. How are you, Lindy?"

Oh, dear, of course it's Lindy. I know those dimples. From her father's family, not mine. When did she let her hair go gray? She looks different, and with the light behind her, I couldn't see her clearly. Thank goodness I smiled. I can't bear that look of sympathy she gets when she thinks I'm confused.

Most of the time, I'm clear as a bell, better than any of these other old biddies slumped in their chairs like zombies. They stare at the television, or bob their heads to the music the aides put on for us. I don't really belong here with them, but it's better than being alone in my big house. And the place is quite pleasant, very clean and decorated tastefully enough in blue and beige, with vases of silk flowers, and windows that look out onto a courtyard. I read a lot.

Wasn't Lindy just here?

There she is, drawing up a chair. Sister Peppermint-breath says to her, in front of me as if I'm deaf or addled, "Bad day yesterday. Your mother was in a lot of pain from her hip. The doctor's coming to see her tomorrow. But today she says she's fine, insisting very logically that nothing is or was wrong. She is better at hiding her dementia than any other patient I've had."

What nonsense! I'm fine, and healthy as a horse. If she thinks I'm demented because I forget names, that started a long time ago. I was never any good with them, even in my editing days, working on all those books. Other than that, my brain works perfectly well. The physiotherapist . . . no, the psychiatrist, Dr. Something-or-other with the red hair, gives me those tests every time she comes. She moves the hands on a fake clock and asks me what time it says, and I always know. She asks about the day of the week, and what season we're in, and who the president is.

What difference does it make? It could be winter or summer, this year or last year. We hardly ever go outside. Every day here is exactly like the one before. Except Tuesdays, when there's Bingo, and Sundays, when we get roast beef and ice cream with apple pie. I tell Lindy to come on those days. That way we have a nice meal together, and I can show her I've still got all my marbles: I know what day it is.

I know who the president is too . . . or I did until this moment. Not Kennedy, I know he was shot. I remember where I was when Walter Cronkite announced he had died. He was crying, and we cried too. Nixon? There've been so many. Ha, I know, I know—the black one! They have CNN on the TV. It's showing that bombastic loudmouth with the dyed blond hair, goodness knows why, on and on. I can't bear his face so I don't watch.

Why am I angry with Lindy? She's a good girl, my baby. Always was my easiest kid, and so good with words, like me. Won all the writing prizes at school. The other ones, my son—yes, Tony—and Jennifer, my middle one, they were a handful when they were young. But they're adults now and all that adolescent stuff is behind us, thank goodness. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Jennifer in I don't know how long. Is she still sulking?

I can picture her like it was yesterday, in her wedding dress, looking like Princess Di. But who did she marry? I can't see the fellow next to her, just a silhouette. Didn't like him one bit, I know that much, and that made her mad. A whole row of bridesmaids, Lindy the tallest, a bit gawky in that frilly mauve dress. I wore my royal blue outfit with the square, oyster-pink buttons and shoes I dyed the same color. I made George wear a pink tie to match me.

Gone now, isn't he? He's not here in this place. Hasn't ever been, I don't think.

Ahh, I wish I hadn't started with this nonsense, looking back. It just makes me sad. Better to watch the television, even the politics, or pick up one of the paperback novels they bring around on the Treats Wagon, with hard candy and cards with Bible verses. "Treats Wagon." See, I remember that silly name. The books are all romances or thrillers with plots that aren't worth remembering. Never used to touch trash like that, but they keep my mind active.

George was my first and only lover. We didn't sleep around the way they do now. I can see him lying in bed, but not our bed at home—a high hospital bed. So gaunt and his skin a strange gray-yellow. He's staring at me with his wispy eyebrows pulled together, as if he wants to confess something, but what? Even before he fell ill, he was going a bit gaga. I had to tell him who the children were when they came to visit. They say women stay clear-minded much longer than men because we're needed, and we don't drink as much. I felt bad for him, but it was annoying, constantly having to remind him of everything. Had to shout it too because he was going deaf and refused to wear his hearing aids. My hearing is excellent.

I can't recall anything after that hospital bed. Oh no, I can. Shivering at the graveside, and two people squeezing my arms, Tony and Lindy. Jennifer must be there too. And that minister going on endlessly about "our dear brother who is with the Lord, in a better place." Or was that my father's funeral? He died so suddenly. In those days we didn't have the medicines and the machines they have now. Maybe it was better that way. Oh, how we miss him! Momma has locked herself in her room and won't talk to us kids. I've made supper for the little ones, baked beans on toast, pretending that everything is fine. Keep knocking on her door and begging her to come out, but she won't.

And now this gray-haired woman wants to know why I'm crying. "Daddy has just died. Of course, I'm sad!" I shout at her. Everyone looks up. So what?

"Dad's been gone ten years. Don't you remember?"

Is this why I'm angry with her, with Lindy, because she keeps asking that dumb question, "Don't you remember"? I have a first-rate memory. I've told her so much about the old days. The other two weren't interested, but she was always asking what it was like growing up with a widowed mother, in a small village where everybody knew each other's business, and what I thought the first time I saw the big city, and what went on in our family. "Do you remember?" That stupid line. Why did she want to know all that stuff?

I've never been one to dwell on the past. I was always too busy, running, running all the time, from my job—with eyes tired from reading all day—to the grocery store, back home, cooking, trying to get dinner on the table before they all started clamoring, and making sure the washing was brought in off the line. The line . . . I used to bring it in for Momma, my arms filled with the stiff sheets, smelling of hot afternoon air. Has Momma died too?

George bought me a washing machine. For my birthday, the idiot. What woman wants household equipment for her birthday? "I'm just trying to make your life easier," he says, giving me that goofy grin of his.

"How about doing the washing sometimes. That would make my life easier!" I snap at him, but he knows I won't stay cross. I lift my face to him for a birthday kiss. Instead of the scrape of stubble, a cool, smooth cheek brushes mine. I catch a light whiff of flowers, and for a moment it masks the yeasty smell from the man snoring in the chair next to mine.

"They do your laundry for you here, Mom." They do? I don't trust that. How can they possibly keep straight which clothes belong to whom?

Suddenly she blurts out, "Did you read my manuscript?" Manuscript? Like the ones we used to get at Bolton Publishing? What on earth is she talking about? I retired a long time ago. I don't have to read manuscripts any more. They gave me a gigantic bouquet of lilies and carnations at my farewell party, and then they brought in a great big box with a ribbon around it. One of those personal computers everyone except me had begun using. "You can write your own novel at last," the younger Bolton said, and they all laughed. I suppose I had talked about doing that for a long time. Tony tried to teach me how to use the machine, but nothing would stick. I made him take it away and get me a nifty little electric typewriter with a built-in correction ribbon.

Did I ever write my book? I'm sure I started it. I remember pages scattered on a desk, and crumpled-up balls in a wastebasket at my feet. I don't think I got very far. So why bother? Lindy has become the writer in the family, and a big success. Her picture has been in the paper along with interviews and reviews. Besides, I had so much to do, with bridge and charity projects and gardening and looking after George.

Like clouds clearing a little so a pilot can see patches of the ground below, suddenly I recall that Lindy has been writing something new, something different. Is that what she keeps asking about? She brought me a binder, a black one with silver rings holding the pages in place, lots of pages, at least an inch thick. About what? I think hard, but nothing more comes to light and irritation bubbles up again.

A stomach growls loudly. Mine? Must be time to eat. And I need to pee. Can I do the one on the way to the other? People are rising to their feet, slowly and painfully, taking their walkers or their canes, and heading out the door. There is a long passage to the dining room, but where do I go to pee? As I stand up, I feel a bit escape but pinch hard and hope that I can get to my room—oh, yes, there's a bathroom off my bedroom— if I can get there in time.

With hair brushed and fresh lipstick and an empty bladder, I'm happy at the table. Lindy is next to me, my sweet girl, and two other people are seated with us, my good friend Geraldine Johnson, and another very nice person I've known for a long time. Her name will come to me in a moment. Mary, Mary, quite contrary . . .

This other woman is asking Lindy if she has any children. I'm about to answer for her but the details won't come to my tongue, so I wait to hear what she says. "No," she tells the two women, her dimples deepening. She's my unmarried daughter. So pretty. Goodness knows why she hasn't found the right man. Jennifer is the one with the children, big already, in high school or maybe college. Lindy says, "I don't have a family. My books are my babies."

Ah, her autobiography! A hot wave of resentment makes my mouth go dry. Palpitations again. I have no appetite at all. "Your book is . . ." I fumble for eviscerating adjectives that will convince her to abandon this misbegotten project, but they flicker out. All my life, language has come so easily and now it abandons me, though opinions still burn bright.

All her other stuff was made up—terrific adventure stories for young readers, just the kind we used to handle at Bolton. I'm pretty sure we published some of hers. But this was about our family. I started to read the first chapter but it made me angrier than I've ever been in my entire life. How could she spout that nonsense about Jennifer? And tell the whole world about George and the babysitter? And about me, how I corrected their grammar all the time? I don't know where I put that binder. Things disappear here. The cleaners or the nurses' aides take advantage of our frailty and they steal from us, but you can never prove it. I've lost jewelry and clothes and so many pens. What was the other thing I just said I lost?

Breathe deep, shut eyes for a moment, and now I'm fine again. Lindy is looking at me, her heart-shaped face quite pale, with the eyebrows pulled together like George's, worried. "Mom, did you hate it? You said I should write the truth, the whole story." I did? We discussed a story? It must have been a long time ago. Writing books takes years. How does she expect me to remember what I said back when?

The wait staff comes in with our individual trays with little bowls of soup, and beef and potatoes and mashed squash and green beans. It must be Sunday. How wonderful! I ask them to bring Lindy extra roast potatoes, though she tells me not to, because I know she loves them. It looks quite tempting, but the food here is very bland and they tell us not to put on too much salt. I wouldn't if they flavored it properly. I want bread. I have to catch someone's eye and ask for it. And ice water. This place is slipping. What kind of restaurant doesn't put out water and bread? "We should complain to the management," I tell Lindy. "Why are they taking so long?"

"Mom, be patient. They have a lot of people to serve." She looks at me, expectantly, as if she's waiting for me to go on with something I was saying. "About the manuscript . . .?"

Our two tablemates, Mary Jordan—of course that's her name, I see it on the plastic place card—and my friend Geraldine are also looking at me, curious about this project Lindy has mentioned. They treat her like a celebrity every time she comes to visit. Is she one? But I haven't a clue what manuscript she's referring to.

I handled so many. The very first one I was given to edit when I joined Bolton, when I was pregnant with Tony and hoping they wouldn't notice, was an enchanting book. It was about a secret population of subversive gremlins who keep causing trouble. The illustrations were excellent too, though perhaps a little scary for young readers, full of dark details like bugs, and personal items stolen from humans and used in new ways. I just loved it.

"Do you remember that book with the gremlins, my very first one at Bolton?" I ask Lindy as I tuck into my beef. As usual, it's tasteless. She shakes her head and gives me that annoying sympathetic look. Then she shrugs her shoulders and lets out a big sigh as if she's shedding some heavy concern. She stabs her fork through the crust of a potato.

We smile at each other. I know you're not meant to say this but she's my favorite. We've always been very close with never a cross word between us. I'm a little sleepy, but I get a second wind when I see them lining up pies along the serving counter. It's Sunday so I know there will be ice-cream as well, a choice of vanilla or chocolate—or both.

I request both, for me and for Lindy. I always tell her to visit on a Sunday. We have such a good time together, she and I.

~~~

Author Bio:

Elaine Durbach won 25 cents for her first published essay at age five. Sixty years later the rate hasn't changed much but neither has her desire to share her views with an audience. This August, she finished her third novel, a YA story about identity and faith, The Coming Age of It. That followed The Stream, a semi-autobiographical family mystery, and Roundabout, a story about delayed love.

With this new passion for fiction, she continues a career as a journalist and editor. In that capacity, she has written two coffee-table books, and has won four awards.

Elaine's fiction and non-fiction draw on her background – growing up in Southern Africa – and her current home in the United States. She came here in 1978 on a World Press Fellowship and has lived in Maplewood with her husband and son since 1997. In non-writing time, she takes photographs (and had her first show this summer), makes jewelry, and organizes the weekly speakers for the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County. The society's goal is "to bring out the best in others and thereby in oneself," pretty much what she seeks to do as a member of the Write Group's novel critique group.

Risk

by D.W.Hirsch

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm staring at my Prom dress hanging on the closet door, wondering if I'll use it tonight.

My best friend, Jess, and I shopped at five different stores before I narrowed it down to two dresses. Mom came for the final decision. I never knew Mom was a glittery girl, so I was surprised that she liked this shimmery maroon dress, which was my favorite. We bought that dress at Glitzy Glitz two weeks ago, a dress store with a strict 7-day return policy. The store should offer a break-up clause

Back in March, it took a lot of deep breaths and encouraging words from Jess, but I took the risk and asked Bryan to meet for coffee. The walk to the coffee shop was the longest walk I had ever taken.

I debated between ordering a vanilla latte indicating that I was simple and sweet and unpretentious or a chai latte demonstrating the spicy side of me. I ordered the vanilla latte with 2% milk, not skim, adding a dash of cinnamon on top at the last minute. He ordered a cup of water.

I needed a cup of water. Somehow my dry throat asked him, "Do you want to go to the prom with me?"

"I don't think the dance is that big a deal but, yeah, sure, why not," he said, shrugging his shoulders in reply. "I'm not doing anything else."

Not a big deal? Well, of course it was a big deal. Especially since this high school heartswell senior wrestler didn't have a date. My heart fell straight through my stomach and landed in my lap. The dance wasn't a big deal, but my mind registered that "sure" was "yes."

"Great!" I said, maybe a little too loud in the small store we were in.

He drove me home in his father's green car. I'm sure it was some designer name or model something, but I don't know cars. It felt like a limousine. Bryan parked along the curb in front of my house and clicked the door lock open. He did not get out an open my door. So much for chivalry. Still. "I'll see you in school," I said, closing the door.

"Yep," he said and drove off.

Bryan and I got together the week before Prom at one of his wrestling buddies' house for a party. It seems that Prom is a big deal to some guys, or at least to their girlfriends. Bryan greeted Frank with this complicated high-five smack thing they did with their hands. It's cool to date a guy who has a secret handshake.

I couldn't hear anyone talking, but apparently the popular girls had awesome hearing. They talked dresses and jewelry they would be wearing. At least that's what I think they said. I had nothing to contribute anyway. I didn't have fancy jewelry, and Mom only said I could wear her pearl necklace. "Something borrowed," she joked, a crooked smile on her face as she stretched the necklace out into my hands, pearl by pearl.

Bryan came up to me and grabbed my arm. "Come outside with me. I got something for you." I didn't have a chance to say no because he tugged my arm and would not have heard me anyway.

I followed him out into the chilly night air and shivered more than I really was cold hoping Bryan would put his arm around me. He took me out to his car parked in the driveway and this time he opened the passenger side door. Was this going to lead to our first kiss? I didn't think a loud house party was ideal for hushed professions of love, but whatever. His hand struggled to get something out of his pocket. When he pulled the baggie out, he pulled me closer to him.

Stupid as it seemed, when I saw the bag of white stuff, my first thought was, Why does he have a bag of flour with him? My second thought left me numb: That is not flour.

"Have you done coke before?" he asked me.

"Ummm, Diet Coke," I said, staring at the bag.

Bryan laughed like we shared a private joke. "Good one." He unzipped the bag.

Too many thoughts entered my head. Those retro commercials on the internet that Jess forwarded to me about McGruff taking a bite out of crime or punishment. She thought it was cute because she had a beagle that looked like the Crime Dog. Then there's television crime shows where a drug mule smuggles in from another country and is found dead on some dirty warehouse floor. I imagined Mom and Dad shaking their heads, my future college career ruined, me hocking my senior class ring to pay for my drug habit.

"I don't want this," I said, my voice shaking. I raised my hands palm out as if they could protect me which I knew was too late already because the bag was open.

"Why not?" Bryan said. His face tightened and scrunched. "Everyone does."

"I don't."

Silence.

I tried to steer the conversation away from all this. "How can you do this and still be on the wrestling team?"

"We all know when they do checks. Don't tell anyone. An assistant to the team tells us when those surprise checks are," Bryan said with a smile, that smile I did not like anymore. "Look, I don't do it all the time, and I know how long it takes to get out of my system."

I stared at him, just stared. It was like I was seeing him up close again for the first time, but this time there was no sunlight and glowing hair. An overhead spotlight glared from the house next door, and all I saw were shadows.

I stood up. "I want to go."

Bryan narrowed his eyes and said, "In a minute." Almost defiantly he took some powder out and snorted. He wiped his nose then stood up, staring at me the whole time with black eyes.

No surprise, two days later, I found out that Bryan was taking Marcia to the prom.

That was last week. Now, tonight, this is Prom night. The dress that defined my senior year should at least be worn. Once.

I slip it on, snap the back hooks. Twirling in front of the mirror, this dress is stunning. Even my hair looked less stringy. Maybe the sequins were bouncing light onto each strand and making them smooth like the television commercials show the way hair should be when you use salon style shampoo. My skin even looked less pimply because the maroon was stealing the color away. I am sexy.

So what?

Maybe I could go by myself. Maybe the dance really wasn't a big deal like Bryan first commented. I wondered if Marcia and Bryan planned to take drugs before they arrived. Does it make the food taste better?

Mom seems personally proud that I came down in my dress. "You look lovely," she says. I let myself smile and bask in that compliment. Just for a moment. I walk into the living room and flop on the couch as much as I can in my form fitting dress. I steal the remote and flip channels for two minutes. Two minutes; I watch the wall clock tick. I toss the remote back on the coffee table.

This is annoying. I have get out, somewhere.

Dad sees me heading to the door. "Wait," he says. He pulls out his phone and points it at me. "My little girl." I am not in the mood to pose, but I give him my get-this-over-with smile. It's close enough to real, which is good because the photos will be on his social media pages before I reach the car.

It's 6:03pm. Prom officially starts at 7:00pm. You get in early if you paid for dinner, which Bryan and I had not. Some people preferred to go out for a romantic dinner beforehand. Some people preferred to do drugs.

No one is here to hold the car door open for me. Dad is already sharing.

The driver's seat feels crusty. I can't scratch my back because the stiff shoulder straps hold my arms captive. My heart races. This is stupid. This is liberating. I'm fearless. I'm scared.

If I go by myself, I'm a lonesome loser. My life is not that Pretty in Pink. If I don't go, people will think I gave up. Maybe they'll think I'm smart enough to avoid all confrontations.

Will Jess miss me if I'm not there? Will she give me a hug when I show up?

By going to Prom, I risk being seen. I risk not being noticed.

Which is worse?

I put the key in the ignition.

~~~

Author Bio: D.W. Hirsch's vibrant writing career includes articles about Delaware casinos, scrapbook journaling, home improvement projects, drive-in movie theaters and Marshmallow Peeps.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, her life as a single child inspired and fueled her imagination. Her years at Penn State University honed those traits as a Film major with an English Writing minor. As a member of the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW), she is an award-winning author, blogger and journalist. Her main genre is memoir, having tales of her mother and her father independently published. She dabbles in haiku and humorous crime drama fiction.

She indulges her artsy creative side as a Certified Zentangle Teacher and through mixed media and scrapbooking projects. Her current obsessions include coffee cup sleeves, funky hats and PokemonGO. You'll find her writing in a coffeeshop near you.

Blog: www.dwhirsch.com

Twitter: @dianahirsch

Instagram: @dwhirsch

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DWHirschAuthor

The Bathroom Opera Singer

By Donna O'Donnell Figurski

The day began normally . . . at least as normally as any day in a first-grade classroom. Children emptied backpacks. Jackets and sweaters were hung in the coatroom. A low buzz filled the room as the children set about writing in their journals. Attendance was nearly complete, when suddenly a muffled voice was heard... a single note, "La."

Several children raised their heads from their journals and quickly looked around, but they soon lost interest. "La" and a slightly higher "La, La!" followed. I looked up. More children noticed. They stared at me and awaited my reaction. I pretended not to hear. They then glanced at each other and snickered, but quickly they returned to their tasks. I glanced around the room. One seat was empty.

"La, La, La, La, La, Laaaaa!" rose to the highest range of the scale and then quickly descended to a very low and heavy "LAAAAAA." Every child burst into giggles. The sound escaped from behind the bathroom door. The voice suddenly rang out as if in encore, which put us all in stitches. We doubled over and grasped our sides. Our laughter mingled together, but we were drowned out by the bathroom opera singer.

I motioned for the children to be still. Once they were quiet, I whispered that if we kept silent we might be entertained with more arias. Our opera singer didn't disappoint us. Our silence made him more energetic. He began to experiment with a variety of sounds. We giggled with our hands clasped over our mouths to mute our sounds. It took every bit of control to be quiet. Titters could be heard throughout the room as sounds escaped from between fingers. Suddenly, the toilet flushed, the tap water rushed, the light switch was flicked, and the bathroom door opened... to the astonished face of Alex.

As Alex greeted his audience, the children burst into uncontrollable laughter and hooted and howled their pleasure. Alex stood in the doorway looking rather chagrined at first. His face was scrunched up with a mixture of surprise, a bit of shyness, and a whole lot of pride as he realized the applause and attention was solely for him. His sheepish grin and gleaming eyes met mine, and I nodded toward the front of the room. I suggested an encore, and Alex gladly accepted.

Alex moved to center-stage and ran through his repertoire of notes. We all grabbed our sides again. When we finally regained control, I suggested that we all get busy with our day.

I silently wondered what would be next. That afternoon, Alex - my lanky, shy, Alex - whispered to me that he knew all along that we were listening to him when he was in the bathroom and that was why he was doing it. Earlier I thought I was nurturing a future opera star right there in our bathroom. Now, I think a comedian was born that morning.

~~~

Author Bio: Donna O'Donnell Figurski, is the author of Prisoners without Bars: A Caregiver's Tale, a true account of her life as a forever-caregiver after her husband and high school sweetheart, David, had a traumatic brain injury in 2005 resulting in three brain surgeries in two weeks.

Donna, wife, mother, and granny, is a teacher, playwright, actor, director, picture-book reviewer, photographer, and writer. She has published four stories with Scholastic, was a winner in the Essex County's 2013 Legacies Writing Contest, and was recognized for her review column for children's books, Teacher's Pets, on Site of the Week by the National Education Association.

Donna is published in two anthologies on brain injury, The Resilient Soul and Surviving Brain Injury: Stories of Strength and Inspiration, and is a frequent contributor to online/print magazines on topics regarding brain-injury (Hope Magazine, Lash and Associates Publishing Blog, and Disabled Magazine, The Mighty, and BrainLine).

Donna also hosts a radio show on the Brain Injury Radio Network.

You can learn more about Donna at her blogs, Surviving Traumatic Brain Injury and Donna O'Donnell Figurski's Blog. You can follow Donna on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Moby Mouse

By Ed Charlton

Call him Michael. He was the most persistent of mice.

I saw him once, one evening, behind the coffeemaker. Good choice; it's where I go first in the kitchen.

I immediately deployed our old, beaten-up, humane, definitely no-kill mousetrap. I even loaded it with all-natural, organic, low-sodium peanut butter. Nothing but the best for our pest.

Michael got in and got out again. Easily.

~~~

We called in the big guns and shopped on Amazon. The Mouse Hotel looks like a miniature covered bridge. Mice aren't supposed to be able to get out of this trap—until you let them. It even has a little mounted tray for a food offering to the Rodent Gods.

In the meantime, taking advantage of two-day shipping, Michael had free range, leaving his mark on the cooker and countertops. I'm not sure what he was eating; we had hidden the bread, put away everything else that he might find tasty, and washed our way around the kitchen crying "Eeeewww!"

The first night I set up the Mouse Hotel, I heard him check in at 11:30 p.m. He was one of those guests who turn on the TV at full volume and work their way through the minibar.

Being unable to sleep through the rattling and banging against the doors and the spring trap, I got dressed and, sighing and muttering, took Michael outside and shook him out into the bushes behind the shed (another favorite hangout recommended by generations of the small and furry).

Then I did it again at 4:30 a.m.

And again at 6:45 a.m.

~~~

During the day, our discussion was of whether there was one Michael or a family of Michaels. We settled on there being a family. Rodent-induced insomnia being the mother of invention, I got out an old fish tank and a plastic lid. This way, no matter how many there were, I'd have only one trip out to the bushes.

At 11:30 that night, I shook Michael, or his relative, into the tank, put cans of tomatoes on the lid to keep it down, and went back to bed after reloading the Hotel for the next one.

He wasn't in the tank in the morning. Hmm, a hotel guest who slips out without paying; no one likes that. And no other relatives had showed up.

~~~

The next night I was better prepared: fish tank, clear sheet of Perspex taped at one end to provide a very small air hole, heavyweight watering can filled with water for extra weight, and some fresh bread on the altar in the Mouse Hotel. Okay, Michael, mouse up all you want, I'm ready for you.

Comes 11:30 p.m. and I'm thinking, "Does he have a job where he clocks off at the same time each day?" From the Mouse Hotel to the fish tank, no problem. "Got you! And no escaping this time."

While waiting to see if more relatives would show, I lay awake, listening to Michael chewing his way into the heavy black plastic around the top of the fish tank, just under the air hole.

I went to talk to him. "Your weapons are useless, Michael! Resistance is futile!" All I got was a pair of beady eyes, seeming to say back, "You foolish human!"

Again, a sleepless night, this time punctuated by the sound of chewing. No other Michaels checked into the Mouse Hotel. None tried to break him out of the tank. Okay, he's one mouse on his own. I'm cleverer than a mouse; I can handle this.

~~~

By dawn he'd chewed only a nickel-size piece out of the rim of the tank, and the Perspex was still intact.

~ ~ ~

I couldn't take the fish tank outside to release my guest, so I had to get him back into the hotel. Of course, what mouse is stupid enough to fall for the trap again and again? Michael is. I put the loaded trap into the tank and he checked in.

This time, we went for a ride in the car and found a nice place a mile away by a stream with no houses in sight.

Michael looked up from the grass with those big round eyes, "What, you're leaving me here? I thought you were enjoying all this!"

"Bye, Michael!"

~~~

Author bio: Ed Charlton grew up in England. After many years toiling in corporate data systems, he followed his true calling: books and writing. Since 2005, Ed has supplied services to indie authors through his company Scribbulations LLC and writes constantly.

Ed's short story The Booth in the Corner was part of the anthology SHORT/Short Stories published by Bookcraft In Montclair. His epistolary sci-fi novel The Problem with Uncle Teddy's Memoir has inspired a sequel, Saint John's Ambulatory.

In 1963, Ed was part of the original target demographic for Doctor Who, long before society realized the effect of sci-fi on the young. As an adult, he has a reputation for asking, in the middle of long BBC dramas, "When do the aliens land?"

He is a member of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County, a member of The Write Group, and founder of The Write Group: Kennett Square.

Find out more at edcharlton.com

Merry Christmas

By J. M. Richardson

A sharp gust of frigid air assaulted her as she raised the garage door, causing her to draw back. She put her bags down and adjusted her scarf. She fished the key fob from her coat pocket and started the car before picking up the bags and trudging down the driveway to open the trunk. A few inches of freshly fallen snow created a light spray as the wind blew across the windshield and car roof. The early arrival of the mailman had compacted some of the snow, leaving the telltale signs of heavy boots with a distinctive pattern across the drive. She opened the trunk of the car and placed the bags carefully in the space left between the case of toilet paper that never made it into the house and the leftover yarn from her knitting class, then removed the snow brush and began to clean off the car.

The snow was light and crystalline, so the job was finished quickly. She clapped the snow brush against her gloved hand to remove any residual snow and placed it on the floor of the backseat before opening the driver's side front door and sliding in, the heated seat a welcome relief from the cold. "Thank God for technology," she thought to herself as she settled in.

Buying a new car with a few of the latest bells and whistles had been an uncharacteristic splurge. But she was older now, the children grown and moved away, so why not treat herself? If the last few years had taught her anything it was that time was short and nothing was promised. So many things had changed. Friends who seemed fit and healthy had suddenly died. Others were suffering the effects of Alzheimer's or dementia and barely knew who they were, their hard-earned savings now in the hands of whatever spouse, child, or distant relative had finally stepped up to care for them, well after it became all too apparent that they were no longer able to care for themselves. A lifetime of scrimping and saving for a leisurely retirement was spent instead on nurses and home aides, a memory care unit in an assisted living facility, or for those who failed to plan well (or who just had greedy relatives who spent all of their money), a shared room in a nursing home with Medicaid footing the bill. Nothing fun about that! Others were battling any number of illnesses from cancer and heart disease to disabling back problems and debilitating arthritis; better to spend some of what money she had while she could still enjoy the small comforts it purchased.

The prospect of some similar fate awaiting her just around the corner sent a chill through her body not unlike the chill she encountered when she first opened the garage. She shook it off before putting the car in gear and backing carefully down the driveway. As she started up the street she couldn't help but notice the lack of Christmas decorations on many of the nearby houses. The number of houses decorated for Christmas seemed to decrease every year; although she had to acknowledge that she didn't miss the giant inflatable Santa Claus that once graced the roof of the house next door. She didn't know why that Santa had seemed such a personal affront. Perhaps it was just that it looked so out of place among the tastefully decorated houses with their rows of neat white lights and large wreaths. Maybe it was because that Santa was a stark reminder of the commercialized farce that the holiday had become. Maybe it was just because she had never liked inflatable decorations, not even as a child. The new neighbors were nice enough, but didn't decorate, whether for religious or other reasons she didn't know and had never asked. Still, the lack of decorations made her a little sad, and left her thinking that maybe that giant Santa wasn't so bad after all.

Holiday decorations, illness and sudden death weren't the only changes. The large family dinners, the house filled with children and grandchildren were also gone. In this economy, people had to go where the jobs were, whether that was the next town, the next state, or all the way across the country. The days of boisterous laughter, spilled cider and the occasional broken keepsake had been replaced by a quiet meal with her husband and Skype sessions with the kids and grandkids. Of course, there were invitations from friends and former co-workers, but she just didn't have the energy to go. Even her own Christmas decorations had gone from an elaborate display of white lights and sparkling reindeer to a bit of garland and a lighted wreath on the front door. "Better than nothing," she said aloud to no one in particular.

The streets were almost deserted as she made her way to the nursing home. There were few cars in the parking lot, so she was able to find a spot near the walkway. She was reluctant to leave the comfort of the warm car, but after a few minutes she willed herself to open the door and get out. She took the bags from the trunk and carefully made her way along the walkway and up the stairs. A family with several children of varying ages was leaving as she approached and one of the older children held the door for her. She smiled and exchanged holiday pleasantries with adults and children alike as she entered. She was still smiling as she approached the desk to sign in.

"Christmas cookies time, Mrs. M?" the desk attendant said cheerfully.

"You know it," she said as she reached into one of the bags and pulled out a tin of cookies and handed it to the silver-haired woman behind the desk.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" the woman said excitedly.

"You know how much my grandkids love your cookies!" She returned the attendant's wide smile with an even wider smile of her own.

"You are quite welcome. I hope they enjoy them," she replied as she signed the book, picked up her bags and started down the long corridor.

Her next group of cookie recipients would be gathered in the common room. Most were in wheelchairs; a few had walkers, and then there were the ones confined to geriatric chairs, beds like huge lounge chairs on wheels. Some of the occupants of those chairs had broken hips, backs, or necks; others had just become too frail to stand or operate a wheelchair. It was a depressing sight. "How much more depressing it must be as a way of life," she thought to herself. She straightened up, took a deep breath, and smiled as she entered the room. A few of the residents showed signs of recognition and perked up. Two aides greeted her warmly.

Someone yelled out, "What's in the bag?"

A small woman who had been a resident for a number of years yelled back, "Cookies, Mildred, she's brought cookies."

At that the coat came off and the cookie tins and decorative plates came out, and it was Christmas.

One of the aides turned up the holiday music and helped her hand out plates of cookies and cups of juice. For the next few hours she would sing Christmas songs, try to play a few games with varying degrees of success, hold hands, tell stories, and listen attentively to the stories that were told to her, no matter how fanciful or disjointed. "A cookie and a smile, a cookie and a smile," she thought to herself, "that's all I have to offer." But for some of them, a cookie and a kind face were all they really needed. And even if only a few of them smiled back, for her that would be enough.

~~~

Author Bio: JM Richardson is a former attorney who authors and edits legal publications. An avid writer of poetry and prose since grade school, JM had a few individual poems in the 80s and 90s, before career and family put her creative writing on the back burner. She's back at it, and having a great time thanks to the help and support of the Montclair Write Group. She has recently completed two volumes of poetry that she is hoping to have published.

Harold & Cora

By Margaret Saraco

I stand in the hallway outside our apartment door. Lost in thought; surrounded by beige and pale yellow-faded walls which match my skin tone. I stare at and then peel some chipped paint and wonder how our argument started this time. At first resting my head against the wall I pound it—once, twice, three times. If I bang my head hard enough will I start to bleed?

I know you are right and I am always wrong. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to find my way back with you. I hug myself but don't feel better.

Cora shouts from the apartment, "Harold, come back in here so we can finish this fight and go to bed like any other married couple." Our life is on display once again.

Life should not be like this. I cannot go back inside and I cannot go forward and leave. There is nowhere to go. I touch the wall with my foot and tap out a melody in my head, the one that always keeps me calm—

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag

And smile, smile, smile.

While you've a Lucifer to light your fag,

Smile boys, that's the style.

What's the use of...

Whoa! What was that? My toe goes through the wall into another dimension. What was that? I hold my breath and stop listening to Cora behind the door who is still chattering away and clinking dishes. I push further. My right foot disappears beyond into something. What if my head could go through the wall? I try it. Oh! The sensation is like moving through jelly, but I don't open my eyes. I've never experienced anything like this before.

I pull my head out of the wall, but I keep my toe in. Hey, I am a normal guy in a normal marriage, with an abnormal desire to disappear. My life is so normal it is terrifying. I press into the wall again.

Cora shouts a little louder to come back inside and breaks through the mush of what is real and what is fantastic jumbled in my head.

What if I just disappeared into the wall? No joke, I just want to hide and lose myself, so I push harder moving through that strange gelatinous feeling. It stings a bit, which makes me laugh, and then it feels luxurious, like a hot, steamy bath. I raise my leg up and I'm almost completely submerged. There, now I exist in another space and time.

I see Cora open the apartment door, but I am gone.

My foot is the only piece of me left in the hallway. I carefully and quietly pull it all the way into the wall so no one can find me—a heel and toe, and then nothing. I put my hands down by my side and slowly open my eyes. I am standing behind Cora as she looks left and right down the corridor, her flowered skirt sways slightly and then she turns around. She must hear me, but Cora doesn't see me, and then goes back into the apartment and collapses in the comfortable armchair I bought at a garage sale two weeks ago—that was another argument. Lost and sad, too, I watch Cora as she dabs at some tears. With nothing more to do than think, I step back through the wall and am in the hallway. I turn the doorknob of our apartment door and walk into the room. Cora lights up, but my heart sinks. I embrace her and we mumble apologies to each other as we hold one another.

I don't own enough courage to stay invisible.

~~~

Author Bio: Margaret R. Sáraco's writing has recently centered around fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of anthologies, newsletters and journals including, The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems, "Shalom: The Jewish Peace Newsletter," "Free Verse Literary Magazine," Just Bite Me, Passing, and Italians and the Arts. She has been a featured reader in "Welcome the Sabbath Bride with Poetry and Song," "Poetry U: An Evening of Spoken Word," and "The Art and Poetry of Teaching," which she co-produced. Upcoming publications include Peregrine Journal, Jewish Currents Magazine, and Zoetic Press.

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Groundhog Days

By Nancy Taiani

I used to find groundhogs appealing. They do look adorable when they sit up on haunches with their long digging fingers held like a begging dog. And I love the silliness of otherwise sensible people pretending to take the prediction of a large rodent seriously on Groundhog Day. Any excuse, no matter how minor or humorous, to celebrate the end of January and the midpoint of winter is a good thing. But in recent years I've discovered that, like the day in their eponymous movie, groundhogs keep coming back—and that is not so cute! Some creatures who choose to share my backyard contribute to the environment. Birds may feast on some of my raspberries and blueberries. But they add song and color, and sometimes sow seeds for attractive plants. Squirrels drive me crazy when they steal tulip bulbs and not-yet-ripe pears, but they are landscapers, replenishing nature by planting seeds and trees.

I have yet to learn how groundhogs do anything positive for nature or anyone but themselves. They tunnel into my garden and, not waiting until a plant produces, they eat leaf, stem and all so we can never harvest a zucchini or broccoli. While an occasional rabbit may enjoy a salad lunch, he'll leave some for me. The groundhog doesn't share; he eats down to the soil, demolishing the plant. We are not mean landlords. By the back fence there's a big black walnut stump—left when the tree fell during the microburst of 2006—under which groundhogs and even raccoons have enjoyed residing. As long as they stay out of my vegetable garden they are welcome there.

One Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring. The previous fall, a groundhog had repeatedly visited our backyard, and I believed he overwintered under the stump. I looked out our back window on February 2nd and wondered what opinion our groundhog held. But I saw no sign of our woodchuck that first week of February. A snowstorm on February 8th left a white cover over all. Somewhere, shortly after it snowed, footprints appeared across the lawn, terminating by the stump. Ah ha! Chucky was awake! It was only when all the snow finally exposed the grass two and a half weeks later, that I noticed a new hole near the house, by the entrance steps to the sunroom. Had Chucky moved from the stump to the warmer quarters of the crawl space under the sunroom? Or was this a relative who had hibernated in that comfortable den?

"Either way," said my husband Adel, "our house is not a wildlife habitat. He's got to go! He can have all of the outdoors but not our sunroom."

In the summer we had evicted a groundhog from that very burrow. Adel had then constructed a network of slats to cover the narrow strip of soil between the house and the driveway. We'd stuffed rocks in the groundhog's tunnels and pegged down chicken wire over where my beautiful irises and a peony should have grown, had the tenant not dug them up. As a last resort, we threw several ounces of mothballs into the crawl space before screening in the small access opening. That was a big mistake! Who would have imagined that the entire house would reek of camphor? But each morning when we awoke we were overwhelmed by the odor. Finally I had put on my grubbiest clothes and removed the screen covering the crawl space "window." I crawled in and picked up every last mothball. Once I replaced the screen, we opened windows all over the house and burned incense. But I hadn't figured out how to advertise "No Vacancy" to the groundhog grapevine, because as spring approached, we had a new tenant. We might as well have posted:

"Cozy Burrow Available. Beautiful neighborhood amid lush vegetable gardens. The perfect home for your growing family. Ready to move in–you need only dig your own tunnels."

"That does it!" said Adel. "We'll borrow the trap!"

It is illegal to transport wild animals in New Jersey. You are allowed to kill them, but not move them. But as a vegetarian, I don't believe in killing animals to eat. I certainly wouldn't kill any because they annoy me. So, yeah, we procured a Havahart trap from our neighbors, bated it with broccoli and cabbage and, after dark positioned it by the hole, blocking it on the sides. After a full day, the trap remained empty. Then we discovered that one corner of the screen over the crawl space window had been pushed free. Our groundhog had escaped. Adel added a dozen staples to the screen and we plotted to wait until evening to set the trap again. But in the early afternoon, I looked out our kitchen window to see a groundhog calmly grazing on the lawn. I went out the front door, tiptoed down the driveway and entered the lawn from behind the groundhog. He saw me and made a beeline for the hole. I set the trap in place and framed it with bricks. Three hours later I had a prisoner. I found Chucky (or perhaps Woodchick?) to be adorable and feisty. When I touched the handle of the trap he lunged at me, showing two prominent front teeth.

"I don't blame you," I said. "But we'll relocate you to a lovely wild area."

Chucky was not consoled. He repeatedly examined each corner of the trap hoping for an opening that wasn't there. We had plans to go out to Sussex the next day, so bringing our groundhog there was an obvious solution. We moved the trap to the garage and, expecting freezing temperatures over night, covered it with a tarp. The next morning I brought the trap back out and offered our captive more food, but breakfast was not the first item on his agenda. First he re-examined every inch of the cage. Only when he had despaired of escape did he sit down to a meal. When Adel went to get the trap to load into our car, he found another groundhog standing by the hole, looking disconsolately at the captive.

"Oh, no! We're splitting up a family!" I said. But there was only one trap. One groundhog would have to go to Sussex and the mate would have to wait. My research had informed me that groundhogs mate in March. It was March 1st. We'd definitely cut their honeymoon short. Maybe they hadn't started a family yet. Maybe the "woodchuck" was slightly pregnant. With a gestation period of 31 to 32 days, we were confident that we wouldn't be leaving infants unattended. After all, these two had only awakened from hibernation in the last few weeks. We delivered groundhog number one to a beautiful wooded area near a stream, which flowed into a meadow. He or she scampered off to explore. Back home, we again bated the trap and placed it by the hole after dark. By 10:00 AM the trap was still empty; groundhogs are not early risers. But when we looked at 10:30, there was a new, dejected occupant. This one was much more docile, causing us to speculate that the first may well have been a pregnant female. We took this one for a ride to a not-nearly-as-far wild area so Chucky could find a new home.

I wished them both well while feeling guilty for being a home wrecker. Landlords are sometimes required to make perturbing decisions. But our groundhog woes had not ended. An ad must have circulated within the local groundhog population. Why else would I find a small groundhog happily grazing under our pear tree about two months after we evicted the pair? Once our garden began growing, this young groundhog refused to respect our boundaries and cleverly dug three separate holes under the garden fence from the edge of the driveway. The thief cleaned us out, eating soy and bush bean plants as well as kale, lettuce and snap peas. We retaliated by filling in the holes and placing a long metal ladder against the fence. That, and the fact that there was nothing left to eat, deterred him for a while. During that time, neighbors up the block reported his visits to their backyards.

"But he always heads back in your direction," Sander told us.

Shortly afterwards the young groundhog reappeared in our garden. This time he dug from the other side, right under the garden gate. Our lettuce and kale were making a comeback; I had to do something to protect our crop. Still regarding Junior as a neophyte, I baited the trap with broccoli and kale, placed it outside the garden fence and covered it with branches. But our groundhog was not buying. Supposing him to live under the stump, I left the baited trap on the lawn, planning to place it by the stump after he went in for the night. That evening at 10:15 I grabbed a flashlight, opened the back door – and jumped back. Three kitten-sized black and white balls of fur scattered as a larger, striped animal ran off to the right. I slammed the door shut before they decided to act on their fear.

"It's your sign," said my husband. "You invited them."

He was referring to the sign that proclaimed our backyard to be a "Certified Wildlife Habitat." Though it had been certified five years previously, I had only recently hung the sign on the back door. Obviously, our wildlife can read. To my surprise, the next day, I found a very dejected looking raccoon in the trap on the lawn. She was curled up with her head on the ground to one side. I opened the trap and she quickly scampered off. Next night, after re-baiting the trap, I set it by the stump opening. What it caught that night – or more likely, early the next morning, was calling "Wo–wo-wo-wo." My husband and I both went back to find we'd trapped a very young raccoon.

"Poor baby," I said and released him.

"We'll that's official," I told my husband. "Raccoons live under the stump; the groundhog does not. I have to set the trap someplace else."

Later that day an idea struck me. Our garden fence is just plastic mesh. I forced the trap under the fabric of the gate and placed rocks to guard all openings except the trap entrance—seemingly an open invitation into our garden. And it worked! At 3:30 in the afternoon I found the trap closed and inside was a cat-sized groundhog. I would have said, "Poor baby" to him, but I knew him to be a thief. We gave him his independence, out of our yard, on July Fourth. Apparently, the county reservation we took him to was not far enough because two weeks later he, or another youngster, was back.

"Come and look at this!" My husband called me to the kitchen window. He pointed at the yard. "Look, he's sitting up like a dog." Not so little any more, he looked very independent, and quite cute. In his begging pose, it was easier to think of him as a prairie dog than the groundhog I knew him to be. So whose garden is it? I view humans as just one part of an ecosystem. I believe we should live with wildlife. I just wish the groundhog would choose to dine on the clover of the lawn or, if he must invade my garden, learn to share. The battle is never over.

~~~

Author Bio: Nancy-Jo Taiani lives in New Jersey with her husband. Following a career in Information Technology, Ms. Taiani worked with 2nd graders in a local public school for seven years. She has long been a member of Studio Montclair and of the Montclair Write Group, which meets in the Montclair main library.

Nancy-Jo Taiani is a representational artist, concentrating on landscapes and portraits. She has painted children's murals for private clients and has exhibited her watercolor and acrylic paintings in various galleries. She is also an activist for peace, human rights, and the environment.

Nancy's acrylic and watercolor paintings have been exhibited in various venues. In addition to her illustrated children's book, MishMish: Spy Cat, she has written A Night of Power: A Ramadan Story, an illustrated story to introduce 7 to 10 year-olds to the Muslim holy month.

Her website for "A Night of Power" is https://sites.google.com/site/aramadanstory. Her memoir, Healing Father John - A Journey of Contrariness, Connection and Change tells of her relationship with a charismatic and capricious priest who served in St. Peter Claver Church in Montclair.

In her spare time not devoted to advocating for peace, justice and the environment, Ms. Taiani she enjoys painting, gardening, and hiking.

Ms. Taiani's website is www.nancytaiani.com.

White Gloves

By Ethel Lee-Miller

The suburban town on Long Island where I grew up was just thirty-seven miles from New York City. As long as I can remember I'd heard stories of Fifth Avenue fashion, with a combination of clichés that translated in my mind to "uptown sophistication." My upbringing was definitely not uptown, but I leaned toward uptown pretentiousness. I couldn't wait to leave Long Island and live in New York City.

I deliberately chose Wagner College on Staten Island as a sort of halfway house to the Big Apple. Just a five-cent ferry ride to the glamour of Manhattan.

After graduation in 1969 I interviewed for a summer job with American Youth Hostels at their national office. Their office was, yes, in the Big Apple. The address was not upper Fifth Avenue; it was, in fact, quite downtown. But to me, the city was the city.

I knew a bit of formality in my interview clothes would give me an edge. High school home economics had drummed into young ladies that those first thirty seconds were vital to the first impression.

Dressing with care, I chose a tailored and lined suit in a subtle plaid. Stockings. Yes, one wore stockings, even in summer. It was sweaty but it was what one did. I wore my beige pumps, attractive with one-inch heels, in no way flashy. Simple but tasteful jewelry, a gold circle pin, my graduation ring, and the thin gold chain with my cherished Phi Beta Kappa pendent. This was no slouch they would be hiring. My outfit was pulled together with the symbol of good breeding—white gloves.

A small digression here. Over the course of history, gloves have served as utilitarian and fashion statements. During the 17th century, correct etiquette was established for both men and women for the wearing of gloves. In the 19th century, social codes included gloves for church and special events, especially for women.

I learned the following throughout childhood:

White gloves meant you were socially correct.

White gloves showed you knew (or your mother knew) what was proper.

White gloves meant you accepted the social standards that helped define your role as female.

They also gave an edge in a religious sense. White gloves were worn by girls and women to church. Aha! God knew and approved of uptown etiquette. Just as no boy would be seriously involved with a girl who wasn't dressed properly, God might also send a memo to St. Peter to give a thumbs-down at the Pearly Gates if one didn't have on those white gloves.

Do you younger women and men see the barriers we had to dismantle?

There I was, dressed and ready. Young, confident, in with society and God. Five cents got me on the ferry and across New York City Harbor to Whitehall Street. A short subway ride, a walk of a few blocks to the address. Then up two flights of stairs into a long, narrow, very crowded, and what looked like a very busy office. A woman in jeans and a T-shirt looked me up and down. I believe I preened. I knew I looked good.

"I'm here for the interview as secretary/file clerk."

"Yeah, sure—come on in." She led me along a hallway where stacks of folders were piled high on chairs. Yes, they needed someone with my organizational skills. We passed a bulletin board with signs that said, "Give peace a chance," "Make love, not war," and "Don't trust the man, man." If you are of a certain age you might remember how radical this was in the mid-1960s. I was just coming to it in 1969.

"Callie, look who's here. It's Ms. Erickson, for the interview." My education, which I thought had culminated with my degree in June, was about to begin. Callie was a wonder. Brilliant auburn hair cascaded down to her waist. Her skin, which was very white, alabaster, translucent, was a showcase for a tattoo of a snake along her right arm. The snake emerged from her collarbone, curving down her shoulder and down to where its tongue encircled her very thin wrist.

Callie stopped typing and turned around. I realized she was not wearing a bra. I was so mesmerized by her body art and her breasts, I almost forgot to stick out my gloved hand to greet her. She stood up to reach for my hand and burst out laughing. My reaction was stunned silence. Not because she laughed at me. But she was wearing very short shorts and was barefoot.

So picture this. Miss Suburban Girl Scout meets Woodstock Flower Child. It was a cultural clash fraught with possibilities. Uptown pretentions meet downtown reality. I felt uncomfortable, with a flash of excitement. Something new was happening here. But what it was eluded me. "Age of Aquarius" flashed through my mind. I knew "Hair" had opened in New York and that people onstage were completely naked, but I had not come near anything like that, or this.

"Let me call in my assistant," Callie said. "Oh, Starshine." Starshine?

This vision of flowers drifted in accompanied by the sweet scent of what I took to be marijuana. Starshine was also barefoot. I hope they mop the floors at night. She was clad in a long, filmy skirt and gauzy, flowery top that had pearly snaps down the front. Her hair was a wild mass of yellow, blue, and violet curls. Little bracelets of bells nestled around her ankles.

"Starshine, we need to orient Ethel." Callie leaned back in her chair and gave me another once-over. Not dismissive, simply interested. "First of all. There's no a/c here so you might want take off your . . . suit jacket."

Starshine glided over to help me. Jacket off, she moved me to a squatting position and bent down and took off my shoes! Starshine looked at my hands. "You also need to take off those gloves . . . and give them to me." I figured she didn't have her own pair and there was some social function she needed them for. I graciously gave them to her.

"And the stockings—off."

I was flabbergasted. "But . . . but, they're part of my outfit. I couldn't go out without them. It would be like . . . not wearing any underwear."

Callie and Starshine looked at each other and smiled, serene smiles with a hint of . . . something else.

"Well," said Starshine, "neither are we." And she unsnapped those darling little pearly buttons in the blink of a slightly stoned eye.

Decades of white-glove indoctrination vanished. I was home!

Later that morning I was color-coding stacks of folders in the hall. My bare feet easily propelled me along the floor on my very own wheeled office chair. As I rolled past the bulletin board I saw my white gloves pinned up smack in the middle.

The left-hand glove had all the digits but the middle one folded under, next to a note, "Question Authority."

The right-hand glove had three digits folded down leaving the other two in a peace sign. Next to it was another new note, "Namaste, Ethel."

~~~

Author Bio: Ethel Lee-Miller continues her love affair... with words, resulting in two published books, inclusion in several anthologies, writing workshop seminars, and 100s of blog essays, facebook posts, and a growing number of tweets.

Since moving to Tucson in 2009, she has been active in the AZ writing and storytelling community with membership in the Society of Southwestern Authors, Arizona Authors Association, Story Circle Network, Tellers of Tales, Odyssey Storytelling, and joining and forming writing groups–the Eastside Writing Room, Writers Lunch and Writers Read. She has expanded her passion to editing and writing coaching for emerging authors

Keeping in touch with the Write Group, she still offers the guest room for traveling writers.

Contact: https://etheleemiller.com

Dear Papa

By Peggy La Vake

On my kitchen table sits an open box of letters, scores of them, written in an elegant script. My hand gently brushes the paper, my fingertips feeling the grainy texture. With the distinct odor of dust and ink, they are scented with age and history.

In 1975, the letters were discovered and rescued by my brother Roger from the attic of the Minneapolis home of my paternal grandparents shortly after my grandfather's death. Roger brought them to his home in Nevada, where they sat untouched until 2007. The letters are ornately scripted and dated from Berlin, 1906-1908, and because of my musical background, were entrusted to me, now the appointed guardian of a family treasure.

It is a Friday evening and three musician friends will be arriving soon to join me in playing string quartets. Before their arrival, I read through some letters hoping to find just the right one.

Addressed to Doctor Conlin, my great-grandfather, they are written by Martha, his wife, and my grandmother Benita, his daughter. They tell of their journey from Minneapolis to Berlin, in search of an outstanding musical education for Benita, at 21 an aspiring concert pianist. Choosing one letter, I place it at the base of my music stand.

Within a few minutes my musician friends are making their way to my second-floor apartment. The heavy, uneven rhythm of their feet on the stairway and the echo of their melodic chatter tells me they have all arrived at the same time and will at any moment spill through my door.

My spacious living room is prepared as usual to house a string quartet, with four straight-backed chairs, two towering halogen lamps, and four music stands all positioned in the shape of a crooked half-moon. I chose this apartment because of the large living room and the abundance of light that pours through the windows. In the daytime hours, the sunlight fills the space, and the room, with its white wicker furniture and blue throw pillows, resembles a cozy porch on a weatherworn Nantucket beach house. On the radiator, a wicker basket overflows with quartet music. Some of the music is new, while other sets are fragile and musty with age, tattered remnants of my student days. They are filled with cryptic notes and markings and it occurs to me that this very same music sat before me forty years ago. Only then I had never played it or experienced its beauty. And now it is like greeting a tireless old friend.

At my front door, Dee, Sheryl and Rona enter the kitchen and one by one they remove their shoes and slide playfully across the floor to settle in the living room. Their faces are luminous with warmth and affection, open smiles that tell me we are all here for the same reason, truly connected. It takes time and effort to get four busy adults together on the same day at the same time and in the same place. These women are professional musicians and teachers with children and families. With only myself to care for, I have more free time on my hands to act as the choreographer of these musical evenings. I am always amazed when the slippery pieces of this intricate people puzzle fall into place and we are together making music.

The echo of resonant strings begins to fill the air as we open our cases and begin to tune our instruments. My viola sits on my chair as I stand by the wicker basket, waiting to hear the group's decision. The choices we have are abundant and luscious. Rona suggests, in her distinct and soft Scottish lilt, ''How about a jolly Haydn quartet?" We all agree at once "Yes, jolly Haydn it is," and I place the worn parts on each music stand. We spend a few minutes comparing our days, shedding the day's stressors and preparing for an entry into a magical world. My grandmother's letter still sits at my feet. "Ladies," I say, "please indulge me for a moment. Listen closely." The room falls silent, and with curiosity, all eyes are on me.

"Dear Papa" I read, "Oh me, oh my, I never was so busy in my life. Time flies so that a week is past before I begin to wonder if tomorrow is Tuesday. I no sooner get a lesson prepared than I take it and have another to prepare in both piano and German.

"I have already begun studying voice and am not darning socks for it either. I am paying six marks, just half of what my teacher charges her other pupils. She seems to think I will be able to sing a little song some day and sing it right.

"Yesterday morning while I was practicing piano with the window open, a woman across the court sent up to have me shut it. I did of course, but just then someone began on the worse violin you could imagine in the house next to ours and they kept up all morning much to my delight.

"Don't think for a moment that I am homesick. I have no time for anything so trivial.

"Write soon too,

"Your Loving Daughter,

"Benita"

I can barely catch my breath as the image of Benita hangs in the air, suspended like faded pastel gauze. I have seen old photographs of her as a young woman, so she is easily imagined. A delicate silhouette sitting next to me, the edges of her form give off a vibration so subtle it is like a visible puff of vapor, or the transparent waves that drift upward from a source of heat, distorting her image. Benita is dressed in a white high-necked blouse with a trim of delicate lace that lightly brushes her chin. Her heavy brown skirt reaches the floor and her waist is belted tightly with a plain gray sash. Black buttoned boots peek primly out from below her hemline. Her hair and complexion are much like mine were as a young woman. And although our styles are worlds apart, I can see the resemblance clearly. She is fair, with dark blond hair, swept tightly into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. A few rebellious strands have escaped and frame her flushed and youthful face. Tiny beads of sweat linger on her upper lip and her eyes are moist and bright. I feel her strong presence next to me. Benita is a clear vision in my mind, and I sense that the others feel her too.

The room remains silent, as if we are all somehow aware of Benita's presence. There is no discussion, only one comment from Dee, simply put: "Awesome," she says. I put this letter aside as the quartet music is opened and the rustling of pages signals the unspoken need to play.

We begin, and Benita lingers beside me. I am sure I can feel a hint of her body warmth and the acrid yet sweet smell of a young woman's sweat under heavy, cumbersome clothing. We play quartets written by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Time dissolves and even with the physical fatigue my blood is surging. I am energized and euphoric. It is getting close to 11 p.m. and the group pack their instruments in slow motion, an obvious reluctance to see the evening end. We chat about the music we've played, plan for our next meeting and say our goodbyes. We are standing taller, our faces flushed from exertion, and I marvel at the ability music has to heal and transform. The shoes go on and one by one my trio of friends make their way down the stairs. This session has left me feeling solid and robust. Turning to face our cockeyed rehearsal space, Benita's spirit still hovering, I feel the remnants of body heat and a powerful sense that my grandmother and I are here together.

She is still only 21 years old, and knows nothing of her future and the large part music will play throughout her long life. After a successful piano debut in Berlin, she will concertize and eventually return to Minneapolis to open a piano studio with a thriving class of students. She will marry a doctor, Rae Thornton La Vake, himself a violinist and child prodigy who, were it not for a case of the mumps, would have performed as a soloist in Carnegie Hall at the age of 12. Their lives will be abundant in music and art as they entertain and house all the musicians and conductors appearing as guests with the Minneapolis Symphony. Their parlor will contain two grand pianos, and see a constant ebb and flow of artists who share their passion and exquisite life style. They will have one son, my Father, who turns away from medicine and music and becomes an aviation pioneer. And I am the granddaughter blessed with the musical genes.

Although separated by two generations, I can only think that Benita's history is quite similar to mine. Or mine to hers.

In my early twenties, a New York Times clutched tightly in my hands, I wander the streets of Manhattan in search of an appropriate studio in which to live. I am looking up, spellbound by the sight of a stately twelve-story building on West End Avenue, Number 885. The building is pre-World War II, and its ornate entrance is carefully guarded by a distinguished uniformed doorman. His epaulets and brilliant coat buttons reflect the sun into my eyes as he greets me and gallantly directs me to the twelfth floor. I am greeted at the elevator by the owner, Ellen Dienes, a petite, eccentric Frenchwoman and painter. The tiny studio for rent sits hidden at the end of her living room and is sparsely furnished with a small refrigerator, a hot plate, a bed and a giant claw-foot tub. To me it is perfection. Outside the door of this studio, the apartment's living room is enormous and filled with unfinished paintings and the distinct and pungent odor of oil paint. For all I know this studio might have been much like Benita's flat in Berlin. Perhaps she felt as I did. After all, we were two young women in a big city with the world of music at our feet. My new landlady embraces me. The rent is $90 a month and, much like Benita, my own dear Papa sends me a monthly check, content that I am happy and safe in a city he finds highly suspicious in the 1960s.

With other young musicians, I ride the No.104 bus north on Broadway to the Manhattan School of Music. I study viola and chamber music with Lillian Fuchs, a small-statured giant of a woman, who manages to bring out the very best in all her students and to mother us as well. Much like Benita, who has her mother at her side, I too have mothers by my side, as Miss Fuchs and Miss Dienes silently watch over me.

I am accepted into the National Orchestral Association, an advanced student orchestra, and awed to be a member of a group that performs in Carnegie Hall. On free evenings working as an usher at the Metropolitan Museum's Grace Rainey Auditorium, I witness all the musical greats of the time, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogin, the young Julliard and Guarneri string quartets. Much like Benita, only 60 years later, I have lived my own musical dream.

My living room is now back in order, and I notice that it is getting cooler, as if a breeze has blown through and the invisible molecules that were Benita's image have scattered. I hear the silence, almost deafening after such an evening of music. But I am not alone. I sit on the floor and scatter the letters around. I am wondering if Benita Conlin has transcended time and space to join me when I finally have clarity and hindsight to embrace the deep connection and profound importance of blood, genes and memories handed down in a box of letters.

~~~

Author Bio: Peggy La Vake has been writing since she was an undergraduate working toward a degree in English Literature, but didn't begin penning personal essays until an ugly life experience inspired her. Her first publication, a quirky account of the theft, recovery and restoration of her beloved VW Bug, appeared as the cover story in the trade magazine Autoist today. Since then, she has published work at the AARP website, Arthritis today, Eckhart Tolle's newsletter, Repartee, (a magazine for retired airline pilots), and in a newsletter of the International Woman's Pilot Association. Locally, Peggy's essays have won a Director's Award, two wins and three honorable mentions in the annual Essex County (NJ) Legacies writing contest.

She credits her friend and mentor, Lisa Romeo, with encouraging her to continue developing her writing craft and sending her work out.

Peggy holds a Master's Degree in viola performance from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.

Off to War

By Sara Giere

Everything had a uniform dampness that soggy night in Tampa, when we pulled up to the MacDill Air Force Base flight line.

I could hear a big plane revving up. "That's our taxi, Old Shaky," Bernard said, pointing to the C-124 transport. "But don't worry honey. Each of those four engines generates about 3,800 horse power, so you can be sure we'll get there in one piece." The behemoth was waiting to transport my husband — Bernard Giere, and the other pilots of the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron — to the South Vietnamese Air Force Base at Cam Ranh Bay on the South China Sea. (The Vietnam War was new then, and hadn't worn itself out yet.)

These F4-C Phantom fighter pilots of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing were to be the first men to update the old airstrip on the sand, into a modern air base. The runways were being laid, barriers being created to protect the aircraft, and the Quonset huts were dressing up for pilots' quarters. For eight years, until the conflict ended, the base would serve as a staging point for planes flying missions in South and North Vietnam. But that night, Bernard and I didn't question how long the war would last; that would come later.

The pilots had twenty minutes before take-off when we ducked into the Flight Line Café. The juke box was booming out the Wee Five Seekers rendition of I Woke Up This Mornin' and all the tables were taken up with men and their wives. I felt uncomfortably adrift on the waves of all that smoke. The Colonel had passed out cigars that morning, and I chuckled to myself when I saw a few non-smokers playing at it. Those fighter pilots must have thought their cigars signified something. Perhaps notoriety for being in the first unit to arrive at Cam Ranh Bay?

All of these flyers, most of whom hadn't seen thirty yet, were going to test their mettle at last. After a year at Mac Dill Air Force Base in Tampa, the men had become a tight group, where something as casual as bestowing nicknames, took on a greater significance. In pilot training, Bernard's flight instructor sat with his trainees around him. When he called on 24-year-old Giere, he said, "Bernard? Huh. That name will get in the way. How 'bout Ben?" The name stuck.

Jim and Sandy, sitting next to the window, motioned for us to join them. The rain drummed on outside as we made our way over, past couples leaning across tables, holding hands and speaking in low tones as if sharing secrets. I was relieved to sit down.

When Jim said, "Benjo, this is the best stogie I've ever had," I remembered I'd left Bernard's in the car. When I offered to go get it, he held me back with a smile and quipped, "Forget it, honey. I'll get it later."

Jim passed his cigar over. "Take a drag of this," he insisted, and Ben accepted. Jim was his co-pilot, or GIB-- Guy in Back Seat-- as they were called then. Their friendship had been cemented the year before, when they were deployed to Okinawa for five months.

From the way Jim and Bernard talked, the three-day ride over was going to be the worst part of their twelve-months' tour. No first class or stewardesses on Old Shaky. And please, ladies, the Colonel says not to divulge our destination to anyone. It's a military secret. You're supposed to say, "He's been deployed to Southeast Asia." And oh yes, Sandy and I each had a 3- year old daughter to keep us company, and Lisa and Christy are to be big sisters in six months' time. "I'm going to call my son, Jamie," Jim said.

"How can you be so sure it will be a boy?" I asked him, thinking, how presumptuous!

"Sandy and I worked it out," he boasted. "Didn't we Sandy?"

I thought it was impossible that a baby's sex could be worked out in advance. There were four of us squadron wives who were pregnant, and the silly needle on a string game was the only predictor we ever talked about, and that was only a fortune teller's ploy. I turned to Sandy for their secret. "I'll tell you later," she mouthed.

After hearing Jim's announcement, Ben's face lit up with a grin. "I have no preference, really. As long as it's healthy." He put his hand around my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. That sweet touch radiated through me, and filled me with pride, for I knew he was telling the truth. Had there ever been a more thoughtful husband?

I could see the airmen out by the plane loading the duffle-bags, their silhouettes wavy against the window pane. Ten minutes to go.

Our table conversation seemed inconsequential – lost words in the air. I prattled on and on, merely dancing around The Fear: the fear of separation, of widowhood, his death, or even his capture. Fear of that day when the blue staff car would pull into my driveway and the base Chaplain and grievance officer would ring the bell.

Recently, this drama happened to my neighbor, Nancy Musgrove. Her husband, Coz Musgrove had been one of the first FACs (Forward Air Controllers) sent to Vietnam. These were the pilots who flew small, commercial type airplanes, over the treetops scouting for targets, and then relayed the positions back to the F4-Phantoms who were above and poised to strike. (Bernard had been to FAC training that summer, even though his position as an F4 pilot was secure; he never refused an opportunity to master something new.) As Nancy arrived home with her three little boys and a trunk full of groceries, she saw that bold, blue staff car in her driveway.

The official word of Coz's death came from the commander's wife, and I took the lead from her — when to visit, and what to bring. I didn't know what to say to Nancy, or if my voice would hold up through a face full of tears, but somehow, I managed to get through it, and the funeral that followed.

After that, the vulnerability of a pilot's life became a reality, an acknowledgement that became part of me, and helped to define my role in this new war experience. My friends from the past, who carried on their civilian lives as if there were no Vietnam, seemed disconnected, foreign. I thought of Bernard as Teddy Roosevelt would have: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . .who strives valiantly.

The café door opened suddenly and the load master waddled in, his boots puddling the linoleum. He grabbed the nearest coffee cup and gulped it.

"Let's go!" he shouted, "Now or never".

Bernard shouldered his bag and we left the café. With his hand around my waist he steered me to a private spot near the runway gate. The rain was lessening, and I could see plainly, the wingtip lights blinking. Too soon, the pilots began peeling away from their wives and heading toward the plane. Bernard pulled me to him." I love you, honey," he said. "Everything's gonna be all right. My mother will fly down to help you when the baby comes."

His embrace never felt as precious to me — strong, familiar, and comforting. I wanted to say something substantial, some words of reassurance for him, but all I could manage was, "Write soon I love you. Be safe."

It was when I squeezed back into the car and noticed the dark shape on the dashboard that I lost it: Oh, oh, I forgot to give him his cigar . . . Oh honey, I'm sorry. While some wives stood watching Old Shaky take-off, I sat in the car groping for something to catch my tears. I drove slowly towards home, not wanting to startle the memory of us together.

I never thought it would be like this. This wasn't a scene where Jane Wyatt sends Gary Cooper off to war. . . Jane, the perfectly-contained military wife. No. That picture didn't fit.

By the end of the week when the realization had set in, I knew this drama wouldn't have a pat ending like the old war movies. I figured that if I could make it until November of 1966, Bernard's date of return, I could survive anything.

~~~

Author Bio: An artist and retired teacher, Sara Giere moved to West Caldwell from Long Island four years ago. She has published essays in the New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor, and is happy to have found the Write Group in Montclair.

Her second book of family memoir is a portrait of her late husband's family, The Gieres, which she tells through recollections, letters, historical documents and photographs.

Sara's soul-mate, Bernie Giere, is the central character whose letters from the Vietnam war zone lend voice and pathos to her memoir. The trials, humor and adventures of her life as an air-force wife, all gather deeper significance as the writing continues.

POETRY

(Return to the Table of Contents)

Aspirations

By Marco E. Navarro

I dream of a poets society, taking one and all in the name

of discourse, from those whose reach is pen and pad to

those who choose to speak their words as an exercise of active

athletic self-expression, writers that sit among ivory towers

listening to sidewalk people watching, while street artist canvas

their visions on concrete walls striving for free verse within academic

form

I dream of a poets society forming a collective, a venue symbolic

and physical similar to the Buddha Bars and Giant Steps of

yesteryears, where combinations and connections form

like the stanzas across the roundtable, in simple, elegant, basic

cliques among city streets and the masses, where ideas collide

with music, banter, food, and drink for inspiration, another

brainstorm session, a wordsmith crafting studio with dim

lighting and open mic to hone technique and presentation,

where failure and sheer dreadfulness are encouraged, for they

makes us grow, makes us humble, makes us strategize and edit,

encourage and motivate, for discipline is poetic and

prophetic

I dream of a poets society, where we grind, where we become

more enlightened, more courageous and daring, more wise and

decide to meet again, adding toasts to progress, to education

from dialogue, to literal literacy, symbolic similes, cultivating contexts,

styles and beats, for each poem has a rhythm, and each rhythm is

Beautiful

~~~

Author Bio: Marco Navarro is a husband, father, traffic engineer, martial artist, sports enthusiast, organizing maven, and poet. He is a fan of poetry featuring wordsmithing, urban landscapes, wit, and sarcasm. A poetry writer since the late 1990's, his works have been published online as well as in print via journals, magazines, and newsletters. His poetry collection, Alliterary Sancocho, may be purchase online.

The Camel's Hump

By Raymond Bremner

Running down a mountain pass

The wind it batters sore

And secret whispers rouse the grass

Of long-forgotten lore.

If only I could reach that place

And rest upon those hills

It may be I could see the face

That all the world fills

The lore once lost would yet be known

And I would see at last

The face that turned my world to stone

And vanished in the past.

(Based upon an ekphrasis of Edward Hopper's oil-on-canvas "The Camel's Hump")

~~~

Author Bio: Raymond Sathyan Dharmakan Bremner is a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His formalist poems have appeared in the Write Group Sampler #2, PoetsOnline.org, Red Wheelbarrow #8, and Red Wheelbarrow #11

Scavenger Girl

By Elizabeth Levine

I.

I discard sacred things

That no longer serve me:

My daughter's ashes

A grey gravel chasm

Churning across the Atlantic

Manacled to my heart.

Every door locks behind me.

II.

I wander through the crimson mangrove swamps,

Searching:

For a poem of instruction,

Lost keys,

Years of Monday mornings

Praying to St. Anthony

To recover previous

States of being,

Like motherhood,

Swallowing my panic like

Black, bitter breakfast blend coffee.

III.

I scrape some red flashing light,

The color of emergency,

To lighten the darkness,

So I don't drown in it,

Divide memory

From stray bullets,

Surrender to the perseveration:

The before and after

Which alters my profile,

Immune to sides, to highlight,

To the fading beauty mark above a left eyelid

Limping with

Sorrow.

The closed eyes of a stillborn

Like a clenched fist full of rage.

IV.

I venture into the unknown

Intersection

Of suicidal and homicidal ideation,

Digging all the way to China

To discover a different way of looking at things.

But I can no longer contextualize

The future tense,

Taking refuge in the subjunctive retreat

Of conjugated verbs in foreign tongues I no longer recognize

Now, I speak only dead languages

Eat Nubian bones,

Reduced to the size and shape of a Pigmy Queen.

I travel through a forest of endless winter

That ends in my spine,

Absent sunlight.

All good dreams

Die on the edge of possibility lost,

The eye of the hurricane between

Love and anger.

V.

I build the emotional shell

Of an endangered sea turtle,

Lying dormant eggs under moonlight,

Burying them in the damp sand,

Lumbering back out to sea,

Knowing I will not return to dry land,

To the melody of weeping,

To the elevated language of poetry,

Which dies on my reptilian tongue.

~~~

Author Bio: Elizabeth Levine, M.A., M.P.H., M.F.A. is a trilingual author and poet and teaches Creative Writing as Adjunct Faculty in the English Department at William Paterson University. Her bilingual poem "Where We Walked" and "After the Drive By" have been published in the Montclair Write Group Sampler. Finishing Line Press will release her first chapbook The Ribbon Around the Bomb for presales in September 2018, with a release date of January 2019. Her second poetry chapbook, God Doesn't Live at Our House Anymore is a collection of poems that directly relates to her identity as a mother before and after her daughter's death. Her third chapbook Ranting deals with social justice issues including immigration, higher education, and criminal justice. Her fourth chapbook Savage is a collection of poems about addiction and mental illness.

Her novel, What Remains is currently being adapted as a play under the title "And She Was There." Levine's novel deals with themes of trauma and resiliency. One of the chapters, "Powerless," takes place in Bolivia was produced as a Selected Short in the first New Jersey Selected Shorts in 2015. "What Is Lost" was selected by the NEMLA International Conference in Toronto, Canada.

Blizzard

By Elissa Goldman

Truth exists within the dominion of reality and facts.

And has survived a thousand years despite

Much butchery and anti-intellectual attacks.

Integrity was barbecued by deplorables in the night

To feast on our fears, much to Fraud's delight!

Avaricious men destroy modern expertise

Through irony, taxes, or a series of Tweets,

Mollifying us with oxy until Democracy's deceased.

Truth's battle for survival is not a simulation or a hoax.

It's gone missing near that great, big, beautiful wall.

And leaves us in the dark to glean the facts from jokes.

Heroes try to lead us out of this downward spiral.

But the truth is, it doesn't matter to most folks.

Apathy is the new banality, haven't you been told?

So, when can I suspend my suspension of disbelief?

Sometimes I feel the fortress of my mind's been breached.

My face unrecognizable, stormy days have taken their toll.

Before the campaign begins, can I get some relief?

A blizzard is predicted, and I might get over my skis.

But then again, I've always managed to avoid the trees.

~~~

Author Bio: Elissa Goldman is a New Jersey native who has been writing fiction and poetry for many years. This is Elissa's first published poem and she is also working on a Young Adult fiction novel. Many moons ago she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a BA in Liberal Arts.

My Texas Medley

By Bing Chang

Bilingual signs everywhere spells historical Texas and Mexico divide.

Cowboy hats, western boots, longhorn symbols embrace Texan pride.

Everything is big here, big dreams; big thoughts and big appetite,

A big multi-nationality melting pot with ethnic stores always in sight.

Coexistence of diverse cultures exhibits vibrancy of humanity.

Southern hospitality with smiles echoes both serenity and vitality.

Zipping through speedy highways, cars sketch steers' stampede.

Hails darting down or twisters' touchdown compel one to heed.

Texas fine arts clinches the eclectic notion of a touch of her heritage.

"Hillbillies turn water into moonshine." Country western music's adage.

Should I become a snowbird migrating to south from northeast chill?

A question to contemplate, and a tough decision to make, still.

~~~

Author Bio: "Bing Chang is a former information technology executive in banking industry. After retirement, he has been pursuing his passion in writing prose to share his innermost thoughts or sentiments. He is also an avid student to learn English language which is not his mother tongue. He enjoys to sculpture an idea by colors and sounds of words in addition to contexts. Bing's spirituality leads him to explore deeply into God's mystery which shapes his worldly perspective.

Bing and his wife share their fondness in traveling and cruising around the world. They also embrace the excitement on the ballroom dancing floor and in table tennis matches. Their lives are utterly enriched by their two grandsons."

The Tastes and Smells of Childhood

By Jackie Sterns

Salt air.

Sharp. Tangy.  A reminder of Island Beach.

Mom and Dad setting up the blanket.

The three of us running toward the sea,

Hot sand burning bare feet.

Plunging into the surf.

Fighting past breakers, reaching the calm.

Floating on our backs, gazing into blue sky.

Taking in the few clouds scuttling across the surface.

Safe adventure. Mom and Dad protecting me from harm.

Garlic. Sweet onions. Fragrant tomatoes.

Mom's spaghetti sauce!

Sitting at the dinner table, sharing news of our days.

Stomach awaiting firm pasta, smoky mushrooms, tender spareribs.

So much of Mom's identity is connected to cooking.

Mother's proud voice saying "Grandma Koplowitz says my sauce is the best!"

Dinner at Grandma Stearns' house.

Chicken soup, steam rising from the bowl.

Dipping in the spoon for that first mouthful.

Matzo balls exuding the flavor of fresh yeasty bread.

Boiled chicken, brought to life by sugary carrots.

Gravy bearing the taste of herbs.

A delicious blanket covering soft mealy potatoes, and tender brisket.

Salivating at the thought of dessert.

Whipped cream light as air. Tart strawberries, sponge cake tasting faintly of vanilla.

Grandma Stearns. Gifts of handmade summer dresses.

Sleepovers when Mom and Dad had date night.

Flowers. Roses carry the rich odor of thick honey.

Daffodils and morning glories, emitting the fresh scent of spring.

Strolling down a sidewalk with my parent, gazing at gardens.

Hearing blooms speak in soft feathery tones.

Carefree days.

Worth revisiting.

~~~

Author Bio: Jackie graduated from William Paterson University and writes articles for Clifton Merchant Magazine. She has been published in the Bloomfield Life Magazine and the Montclair Times. Her poetry and art has appeared in exhibits at the Montclair Library.

Dust From a Green Leaf

By Ermira Mitre

A unique, velvety, green leaf I feel I am,

Sprouting from a seed into a stern body stem,

Embracing days, releasing nights,

Bespangled by mornings' dew light.

Leaf of a tree, growing into a crown canopy,

In the midst of seasons' dreams, while

Breathing air from the harshest winds.

When fall air brushes off my face,

I blush into red, or turn yellow and brown,

Suddenly, as a shadow I slip and fall down.

A dried skeleton laying on the ground,

I turn into dust, I turn into dust,

Oh, dust from the velvety green leaf,

At the end of season that's how I feel.

Oh, from a fallen leaf, oh simply I turn,

Into the grayish dust covering the earth.

Oh, dust is my soul departing the hearth!

~~~

Author bio: "...her infinite soul of courage to dare love life even when it crumbles." Ermira Mitre

Each of us lives life's legend in different ways.

In her diverse life experiences, Ermira has always cherished and been thankful for the opportunities to learn and grow as a human being. As a poet and a spiritualist, she finds peace and inspiration meditating and putting onto paper her insight and reflections of the complex human dimensions.

The sudden loss of Ermira' s first child in 1987, in a tragic accident, caused the whole world to crumble in front of her eyes. However, Ermira chose to awaken her heart through a spiritual journey and to honor life by transcending the pain of loss and unfolding her inner self through kindness, love and care.

Ermira is a bi-lingual poet, writer, translator, and grant writer. She is a published poet in Albania, her country of origin. She has a BA in English Language and NYU Certificate of Achievement on Intergovernmental Relations. She has written poetry, short stories, articles, and scientific papers.

Ermira works at Rutgers University academic libraries. She has also co-authored a scientific case study in USA published in The Journal of Hospital Librarianship.

A Poet in the Age of Alzhemeimers

By J. M. Richardson

I must hurry,

get the words down on the page

before it's gone.

The mind that once defined

the person I believed myself to be,

a shallow image of itself.

Words and phrases that once

raced through my head like rapids

spilling over into verse;

an Amazon waterfall

crashing into the water below

and reflecting the sunlight

in vivid shades

of red, blue, green

and vibrant yellow,

with the occasional purple and gold,

now swimming in a murky river.

Small thoughts swimming in circles

searching for a way out,

briefly breaking the surface

only to disappear again.

The swish of a tail,

the occasional glimpse of an eye or fin,

but little that is concrete

or particularly encouraging.

And so I must hurry,

to get down what I can,

while I can.

Those small flashes of color,

rising up towards heaven;

wings spreading,

feet dangling,

head lifted high,

even if only for a moment.

For now that moment is enough.

If I can just get it all down

Before I go away.

~~~

Author Bio: JM Richardson is a former attorney who authors and edits legal publications. An avid writer of poetry and prose since grade school, JM had a few individual poems in the 80s and 90s, before career and family put her creative writing on the back burner. She's back at it, and having a great time thanks to the help and support of the Montclair Write Group. She has recently completed two volumes of poetry that she is hoping to have published.

Red Sweater

By Margaret Saraco

The patchwork array of the young woman's red black green sweater

Initially caught her eye as she scanned the restaurant anxiously

To see if she and her friend had missed one another.

Nervously glancing at her watch, she saw time inching on

And had so much to attend to.

Yet, she could not help but be drawn back to the young woman

Who sat alone with a half empty bottle of water

Like in silent meditation, her body effortlessly draped

Breasts resting uninhibitedly over the table

Catlike, she acquiesced to the sunlight

Unaware of the bustle and chatter around her, inside

And the traffic out, she was faraway, even wistful

As attracted as she was to the young woman

She could feel the tug of the hurried world she inhabited

How she desired to be that young woman feeling the sunrays,

Lingering in front of the large windowpane.

~~~

Author Bio: Margaret R. Sáraco's writing has recently centered around fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of anthologies, newsletters and journals including, The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems, "Shalom: The Jewish Peace Newsletter," "Free Verse Literary Magazine," Just Bite Me, Passing, and Italians and the Arts. She has been a featured reader in "Welcome the Sabbath Bride with Poetry and Song," "Poetry U: An Evening of Spoken Word," and "The Art and Poetry of Teaching," which she co-produced. Upcoming publications include Peregrine Journal, Jewish Currents Magazine, and Zoetic Press.

A Haiku Date

By D. W. Hirsch

Away from shopping

malls, tree-lined sidewalk leads to

small marquee, bright lights.

Walking hand in hand.

One hand pulls away. Wallet,

cash, paper tickets.

Hot salty smell. Cold

wet plastic cups. Dry cardboard

box, sweet mints. Must haves.

She likes to sit up

front. He prefers last row. Meet

in middle, aisle seats.

Lights. Dark. Talking stops.

Lone phone rings muffled in purse,

pocket. Whisper shushhhhh.

Hands brush in popcorn

tub. Reaching for same kernel,

reach for something more?

Movies, TV shows

they'll never watch. Commercials.

Products they won't buy.

Lights dim darker, sounds

roar louder. Hearts beat faster.

Moment, it begins.

Familiar words scroll.

Theme song marches memories.

Comfortable dark.

White gown princess glares.

Black masked villain growls. Silver

gold robots fumble.

Hidden message. Dare

to dream. Finds friends, foes, force. Flies

forward toward fight.

Bright blades clash red green.

Hero enters. Date almost

forgets he is there.

Encounter garbage

squish. Hero, smuggler, princess

pause, discuss escape.

Princess whispers kiss.

Date waits for explosion to

slurp his drink's last sip.

Blasts, battles, rescue.

Hero pilots ship. Tiny

hole prevents defeat.

Dark. Lights. Credits roll.

Music swells. Action ends.

Reaction begins.

~~~

Author Bio: D.W. Hirsch's vibrant writing career includes articles about Delaware casinos, scrapbook journaling, home improvement projects, drive-in movie theaters and Marshmallow Peeps.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, her life as a single child inspired and fueled her imagination. Her years at Penn State University honed those traits as a Film major with an English Writing minor. As a member of the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW), she is an award-winning author, blogger and journalist. Her main genre is memoir, having tales of her mother and her father independently published. She dabbles in haiku and humorous crime drama fiction.

She indulges her artsy creative side as a Certified Zentangle Teacher and through mixed media and scrapbooking projects. Her current obsessions include coffee cup sleeves, funky hats and PokemonGO. You'll find her writing in a coffeeshop near you.

Blog: www.dwhirsch.com

Twitter: @dianahirsch

Instagram: @dwhirsch

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DWHirschAuthor

Other Stuff

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The Usher

By Joe Del Priore

An usher approaches a man sitting alone in the last row of an auditorium

U—Plenty of room up front, sir.

M—I prefer this seat.

U—Easier to hear up there.

M—That won't be a problem.

U—A talk on DNA splicing can be complex. Miss one word and you're lost.

M—You've studied DNA?

U--No, I repair shoes and bags. This is for extra cash.

M—I see.

U—Our instructions state we must cluster the audience toward the front.

M—I would think in this bright place your job is pretty straight forward.

U—There are complexities. The seats in the back should be empty for latecomers.

M—People in wheelchairs. The blind.

U—You understand my position.

M—Here's a secret. I'm not here for the lecture.

U—No?

M—I'm here to see Prof. Elsa Lindstrom.

U—Why?

M—We dated for almost a year. Then she broke it off.

U—You're carrying a torch.

M—I know I'm probably out of the picture, but there's always a chance.

U—A possibility.

M—Right. We live on hope.

U—How would you read her? Facial expression? Tone? Posture?

M—One look in her eyes will do it.

U—Well, you're easy to spot back here.

M—That's right.

U—Yes, and there's also the fact that you're wearing a rather stunning outfit.

M—Donna Karan. My favorite designer.

U—I assume this sort of wardrobe was a contributing factor in the break up.

M—It did come up in conversation. I assumed she would be more understanding.

U—Well, you can sit there. I'll probably get a lower rating, but it is what it is.

M—If you are fired, I will give you a reference.

U—I appreciate that. Just an opinion here—easy on the blush.

M—I'll take that under consideration.

U—Enjoy the lecture, I guess.

M—So you repair shoes?

U—I don't do high heels.

M—Damn. These heels are killing me.

U—You're suffering for your art.

M—Listen, if I doze off...

U—I'll gently shake you.

M—I prefer an arm squeeze.

U—I'm not comfortable with that.

M—I grasp that. You're under enough pressure.

U—I see the Prof. staring this way.

M—I won't look. Do you sense understanding?

U—I think she's dialing 911.

M—Damn. She just doesn't get me. You do.

U—That's a highly optimistic stance.

M—Optimism is my middle name. A figure of speech. My real middle name is Peaches.

U—Wow. My aunt's middle name is Peaches.

M—Small world.

U—I think this Prof. is the loser here.

M—Thanks. Can I squeeze your shoulder?

U—Okay, but nothing below the deltoid.

M—Understood. Boundaries are so important.

(Voice from behind) Get a room!

U—Some jerk in a wheelchair.

M—Ignore him.

U—You can stop squeezing now.

~~~

Author Bio: Joe Del Priore has been getting published since 1982. He has written for many publications over the years, both print and online. His genres include poetry, essays, journalism, short stories, and theater pieces. The latter have been performed in many venues over the past twenty-five years. He is a member of the Jersey City Writers, the Bergenfield Writers, the Fairlawn Writers, and The Write Group of Montclair. He has seventeen collections of his short stories in the Switchblade Stories series available online. One of his stories was included in the first Write Group Sampler.

His fiction can be described as alternate reality absurdist and dark satire.

My New York

By Rose Blessing

I'm ready.

I settle on a round concrete seat in the thin autumn sunshine and wait with morning commuters for the train. The turning leaves of trees beyond the platform lend a golden shimmer to the blue crispness of the day. Maybe I should have dragged along my heavier jacket; I hope the hoodie that I now hug tightly to myself will be just right later after the morning chill lifts.

The train hoots, clangs and rumbles into earshot and rolls cleanly to a stop in Montclair's Bay Street station. "To New York," the conductors call. The riders port their backpacks, bags and headphones to the worn maroon seats; the train glides on. The bill of the passing conductor's tin-can-round cap dips towards me as an approval of my electronic ticket, which has been brightly blinking fuchsia, purple and green stripes from the face of my phone. Three stations pass by—Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, Watsessing Avenue. Newark comes next.

Sometimes there's a transfer at Newark. I am never certain. I always check the tiny navy type of the printed schedule, but its coding remains obscure to me—is it something about the italics? The conductor on his loudspeaker relieves my uncertainty with an announcement that travelers to New York should now get off at Newark and cross to the track opposite for the train that awaits us. A wave of passengers rising from their seats to change trains confirms that I've heard correctly. The awaiting double-decker train implies big city seriousness with its blue walls, gray seats and updated lighting. I choose an upstairs seat, for the better view. One child chatters; the passengers are otherwise quiet.

As if drawn by the magnet of New York, the train slides past the unexpected openness of New Jersey wetlands and through a silvery spiderweb of converging bridges and freeways, with only a pause at the Secaucus station breaking the flow.

Then a dark ceiling closes in on us. I catch myself holding my breath as the train slows. New York Penn Station. I wake up a fellow passenger, since this is the final stop, then wedge myself into the crowd that filters itself out of the train and through the narrow doorway to the escalator that will deliver passengers to the next level of Penn Station.

I merge into a murky sea of people in knitted caps with pom-poms, baseball caps, rustling nylon jackets, boots—lots of boots. I feel as if I have been tossed into a department store's bin of picked-over bargain clothing. Homeless people and armed security personnel line the walls, surveying the crowd's potential for donations or dangers. Amidst these extreme reminders of the challenges of surviving New York City, the mix of races and faces flows on unchecked through the low-ceilinged corridors.

Through the crush, the city's culture beckons. Posters advertise New York things happening at iconic locations like Madison Square Garden, Times Square, Broadway and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The scents of coffee, oregano, toasting bagels, cinnamon and melted cheese compete with the perfumes of too many people in one underground spot. I make my way to a gleaming escalator.

I burst onto the street and breathe. Ahead of me a couple cavorts, stomping into a flock of pigeons, making them rise en masse in a flutter of wind and wings, only to settle back onto the concrete, a pageantry of gray on gray. There's been a spill of popcorn, a banquet for the birds. I laugh out loud at the couple, who laughs back. Then I remember to put on my street face, the fake one that says I'm here every day, so I'm not to be bothered. A street breeze carries the sidewalk carts' caramelized aromas of sugared nuts and grilled meats. A putrid steam wafts from sidewalk grates.

The day will be all right. So far I'm not lost, but I will take the wrong subway once, and I'll waste time walking a long block east instead of a long block west. I'll spot familiar grand landmarks like the Empire State Building and interact with whimsical art that's new to me. Today this will include a round-headed, top-hatted brass figure the size of a toddler, who clutches a moneybag as he glances up at commuters from a bench seat he's been attached to at an A-line subway station at 14th Street. At the same station I'll also laugh and shiver a little at the brass alligator emerging from a brass sewer, an art piece which reflects, according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, a legend that may have been born from a fragment of truth.

My friend and I will squeeze into spindly chairs at the restaurant we researched on the Yelp website because the place we enjoyed last year has closed. Our lunch will be good: the greenery of the salad fresh, the waiter attentive, the menu trendy enough but not weird; we both like avocado, which is popular now. Afterwards, we will think of the restaurant as "our" restaurant, just as, on my last day trip, a deli on Lexington Avenue became "my" preferred bagel source. In future visits, I will claim more places, as do New Yorkers who fill their small talk with tales of places and experiences they have plucked from the vast catalog of the city and now hug to themselves.

For now, as today's pigeons, buses, cars and pedestrians whisk about me, and skyscrapers reflect gleaming versions of other parts of the city, I simply count myself lucky that the sun's rays now warm my shoulders as I orient myself: am I facing north, south, east or west? New York for me is still mostly novelty, though at the end of my day of wide-eyed sightseeing, I will find my way back to New York Penn Station to catch... "my" train.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

(Return to the Table of Contents)

Please let us know how we did with this book. Your opinion can influence what we do in the future.

Did you enjoy the works in this book?

Did you read the entire book or only selected sections?

If you read only a section or two, which ones did you read?

Would you like to see another edition of the Montclair Write Group Sampler?

Please email your opinions (good or bad) questions and/or answers to hankquense (at) icloud (dot) com

Published Authors

Here is a list of authors published in the Sampler in alphabetical order by genre.

Fiction

Virginia Angelovich

Keith Biesiada

Ron Bremner

Ed Charlton

Valerie Cruz

Elaine Durbach

Donna O'Donnell Figurski

Diane Hirsch

Debby Huvaere

Mark Lance

Martha Moffett

John Piccoli

J. M. Richardson

Margaret Saraco

Barry Samuels

Memoir

Sara Giere

Peggy La Vake

Ethel Lee-Miller

Nancy Taiani

Poetry

Ron Bremner

Bing Chang

Elissa Goldman

D. W. Hirsch

Elizabeth Levine

Ermira Mitre

Marco E. Navarro

J. M. Richardson

Margaret Saraco

Jackie Sterns

Other Stuff

Rose Blessing

Joe Del Priore

About Strange Worlds Publishing

This book is published by Strange Worlds Publishing. Usually, Strange Worlds concentrates exclusively on humorous and satiric fantasy and sci-fi novels from the strange mind of Hank Quense. This Sampler and the previous ones are exceptions.

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About the Write Group

The Write Group is a diverse group of writers with one common goal — to encourage each other to keep writing!

The Write Group believes that:

·If you write you are a writer, whether published yet or not.

·Everyone has at least one good story in them.

·There is at least one person out there who would want to read your story and will like it.

The Write Group welcomes anyone with a serious interest in writing. All meetings and workshops are free.

All of the Write Group's activities are depicted on a mind-map. Too see it or download a copy, use this link:  http://montclairwritegroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/MWG-Overview.pdf

