The WWS members included in this post published their work in amazing places during the month of October. I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available) or a blurb (if available) if the publication is a book, along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Please join me in celebrating our members who published in October!
Congratulations to Erica W Jamieson, whose short story “All That Remains of Etta” appeared in the anthology Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine, published by Brandeis University Press and edited by Susan Weidman Schneider and Yona Zeldis McDonough. The anthology “is a unique amalgam of fine writing and activism that comes right out of Jewish women’s lives today: transgressive loves, deepening connections, political turmoil, abortion, fear of loss, struggles with fertility, with body and soul, with finding community, with decoding family life. “
Congrats also to Ann Faison, whose excerpt from her YA novel Shatterproof Glass appeared in Embark.
1981
I didn’t have Margot’s number or even know where she lived anymore. But ever since I’d heard that she’d formed her own band, I’d been keeping tabs on her, waiting for the first chance to see them perform.
Now I stood waiting in a cramped club, my body pressed against an empty stage encased by Marshall stacks that were pulsing with the Velvet Underground. A single spotlight cut through the darkness, then dimmed to blackness, and the volume lowered until the room filled instead with the sounds of voices and glasses clinking. An electric rumbling became audible as red lights revealed two people, all in black, droning on a bass and synthesizer. Then the spotlight came up again, and she emerged, stepping into the beam of light. Standing tall only a few feet away, Margot appeared to have grown. In tall heels, with a black rectangle of hair pointing skyward, she resembled a pillar, capable of lifting the ceiling. A dramatic swing of her arm made her guitar puncture the wall of sound behind her. The instrument screeched and reverberated, and she opened her mouth wide. Her voice boomed out rhythmically, like an elegant hammer, weaving around the guitars.
Kudos to Toni Ann Johnson, whose short story collection Light Skin Gone to Waste was published by UGA Press. Says Roxane Gay about the collection:
Toni Ann Johnson’s Light Skin Gone to Waste is one of the most engrossing short story collections I’ve read in recent memory. These interconnected stories about a black family living in a predominantly white suburb of New York City are impeccably written, incisive, often infuriating, and unforgettable. At the center of many of these stories is Philip Arrington, a psychologist who tries to reshape the world to his liking as he moves through it, regardless of the ways his actions affect the people in his intimate orbit. With a deft eye for detail, crisp writing, and an uncanny understanding of human frailties, Toni Ann Johnson has created an endlessly interesting American family portrait.
A shout out to Kate Maruyama, whose novella A Gentleman’s Suit appeared in the anthology Halloween Beyond, published by Crystal Lake Publishing. “A Gentleman’s Suit” is one of three novellas that involve a Halloween superstore, Halloween Beyond. In it, “the store’s inscrutable clerk finds Lex exactly the right costume which somehow makes people see the nonbinary Lex for who they really are.”
In addition, Kate’s article “Halloween Beyond: Beyond Last Year’s Haunt” appeared on the Horror Writers Association blog.
Last year, I wrote a Halloween Haunts about my favorite Halloween traditions at my friend Miguel’s house, and how I missed it so much during the pandemic. Last winter, I wrote a novella set against that very Halloween, starring Beto, the king of Halloween, based on Miguel.
The novella: Halloween Beyond: A Gentleman’s Suit, is part of a tryptic of novellas by myself, Lisa Morton and Lucy A. Snyder. Each novella is its own story but all pass through a Halloween Superstore called Halloween Beyond and all our protagonists encounter a tricksy clerk there, named Maeve.
Congrats to Leonora Simonovis, whose poem “Voyage” appeared in River Mouth Review.
I never asked for a tether and yet, here I am, unwinding, my body
a restless landmass, boundaries –allegiances?– blurring and shifting.
To remember what is gone: my homeland, my friend, the archive
of my mother’s heart. Outside the ice cracks and groans, a flurry
of dendrites scatters every thought. Is there a method to absence?
Congratulations to Ashton Cynthia Clarke, whose essay “Fade in at Four” appeared in Spectrum 33, published by Spectrum Publishing.
Kudos to Lisbeth Coiman, whose book review of Light Skin Gone to Waste by Toni Ann Johnson appeared in the New York Journal of Books.
In Light Skin Gone to Waste, Toni Ann Johnson depicts the life of a young African American family moving to Monroe, NY, in the late 1960s. In this enthralling series of interconnected stories, Johnson not only intersects policies of race, gender, and class, but also treats each character with honesty by seamlessly shifting points of view.
A shout out to Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley, whose personal essay “Flan Desparramado” appeared in Tasteful Rude.
When Mami was dying, I made a pact with Dominican Jesus, a crucifix I bought on the side of the road in La Romana. I would learn to make flan in exchange for a miracle.
It was December and cervical cancer had metastasized in her lungs. Her doctor said she had a year at most. I was in a race against time; I had to escape an abusive marriage alive so that my mother could die in peace. I also had to master the art of making the perfect flan.
Congratulations to Eva Recinos, whose flash fiction “to the quinceañera doing a photo shoot at the exposition rose garden” appeared in Exposition Review.
You smile for the camera, adjusting the tiara that sparkles in the sun. Not even the screams of kids or the staccato of skateboards hitting concrete can break your concentration, your practiced pose. At the party, you’ll exchange your sneakers for heels, on a dance floor in front of all the guests. Because you’re a young lady now, sophisticated in stilettos. The DJ’s voice booms through your chest, the multicolored dance lights flutter across your face. You teeter in those heels across the floor to slice your cake, and hug all your tias and tios.
Be rebellious, quinceañera.
Kudos to Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, whose short story “Get Back On” appeared in The Milk House.
When Uncle Edward got a new horse for his fancy shows, he gave me his gentle old mare, Pearl, for my seventh birthday. She was the best present ever.
“That’s a hand-me-down horse,” my cousin Maritza said when we met Uncle Edward at his friend’s place. “My birthday present is gonna be new.” She wrinkled her nose. “And not smelly.”
I didn’t care about her Barbie set anymore, even if it did have a car and dream house. I had my own horse and imagined myself barrel racing at the next Junior Rodeo.
A shout out to Soleil Davíd, whose translation from the Filipino of the short story “Room I” by Carlo Paolo Pacolor appeared in Two Lines Journal.
After reading the instructions, he looked carefully at the paper, while holding the contraption in his other hand. He eyed the edge of the door. His room had been left empty except for a few things, including his collection of vintage vinyl. But really, what would a thief even do with all his dusty vinyl? The gramophone’s needle skipped, followed by Sarah Vaughan’s cool, undulating voice. (1) Attach to the edge of the door. (2) Turn the knob, then pull up the lever. (3) Turn the dial four times. (4) Repeat the second and third steps twice while counting down backward, from five to one. He threw himself on the floor. Repeating the second and third steps was clear, but the last bit? When he had told the Chinese shopkeeper, maker and repairman, seller of locks and chains, “I need your most effective lock, so that even I couldn’t get out, and if I lost my keys there would be no way to get back in,” was he making any sense? The old shopkeeper had only smiled—or smirked, he wasn’t sure—and nodded, then walked toward a curtain in the back of the shop, parted it, and disappeared behind it.
Congratulations to K.D. Walker, whose short story ”A Missed Subscription” appeared in Cultbytes.
Matty was in purgatory again, and it wasn’t even Sunday. As his eight ball fell into the north-east hole, he closed his eyes and wished he were somewhere beautiful. Or at least, someone.
“You’ve got the next round, mate!” Will said, squeezing Matty’s shoulders before re-stacking the billiards table. He had the hands of a former professional rugby player, incapable of doing anything lightly.
“I always do,” Matty said. His voice surrendered below cheers, gossip, and the clicks of cue sticks. Decent acoustics, echoes of lovelorn melodies and a state of awe spread throughout the room. The taphouse at happy hour seemed like a grand opera house during intermission. If you closed your eyes and stopped inhaling the smell of Heineken and hazelnuts for a minute, you could imagine it then. At least, Matty could. Before he unfortunately needed to breathe once again and so, inhaled the reality of his location. He opened his eyes.
Life always came back, didn’t it?