The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

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  • Dad

    By Susan Bono

    “That’s quite a sack of rocks you’re carrying, sweetie,” my father’s friend Bruce said more than once during phone calls last year. It was his way of acknowledging how heavily Dad’s poor health, hard-headedness and self-imposed isolation weighed on me. But I also took it as a tribute to Dad’s stubbornness and my strength, too.

    “Dumb as a rock” never made much sense to me, since stone strikes me as having its own unassailable intelligence. Its ability to endure illustrates its genius. I have never believed in the ability to factor equations or compose sonnets was proof of brain power, although I shared with Dad the idea that someone with rocks in his head was lacking in foresight and flexibility. Rocks may be smart, but they are slow. Time measured in stone is something else again.

    There were moments during my dad’s dying that were as slow as serpentine, sandstone, rose quartz, chert. His unseeing eyes were obsidian, and the pauses between breaths were long enough to form fossils. But just after that great wave rolled down from the crown of his head, darkening the air around him so his spirit glowed like a white shell at the bottom of a silty river, a tear slid from beneath his closed eyelids. That’s when the sack of rocks fell empty at my feet and I was surrounded by the tumult of released wings.

    Originally published in The Flashpoints 2008 issue of Tiny Lights. This issue was dedicated to the memory of Susan Bono’s father, Morris N. Zahl (12/24/24-3/22/09), whose light guides Susan.

    Susan Bono, a California-born teacher, freelance editor, and short-form memoirist, has facilitated writing workshops since 1993, helping hundreds of writers find and develop their voices. Her work has appeared online, on stage, in newspapers, on the radio, and in anthologies, including The Write Spot series.

    Susan is the author of “What Have We Here: Essays About Keeping House and Finding Home.”

    From 1995-2015, she edited and published a small press magazine called Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, as well as the online component that included quarterly postings of micro essays and a monthly forum dedicated to craft and process.

    She was on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference for more than a decade and was editor-in-chief of their journal, the Noyo River Review, for eight years. Susan often writes about domestic life set in her small town of Petaluma.

  • Pleiades

    Pleiades: Literature in Context features poetry, fiction, essays.

    The Pleiades Book Review (PBR) is a literary supplement to the magazine featuring both essay reviews and shorter reviews of books released primarily by independent publishers.

    POETRY

    Please send 3-5 poems. We are particularly interested in work that embraces risk and is lyrically inventive. We value work that gives voice to a range of lived experiences and employs a mastery of expression. Work of any length will be considered, and we look forward to reading your most polished poems.

    FICTION

    Pleiades is looking for exceptional fiction, with a focus on well-developed characters, memorable language, provocatively-wrought subject matter, and immersive settings. While there are no length requirements, our journal has limited space, and manuscripts over 12,000 words will especially need to impress. Some stories may be considered for our “online exclusives” category. 

    CREATIVE NONFICTION

    While we enjoy essays and nonfiction in all forms, we are particularly interested in creative nonfiction that gazes out at the world rather than into the self. This is to say nothing against memoir, only that our publishing aesthetic leans towards the exterior in order to balance what see as a focus on memoir and interiority in most literary journals. Essays that perform a weave of the personal with an outward gaze are very welcome. Limit creative nonfiction submissions to 6,000 words. 

    BOOK REVIEWS

    The Pleiades Book Review is now published online. We are open for book review submissions year-round. 

    SUBMIT

    OPEN for submissions from December 1-January 1 and June 1-July 1.

  • What am I ready to let go of?

    By Julie Wilder-Sherman

    Well, what am I going to do with all these masks?

    Store-bought.

    Handmade.

    Giants-themed.

    Kitty cats.

    Bejeweled.

    Blue flowers with yellow backgrounds.

    Yellow flowers with blue backgrounds.

    Plain, monochromatic.

    Busy, colorful.

    Cloth mosaic.

    A quilt of masks.

    Wait!

    That’s it.

    A Quilt. Of. Masks.


    Imagine millions of masks sewn together like the AIDS quilt, honoring what we have survived and what we have lost. A memorial, a tribute and dedication to what we have endured.  

    I’m ready to let go of seeing half-faces. Of asking people to repeat themselves. At nodding to those speaking, pretending to understand. At straining to hear the muffled words behind the shield.

    I’m ready to let go of images of cops and robbers. Of old movies with lepers, their faces partially covered. Of images of Isis terrorists with covered faces holding rifles over captives kneeling in front of them. 

    I’m ready to let go of the anger.

    The anger.

    The anger.

    He did this to our nation. You know who I mean, and I won’t say his name. He prolonged it due to his stupidity and ignorance and narcissism and . . .

    But.

    Back to the masks.

    I’m ready to let go and make peace with the memory of the masks. 

    I’ll bundle them up, put them in a bag and wait. 

    Someone will have the fortitude and talent to weave these cloths together and create something beautiful and meaningful out of something so horrific and ugly.

    San Francisco native Julie Wilder- Sherman is a long-time resident of Petaluma, California. She began reading books at an early age, encouraged by her mother, who would allow her to take books to bed when she was as young as two-years- old. Julie would “read” them until she was ready to go to sleep. To this day, Julie reads every night before turning out the lights.

  • Post-Pandemic Songs and Second Chances

    By Deb Fenwick

    After fifteen months, it’s time to soar. A hundred, a thousand, millions of voices are calling, inviting us to share in a common song. There’s a brilliant bright light and an invitation to hope after all the darkness—to hope and to imagine possibilities. It’s a resonant call to lift off and soar. And it originates from that other place. 

    It’s a place of community where we remember our interconnectedness. It’s a place where there’s an agreement to work together to make something that transcends what one individual, no matter how magnificent, can do on their own. It’s a place where you work toward something with others, and it takes on its own magic. You can see it in a choir’s chorus or a road crew building a bridge. It’s there as an emergency room team saves a life, and as food pantry volunteers pack boxes. It’s that place where energy is transferred and transmuted as it moves from one heart to another. It’s a place where there’s enough joy to lift a spirit, raise a roof, and change the vibration of the planet, all at once. 

    This new phase can be our song. It’s a second chance. After all the darkness of a global pandemic we squint, almost in disbelief, as we lift our faces toward the light. Yes, we’ve made it. Even if we stumbled through losses no one could predict. Even if, some days, we felt like giving up as we struggled with shades drawn. Now, we can choose to work together to lift ourselves and others higher. Because we’ve traveled through dark times, we reflect and remember. We honor those who didn’t make it by vowing to love more, forgive fully and listen deeply. All we have to do is look and listen because there’s harmony present when we look to the light and listen to the music. Thank goodness for every second chance and every song that makes a heart soar. We’ve made it.

    Writing inspired after listening to “Baba Yetu” sung in Swahili by the Stellenbosch University Choir.

    Deb Fenwick is a Chicago-born writer who currently lives in Oak Park, Illinois. After spending nearly thirty years working as an arts educator, school program specialist, youth advocate, and public school administrator, she now finds herself with ample time to read books by her heroes and write every story that was patiently waiting to be told. When she’s not traveling with her heartthrob of a husband or dreaming up wildly impractical adventures with her intrepid, college-age daughter, you’ll find her out in the garden getting muddy with two little pups.   

  • What calls to you? Prompt #582

    It feels to me like we’re coming down from a precipice, a surreal 15 months.

    As we enter this new phase, what calls to you?

    What are you ready to let go of?

    How can you release or lighten the load you carry?

    Prompt inspired from “Where Do You Hang Your Hammock?” by Bella Mahaya Carter.

  • Vigil

    By Kathy Guthormsen

    Vigil

    I hold vigil by the campfire

    Watching dry logs send sparks dancing into the twilight, the west coast version of fireflies

    My prayers winging their way to you

    No more hot tubs under palm trees

    No more drinks with paper umbrellas

    These are distant memories wrapped in protective quilts

    I ask the fire to transform me into smoke that drifts upward

    Tendrils reaching, searching for you

    Forever just out of reach

    I had to let your body go

    But I hold your essence in my still beating heart where I will keep you safe and warm

    As long as I am here

    “Vigil” was created using Prompt #580 on The Write Spot Blog.

    Kathy Guthormsen

    Growing up in Skagit Valley, Washington with its verdant farmland gave Kathy an appreciation for the promise and beauty of nature’s bounty. The Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges and old growth forests offered the magic of things unseen and fostered her fertile imagination. Kathy’s work has been published in The Write Spot: Memories, The Write Spot: Possibilities, The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings from a Pandemic Year. All The Write Spot anthologies are available at Amazon.

    Her Halloween story, “Run,” was published in the Petaluma Argus Courier in October 2020.

    When she isn’t writing, Kathy volunteers at the Bird Rescue Center in Santa Rosa, California, working with and presenting resident raptors as part of their education and outreach program. Walking around with a hawk or an owl on her fist is one of her favorite pastimes.

    Kathy lives in northern California with her husband, one psychotic cat, a small flock of demanding chickens, and a pond full of peaceful koi. She maintains a blog, Kathy G Space, where she occasionally posts essays, short stories, and fairy tales.

  • Pilgrimage Magazine

    Pilgrimage Magazine, founded in 1976, is published twice a year and is based in Pueblo, Colorado. The magazine is dedicated to exploring story, spirit, witness, and place.

    Artist/Writer Guidelines

    Pilgrimage welcomes previously unpublished creative nonfiction, fiction, translation, and poetry year-round via Submittable during our open calls. We also feature one visual artist per issue, with full color artwork on the covers and black and white artwork in the interior. Send what you think might fit, regardless of whether or not it matches an upcoming themed issue.

  • If you could … Prompt #581

    If you could change some things in your history, what would you change?

  • Morning Sign

    By Camille Sherman

    I glided a knife through an avocado this morning and thought, if I open this avocado and it turns out to be perfect, it’s going to be a great day. I opened my little fortune to see the happiest unblemished green smiling up at me. I ate in front of a vase of peony tulips that have opened so wide they look like lotus flowers, weighty enough to bend the top of the pond, but not enough to break it. I consider the crumbs, dust, and flower petals faintly mapping my floor and relish the open day ahead with which to sweep and wash. A fresh to do list will be poured with a second cup of coffee and the prophecy of my lovely day will continue to unfold its sweet pink petals.

    Camille Sherman is a professional opera singer from the Bay Area. She trained at The Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory of music, and served as an Artist in Residence at Pensacola Opera and Portland Opera. She currently lives in Portland, where she continues to sing and develop artistic projects with local artists.

  • Use these words . . . Prompt #580

    Use all of these words or some of these words in a freewrite:

    Hot tub, paper umbrella, palm tree, camp or camping, vigil, convertible, transformation, fire.

    Inspired by “The Oasis This Time, Living and Dying with Water in the West,” by Rebecca Lawton, a fluvial geologist.