April showers bring May flowers…and Women Who Submit publications! Congratulations to all the women who had work published this month.
From “Cliff Side” by Arielle Silver at Jet Fuel Review:
Echoed against the cliff walls of the ragged coastline, the bark of two elephant seals. Aaark, one calls, then moans like the creak of old redwood. Even through closed lids: the periwinkle grey of dawn. I open my eyes at the fifth cheer-up-up from a nameless bird in dialogue with its mate. A moment later, my husband opens his.
From Antonia Crane‘s “Three Financial Dominatrixes on How Their Clients Get Off From Simply Handing Over Cash” at MEL Magazine:
“…a man has to have a lot of power to squander it away on the findom playground: an appendage of BDSM that caters to educated, successful guys who yearn to be coerced into parting with their cash by a draconian mean-girl they will likely never have sex with or even meet in person. It’s an emotionally complicated erotic transaction with real financial consequences — a guilt hangover in the form of blood-curdling debt.”
From Muriel Leung‘s “This Is to Live Several Lives” at Nat. Brut:
Once, when I was very, very young
I studied the curious
lives of bees –
Congratulations to Muriel who was also accepted to the VONA/Voices Workshop!
From “The Cat, the Kid, and the Mom” by Carla Sameth at Entropy:
My son, Raphael, and I were visiting friends in the hills of Echo Park, where I imagined we might take refuge when we fled the scorched earth of our “unblended” family. After more than a year in limbo, I decided we had to move. My wife had moved out, sadly taking my stepdaughter, Raphael’s stepsister, and it was increasingly clear that we were not going to get back together. Our friends were offering us a kitten, which only sort of made sense, given our uncertain living situation.
From Karin Aurino‘s “The Magic Cure” at r.k.v.r.y:
I had to adjust the sharp points under my ass because when I sat down next to him, they poked me in places that made me jump back up. I met him on a school hayride, a thin boy whose sweet eyes and sparse facial hair contradicted a deep voice and big hands. He was two grades older than me and I liked looking up at those tangled brown eyebrows.
From“¿Que importa?” an interview of Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo at Superstition Review:
“When it came to the Arizona poems, the content of each poem dictated its form. They were hard poems to look at. They still scare me today. There are poems in the collection I never read in public because of this, and there are poems I’ve read many times over, and they still make me cry. Playing with form was my only way through that.”
From Rachael Rifkin‘s “Berkeley Flashback: The Crunchy Munchy Man” at California Magazine:
During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a perpetually cheerful older gentleman who wore a white smock and cap while peddling ice cream on the Berkeley campus. He was known as the Crunchy Munchy Man and was a fixture on campus from 1952 to 1968. He often stationed himself outside Sather Gate, and his customers—the students of UC Berkeley—came, it seems, as much for the friendly service and engaging conversation as they did for the ice cream.
From Wendy Hudson‘s “Vegas, Baby!” at Lemon Quarterly:
Her skirt is so short, she has to bend carefully at the knees to deliver
free drinks to her customers. The flashing lights, the ringing, ringing, ringing, and the buzz
of the casino render her almost invisible, a small part of sensory overload.
Congratulations to all!