She’s Got Some Nerve by Janet Fitch
“She’s Got Some Nerve” by Janet Fitch It takes some nerve to be a woman writer. In the Mae West film Night After Night, a coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness! What beautiful diamonds!” West quips, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” The same is always true with writing. Putting our thoughts on the page, making people see the world from our point of view, has nothing to do with being good,...
Last Class by Shawn Lacy
“Last Class” by Shawn Lacy Close your eyes, she says; it won’t hurt you, at least not in this form–tactile prompt, giggles around the room, word association, trust, faith, reliance, friendship, back to trust. Not yet feeling that I have any tips to give to a soul about writing, I decide to go for the “close your eyes and hold out your hands for the object,” a sugar cube. One is often taxed with the reality of...
WAVES: AROHO Retreat 2015 by Kristi Crutchfield Cox
“WAVES: AROHO Retreat 2015” by Kristi Crutchfield Cox That summer, turning forty and evaluating my choices in life, roads taken through Oklahoma, the grey slickness, red crumbling, swelling clay churned in fields, sticking to me, claiming me. I was supposed to live in New York, sidetracked by farms and families, frustrations and illness. Paths changed. Maxine arrived in an email, I held her face in my hands,...
Pollination by Barbara Ann Yoder
“Pollination” by Barbara Ann Yoder Monday after the AROHO retreat I woke up early, came into my kitchen and looked at the sun—almost an eclipse behind bay fog—then tasted the sweet tang of Meyer lemon, the first fruit borne by my four-year-old tree. I watched a spider tiptoe up my bathroom wall, as if she too had just awakened, her legs as delicate as eyelashes, her eyes bulging to take in as much of the...
Writing in Mothertime by Geri Lipschultz
“Writing in Mothertime” by Geri Lipschultz Ours is not the world of mothertime. We don’t live there but some of us write there. Mothertime was never on the map, nor in a book. Unrecordable, its wave undetectable, its mouth knows when to stay closed. Mothertime exists in those moments that come in a flash and then disappear, never to return. You could stitch these moments together, and it would be a quilt of...