Ready, Set, Go!

Many thanks to the editors of Sad Girl Review - not for accepting my recent submission (they didn't) - but for putting the call out there in the first place.

Their fall issue will be all handwritten material: to-do lists, diary entries, rough sketches, drafts of poems, doodles. In other words, it will be FUN, as writing and drawing should be.

I love this invitation to play, to leave our advice books on the shelf and to turn the volume down (way down) on the voices in our heads (a teacher's? a relative's? our own?) - the voices that say we're not REAL artists, so why bother.

Four-year-olds don't sit and analyze their brush strokes; they just stick their fingers in the paint and go to town.

What if you do that, too? What if you pick up a pencil, a crayon, a pen, whatever and let words and images flow out? Maybe others will be amazed by your brilliance. (What fun! Go you!) Maybe not. Who cares? The main thing is to have a good time creating something new. To rev up your creative engine. To feel your voice grow stronger with time and lots of practice.

The image above was part of my rejected manuscript (a piece I called "The Hive"), which I adapted from a journal entry. Yes, I'm blushing as I share it. And yes, I prefer acceptances. But hey, I had a blast giving this handwritten stuff a whirl. I have zero training in visual arts (surprise!), but for this challenge, I let the kid in me out of her box, and she had a great run. Good thing, because rumor has it life is fleeting. As long as we're not kicking someone else in the shins, we might as well have some freewheeling times while we're here.

So go for broke, artist/friend - let fly with your creativity. And while you're at it, take a peek at the pieces that were accepted for the Sad Girl Review's issue when it comes out. And enjoy! Why not?

The Winds of Change

I'm honored that Jack Walker Press included a reprint of my lyric essay "Baila Conmigo" (not to be confused with my chapbook of the same title!) in their new anthology Corners: Voices on Change. 

To order a copy of the book, click https://www.powells.com/book/-9781945378034 or https://jackwalkerpress.com/corners-voices-on-change/. Profits will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Earth Justice.

Fall Foliage - Writing by Sherry Wagner & Ron Smith

In celebration of a new season, enjoy this elegant, contemplative poem by Sherry Wagner and the wry, quirky humor of Ron Smith's flash fiction. Ron always cracks us up in class, but behind the laughs are some keen observations about human interactions.

I sat with a leaf today

by Sherry Wagner

I sat with a leaf today.

From my open palm it called silently for my eyes,

and my heart.

Color receded from the leaf’s rim,

leaving bright spots of yellow-red and veins of green.

It seemed to cry out: Be with me as I die.

The sun drew moisture from the leaf.

Brown engulfed its body as edges began to curl

into a goodbye wave.

Flecks of the leaf’s blade fell away.

A light breeze broke tiny nettled veins into pieces

and coaxed them to take flight.

I had witnessed a most beautiful decay.

My palm lay empty, 

loosened skin around thinning fingers,

blue veins beginning to surface.

One day it will be my turn.

About the author: Sherry Wagner is a daughter, sister, mother, and wife. She retired after 35 years with the U.S. Forest Service; she now pursues her deep passion for art.

The Barn
by Ron Smith

The people next door live in a barn. That is, it used to be a barn. It still looks like one, but come closer.

Instead of a wide barn door and rude wooden clasp, there is a small front porch and a wine-red door to the barn, I mean, dwelling. The weather-beaten grey siding has been painted pale yellow. From beside the door and above, on the second floor, cozy windows grin at the world, one with a pot of geraniums out front.

But it is still a barn and different. I am seven and already hostile and suspicious toward what is different. I have something over the kid who lives with his mom and dad in the barn next door. I see him on the street:

"Hey Dick Jones. Why you live in a barn? Are you a critter? Does your mama feed you hay? Do you want to fight?"

He doesn't really want to fight, but quaking, he confront me so I won't think he's chicken.

He shoves me, I shove him. Neither of us want to make a fist. We're kind of doing a clumsy two-step, embracing like lovers.

"You live in a barn, you live in a barn!" I shout, trying to hurt his feelings.

"It was a barn," he says, "But now it's a mansard."

"A what?"

"A mansard, you know, a castle, a Taj Mahal, a White House."

I had seen the White House on TV and this is no White House.

Already perspiring and no longer angry, we release each other.

"Yeah," he continues, "It's as good as yours."

To make a long story short, he gives me a tour. The living room has a red leather ceiling. The walls are fragrant cedar, illuminated beneath translucent skylights. The aroma of heavy, sweet baking drifts from the kitchen. His mother has baked cinnamon rolls.

"Would your friend like a cinnamon roll?" she asks.



About the author: Ron Smith has been playing drums and has been in bands for as long as he can remember. His attempts at songwriting led to prose. He loves reading fiction, history and biography and specializes in writing short fiction. His favorite book is Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. He shares a Woodstock cottage with several houseplants.