Three poems by alum Lia Greenwell (poetry, ’13) are featured in The American Literary Review:
Bell
As a girl I was a bell
unstruck,
a perfect vessel
for sound.
Beauty came for me–
opened my hips
Continue reading poems online…
A short story by alum Kim Frank (fiction, ’11) is featured in The American Literary Review:
The idea rose ten stories into the air. Open gondolas shaped like birdcages painted royal blue, canary yellow, purple, and green. Striped canopy roofs. Lit up spokes stretching every direction and all of it changing colors. “A Ferris wheel,” said Jimmy out loud to no one, “is exactly what we need.” He secured the replaced sections of rusted track behind the dragon’s head and climbed back into the train at the top of the roller coaster. The ocean was rough, typical for November. White caps chopped clear out to the horizon line, and high tide rushed up underneath the pier. He surveyed the park: torn leather Scrambler seats, Flying Swings clanked and tangled, an empty cement square where the Orbit once stood, and the faded blue ticket booth where a young Rosalind, with her blond ponytail and sweet sun freckles, had studied for a college entrance exam she’d never take. They’d been in this together, a family business. Third generation. Only Ros was gone, having just left him after twenty years. He rode the coaster to the bottom. Why not a giant Ferris wheel? Biggest on the Jersey Shore. He pulled out his phone to tell her, still doing even that after two months.
Continue reading online…
Alum Joan Frank‘s (fiction, ’96) short story “Biting the Moon” has been published in Ploughshares‘ latest Omnibus collection (purchase a copy here). Following is an excerpt:
A long space of silence came.
Months and months of silence, during which I pretty much gave up on Felix. I assumed the only thing you can assume from silence: the clearest message there can be. And during that silence, also, a series of events, pure happenstance, began to change things. I met, quite by accident, the man I’d later marry. We traveled to France and Italy, and later I moved in with him.
(After that, my books began to appear. About every two or three years. No fame or fortune, but good reviews. I never learned whether Felix knew.)
DATE/TIME: Sunday, November 6, 2016, at 3 pm
LOCATION: Home of Susan Okie; 7941 Deepwell Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817
READERS: Jayne Benjulian (poetry), Barbara Klein Moss (fiction), Marie Pavlicek-Wehrli (poetry), and Cynthia Phoel (fiction)
This event will be a fundraiser for Friends of Writers (FOW) scholarships. Suggested donation is $20, but all are welcome regardless of donations.
RSVP to [email protected] by Oct. 28, 2016, if you plan to attend.
Another DC-area get-together will take place April 2017. Please let Annie Kim (at email address above) know if you are interested in reading then and if you’d like to help organize future events.
Two poems by alum Jennifer Givhan (poetry, ’15) appear at Queen Mob’s Tea House:
Quinceañera
My body he burned ironing the waxpaper
of my breasts glue-gunning me papier-mâché
to the smell of arts & crafts in the recreation room
(every room after the recovery room)
like the cumbias of my girlhood dancefloors
flailing like Sunday Mass Nothing tasted so good
Continue reading online…
A poem and corresponding essay by alum Victoria Chang (poetry, ’05) appear in Poetry Magazine:
Continue reading online…
An essay by alum Shadab Zeesht Hasmi (poetry, ’09) appears at 3 Quarks Daily:
Okra, mint and chilies grow in the back and marigolds and roses in the front yard; they’re in my peripheral vision as I bike and study. The seeing is important. Before my grandmother began teaching me and before I owned a student desk with wheels, I didn’t care much for Math. It’s now a ritual: I roll my desk out of my room to the verandah, bring a stack of paper and ask my grandmother to give me Math problems I can solve. I do this after my daily bike ride in the yard. My grandmother reads the newspaper while I work on equations. Occasionally, she shares a news item of interest. Twice I’ve seen her tear up reading about the brutality of the Indian military in Kashmir. She is a Kashmiri. She folds her spectacles and closes her eyes when I ask her for a story; it’s typically the one from the Quran about Moses in a floating basket, how he chose coals over gold, and the knotting of his tongue. There is too much brutality in the world and not enough words. The knotted tongue resonates with me.
Continue reading online…
A short story by alum Heather Pierce (fiction, ’15) appear at Outlook Springs:
My best friend growing up was Mark Frantin. His name spelled backward is Nitnarf Kram, and that’s what everyone called him.
My brother’s best friend was Chris Minch. His name backward is Hcnim Sirhc. Everyone called him Chris Minch.
Danny, my brother, would walk the mile and a half to school with Chris and their other friends and say things like “Gee, I sure hope no one shoves Chris Minch into the irrigation ditch.” So of course someone would.
Continue reading online…
Two poems by alum Rose McLarney (poetry, ’10) appear at Construction Lit Mag:
Repeal
The abandoned mansion
from the time of Temperance,
what it must have held:
hair bobbed short,
cocktails poured tall,
not just drunkenness
Continue reading online…
A poem by alum Leslie Contreras Schwartz (poetry, ’11) appears at Tinderbox Poetry:
A child, my mother showed me the small closet of her self. She stood there, child thin
Continue reading online…
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