Susan Tepper Prompt: Smoke billows thick and black from the chimney of the deserted house. Susan Tepper has been a writer for twenty years. Her sixth book, a fabulist linked-fiction, is set in 19th Century Russia and titled ‘dear Petrov.’
Author: Mom Egg Review
Rick Moody Write a story with no modifiers (I.e., no adjectives, no adverbs). Rick Moody is the award-winning author of twelve books of fiction and memoir, including The Ice Storm, The Black Veil, and Purple America. He has been published in His most recent novel is Hotels of North America. Read more at http://www.rickmoodybooks.com
Lore Segal I want to define habit as that which it is easier to keep doing than to not do. In my twenties I spent a summer with friends in Connecticut, a pain in everybody’s neck because I was never available for the day’s project or outing. I couldn’t, I said, go or do anything till I had done my day’s writing. My particular friend, a man older than I, had the solution. From here on, he said, I was going to get up mornings at seven and sit down and write, or not write as the case might me,…
Minna Dubin – Artist’s Statement: – I am interested in using art to challenge people to think critically about cultural mythologies embedded in our everyday lives. I take familiar things—baseball games or cuddling with a child—and pry them open, look for truths (often my own) that people prefer stay quiet. Writing for me is about careful noticing and reporting back. In March 2015, 2 years after giving birth, I began #MomLists—a guerrilla public art project in the Bay Area, consisting of 150 handwritten lists about my early motherhood experiences—to try to make sense of (and peace with) my new “Mom”…
When I was young, engulfed in a hazy half-life of drug and alcohol- induced close calls, I never imagined that I would live to see children or grandchildren. I could more readily see my spirit sinking away from an emaciated body in a trash bin than looking back on a jumble of lessons learned through years of completions and failures, the continual unveiling of living. Morbid teenaged ruminations have long ago dissolved into a reality-based curiosity. Yes, death will eventually come — there’s no guarantee of a next heartbeat — but more interesting are the infinite unimaginable possibilities of life.…
If only I could find my glasses I could read the morning paper. Now that I have found my spectacles I am unable to read the fine print. Last week, Dr. Evans said the eye drops for the glaucoma and cataracts would help but they have not. This condition is ravishing my body and good looks. I guess surgery will be eminent. If I do, who will care for me? Prepare my meals? Bathe me and accompany me to my appointments until I heal? Getting old isn’t for sissies! I sit at my vanity brushing my long luxurious hair that…
In this lingering light of a late winter against a coral covered sky. I have passed forty-two age my mother was when she died. Once so hot headed I strutted no, left home tearing remnants of my childhood umbilicus to shreds as I rushed into life wearing only the clothes on my back. Free, finally free! Multicolored messenger bag hugging her hips twice the size of my own.…
When you go dancing do persons other than friends ask you to dance? Strangling words pierced lips where love, passion and need once lived. My gray crown counting each subtle cruelty. Long ago in my lover’s arms I convinced myself I was loved, beautiful and desirable. This was love’s magic. I became Cleopatra and Nefertiti bold and courageous. Now, love punished me for aging. With each passing year my lover’s desire and lust becoming closeted. I became the aged woman kept at home while youthful beauty danced in daylight. Survival taught me to kill the love I felt. Learning to…
I lay awake Thoughts of times past The sound of your footsteps pacing The sanctuary of hot coffee Silver of your hair glistening under a single kitchen bulb Silver the age of restless Awakened long before dawn Silver doesn’t need much sleep I ponder your thoughts, away in the unfamiliar Surrounded by darkness, praying for sunshine Fear of the un-known, confused, frustration My wide eyed doe In the middle of traffic, stumbling in the rain Heart pounding Seeking peace, comfort, freedom Hoping, praying that the next set of head lights belong to the familiar And comes to a screeching halt.…
My mother loses the tip of her nose to melanoma. She loses her last sweetheart Art when his daughter forced him to move across the country. She loses her friends one by one as they died. She loses her swim class when I won’t let her walk on the slippery pool walkway. She loses reading novels she loved when her left eye goes blind. She loses her short-term memory to the mini-stroke. She loses walking unaided to scoliosis. She loses her house she’s lived in fifty-eight years when she falls and breaks her hip. At the nursing home she asks…