August 13, 1:00 p.m.: Writers Discuss Writing
Please join Carol Philips for a lively and entertaining discussion about all things writing. You are welcome to bring your questions and concerns you have about your own work, about the process of writing, or about the business of writing.
Structure in Storytelling
Structure – the architecture that supports your story.
Chapbooks Aren’t Just for Poetry
Amy Sayre Batista, Primitivity (fiction), Judith Stanton, Deer Diaries (poetry), Ralph Earle, The Way the Rain Works (poetry), and Ruth Moose Tea (poetry) talked about chapbooks, saying that putting together their collections made the individual pieces and their work in general stronger. What is the history of chapbooks? Chapbooks began popular in the 1600s […]
Purple Prose, Throat Clearing and Info Dump–oh my~
At the April 9, 2022 Slush Pile event, our panel of three editors/agents responded to twelve very interesting entries. Noah Stetzer, a poet and editor at Bull City Press, Tracy Crowe of Tracy Crowe Literary Agency, and Ty Stumpf, a poet, editor, and chair of the English Department at CCCC—all treated us to an […]
“Yellow” by Katelyn Vause
The color of my childhood was yellow. Pine pollen pooled like spilled paint in puddles, sprinkled across windshields and wide lawns. The heat of the southern sun warmed my skin, clumsily clasped grasshopper legs cut my fingertips between trips to the oak tree, where a number two pencil tracked my misadventures. I scattered […]
“Twin Fawns” by Judith Stanton
Two fawns barely old enough to graze slip inside the white taped fence from the shelter of the woods, their spots still bright, their mother on patrol. I look away and sigh at the disorder of my kitchen—last night’s pasta with Italian sausage onions and green peppers took a lot of pots. I […]
“Come Spring” by Patty Cole
I saw a Blue Jay fuss a black snake off its gnarled branch this morning. A fox stole away with one of our chickens last night, and in a cardboard box on the kitchen floor Kitty is nursing her babies. Skull Camp Mountain is bearing again. How the daffodils brighten every open space, […]
“Sonnet 1 ” by Linda Blotzer
I won’t forget the Red-winged Blackbirds’ song They sing, O Conk-er-ree O Conk-er-ree Return of Spring, they flock one million strong I never heard them here before, you see I cannot spy them, though, in trees too high They sat on swaying cattails by our lake O Conk-er-ree, O Conk-er-ree, one cries His […]
“Benediction” by A. Kissel
Wise prophets these old trees, leaves like hands in prayer, shelter to birds and insects, all chirring in plainsong below. They call to every bud, every stone, every blind worm turning earth. Rivers never wonder; day and night stars simply hide and shine. The winds need no reason for when and where they […]
“Fetch” by E.V. Noechel
The sour stinging smell of a new tennis ball. Acrid and headachy. Delicate with newborn fuzz. I toss, you retrieve, dog of my dad dead three days now. I trimmed your mats and fed you Campbells soup for lack of dogfood. You sniffed his body, nudged him, maybe howled. When no one came 12 […]