Limebird Writers present more writing competitions and opportunities. If you don’t have a poem, a book, or a story about an alpaca or a hedgehog, you do have a personal experience essay lurking somewhere in your manuscript file or your brain. Big opportunities for all these. Thanks, Limebird Writers.
Welcome to the 24th Edition of our weekly writing competitions and opportunities digest! If you missed the last edition, you can see it here.
If you’re looking for something to write THIS WEEK then today’s digest is for you! The first three on the list all have quite tight deadlines, however the first two of those are for places that regularly seek submissions, so I’m hoping you’ll forgive me 😉 Themes this week are unusual pets, fire, and good decisions – interested? Read on…
——————
Opportunity type – Special callout for a real-life story anthology (Part of the “Not Your Mother’s Book…”) series. Theme – Pets; the email they sent out says they now particularly want stories about pot-belly pigs, llamas, alpacas, hedgehogs, possums, raccoons and lambs (they have enough cat and dog stories). Word count – Between 500 and 2,500 words. Organiser/publisher – Publishing Syndicate. Reward – One copy of the…
A brief report: I’m spending a couple of days with my cousin VZ. That’s the one who fell asleep while I was reading her the first pages of my work in progress two years ago.
I posted about the incident here even as she was snoring away in the other bed–we were sharing a hotel room after attending a bridal shower that afternoon–and I hated to do it but felt it served her right. There’s a certain deference due to writers, and that night she didn’t give me any at all.
Nonetheless, I came to officiate at VZ’s cataract surgery. Experience allows me to say things like, There’s nothing to it, and, Don’t worry, and, They’ll give you enough Valium, you won’t care what they’re doing. I’m also an expert eye drop dropper. Steady hand, good aim, all that.
Surgery took place this morning and all went well. Waiting went well, too, because the ophthalmologist’s office had Wi-Fi and I had my Chromebook. We spent the afternoon doing drops and sleeping. I was supposed to be reading a book but I suppose Valium is contagious. Fortunately, her prescription read every two hours when awake.
VZ crashed again two hours ago. It’s approaching ten o’clock, so I am waking up, as I tend to do about this time every night. I’ll read for a while but will retire in about a half-hour. It’s important that I be awake and alert in the morning. VZ wakes early and will need her eye drops, three different drugs, each with its own set of instructions.
And at present I’m the only one of us who can read.
*****
Image: A Maid Sleeping, Johannes Vermeer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.” ~ Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
There was wailing and gnashing of teeth today at Writers Who Write.
Now, it’s too early for a digression, but I shall digress. Writing that first sentence, I wondered whether anything besides teeth can be gnashed. So, although everyone says not to research while you’re writing, I googled gnash and found this:
To grind or strike (the teeth, for example) together
To bite (something) by grinding the teeth
I would have searched further for confirmation but was distracted by these words, in large blue font, about two inches above the definitions:
Wisdom Teeth Removal
Which reminded me of a certain unhappy experience in the office of an oral surgeon in Seguin in 1976, and the effect it still has on my life today. I won’t go into detail, but I will say that if a doctor ever slices one of your arteries and then looks down at you and says, “Do you have high blood pressure?” in an accusing tone, as if it’s your fault that protracted hemorrhaging is messing up his schedule (and you’re only twenty-five and skinny to boot but, under present conditions, who wouldn’t have high blood pressure?) and you want to say, “Don’t you have a cuff in this office?” but can’t–in short, if this should happen to you, do not, under any circumstances, politely refrain from coughing. And afterward, when your mother and your cousin are dragging you from the operating room, do not offer to pay for having the doctor’s nice, starched, formerly white coat laundered.
Well, anyway. To clear my mind of the old insult, I scrolled down the page and found two references: a line from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities:
They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison.
And one from Homer’s Collection of Hesiod, Homer and Homerica:
Two serpents hung down at their girdles with heads curved forward: their tongues were flickering, and their teeth gnashing with fury, and their eyes glaring fiercely.
And the combination of the two reminded me of a description of Madame Defarge:
Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle, the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and the Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.
That’s my favorite line from ATOTC, not because of its poetry, but because when I read it aloud to my freshman English students, they became still and silent (for the first time that year), and their eyes widened, and their lips formed grim lines, and I knew my politest students were suppressing laughter, doing their best not to be wild things just because they’d heard that a character had a knife in her girdle. The word was funny enough without the knife. Goodness knows what they’d have looked like if Madame had had two serpents in her girdle.
That was the spring of 1984, when teenagers remembered girdle commercials on television.
I took pity and explained the difference between Madame Defarge’s girdle and Jane Russell’s girdle. They began to breathe again. I tucked the moment away to recall at times when I needed a laugh.
When I got into the girdle part of this piece, I realized I needed to confirm when various commercials were aired. I didn’t want to say the Playtex 18 Hour Girdle was advertised in 1980 when it was really the I Can’t Believe It’s a Girdle. During my research, I learned quite a lot about foundation garments. The most arresting fact was that “[t]he Playtex brand completely disappeared from Australia in 1984.” I didn’t take time to find out why, but I have this image of the entire inventory vanishing while picnicking at Hanging Rock.
I also learned that Playtex was once owned by Sara Lee. That must have been the most mutually beneficial arrangement in the history of American retail. First sell them pastries, then sell them girdles. A win-win situation, on the corporate side at least.
In the midst of all this, an event of monumental importance occurred. With an episode of Lou Grant playing in the background, I heard a character portrayed by Laraine Day tell Billie how she had hidden her identity when she moved from Hollywood to housewifery: “I wore specs and took off my girdle.”
Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
There I was, blissfully meandering from wailing to teeth to Dickens to Homer to girdles, when up popped another girdle. As if it were planned. Julia Cameron is right. There’s something to be said for relaxing and opening oneself to the universe.
But back to the wailing and gnashing. At Writers Who Write, a twice-weekly work group, I was absorbed in tweaking a short story when the manuscript disappeared and a new screen appeared bearing the message from my Chromebook’s Googledocs: Whoops! That shouldn’t have happened.
No, indeed it should not.
I filled out the requisite form, explaining what had happened: I pressed Enter, or maybe the ” key, or maybe both Enter and the ” key at the same time, and the next thing I saw was Whoops!
I didn’t mention that I pressed the Whatever key with a certain amount of flair, as if I were following my piano teacher’s instruction to Let the piano breathe!
When I was twelve, I was too much concerned with correctness–and preventing stress to my ears–to let my fingers stray too far from the keys, but on the laptop and the Chromebook, I am a veritable Liberace. Googledocs, however, likes correctness.
When I checked about an hour ago, the manuscript was still lost in cyberspace. But I’m easy. If the universe can provide a girdle, coming up with a lost manuscript should be no stretch at all.
This post originally appeared in November of 2012, at the first Formula 1 event. It received numerous hits and some comments that suggested the commenters had not read the post carefully, or perhaps at all. So I’m giving y’all a second shot at it. If possible, enjoy.
The Formula 1 United States Grand Prix drew fans from all over the world to the grand opening of The Circuit of the Americas near Austin this weekend.
I wasn’t one of the drawn, but after reading and listening to friends and complaining about the Circuit of the Americas for the past couple of years, I’ve gathered enough information to comment in a semi-reliable fashion.
According to its website, CoTA is a “world-class motorsports and entertainment venue,” “designed to be the only purpose-built facility in the U.S. to host the FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX™ through 2021 and V8 SUPERCARS from 2013-2018.” It covers 375 acres and lies fifteen miles from downtown Austin.
Politicians have been patting each others’ backs all ’round, just tickled pink–or maybe green–because the track will bring money into the city and the state and will create jobs. Can’t complain about that. Money and jobs are good.
And such a Big Deal, covering months of negotiations and construction, helps drive
the water shortage,
underfunded schools,
rising property taxes,
feral hogs, and
how much will remain of San Antonio after Texas has seceded from the Union and all those military installations have packed up their guns and airplanes and hit the road for Iowa,
from the headlines to page 3 of the classifieds, right below Doonsbury.
I haven’t shared the politicians’ or anyone else’s enthusiasm. I’ve railed against CoTA ever since it hit the six o’clock news:
paving pasture- and farmland,
wasting fossil fuel,
spending state tax money to fund what should be a private venture,
plopping the facility down in an area with inadequate infrastructure and expecting the taxpayers to pay for repair and upkeep,
causing land values and property taxes to skyrocket, and
other objections too numerous to mention.
However, on Saturday, while the elite, who the night before had drunk gold-infused champagne at Austin’s finest hotels (I didn’t make that up) were descending from helicopters onto a former field near Elroy, our friend Millie shared with the Fifteen Minutes of Fame writing practice group some facts that tempered my pessimism. She said the CoTA will eventually
be open 365 days a year,
host concerts, charity runs, sports events, and the like,
create hundreds of both full-time and part-time jobs,
attract a million people a year,
pour oodles into the economy, and
promote research that will influence medicine, transportation, and other areas we can’t yet predict.
After listening to her reassurances, FMoF members gave Millie a round of applause and left in better spirits.
But even before Millie’s talk, all my objections had become moot. Because on Friday, I had learned that the Teacher Retirement System of Texas has invested $200 million in Formula 1, for “about a 3% stake in the global racing series.”
Circuit of the Americas Chairman Bobby Epstein said, “Now the teachers win when F1 makes money and when new dollars come into our state as a result of the Grand Prix.”
Consequently, I have become Formula 1’s biggest fan. I will say kind words about it, I will look for it in the sports pages, I may even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. Whatever I can do to promote Formula 1 racing, I will do.
I’ve already X-ed out the piece I wrote last week about a dystopian future when we run out of fossil fuel and CoTA descends to hosting chariot races.
But there’s another however: TRS stated, “To be clear, F1 is a completely separate company that is unrelated to Circuit of the Americas, which will host an F1 Grand Prix race near Austin in November 2012. None of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, CVC Capital Partners, or Formula One Group has any ownership interest or business relationship with the Circuit of the Americas.”
So I’ll also continue to wail about the paved-over paradise on which my pocketbook depends.
*****
P. S. One of my objections was that state and city tax money had funded CoTA. The CoTA website carries this note:
“NOTE: To date, State money has not been paid to the developers of Circuit of The Americas and no local community, including the City of Austin, is providing incentive funding to the developers. As is the case with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four and other large-scale events in Texas, the Formula 1 event is eligible for expense reimbursements from the state’s Major Events Trust Fund. This reimbursement is performance-based and may be applied for after the first event in November 2012. Any state reimbursement is based on the amount of incremental tax revenue generated by event-related activity that would not have come to Texas if the event were not here.”
So I’m not sure what all the media hoop-la was about. Maybe it concerned lumping CoTA in with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, “and other large-scale events in Texas.” Which, in light of the TRS investment, is from my point of view peachy-keen. Until I read this paragraph, I didn’t know the state reimburses the Superbowl and other such large events. I hope the Texas Library Association Conference gets its share.
Austin Mystery Writers spent Thursday making last-minute preparations for Anatomy of a Mystery, the free workshop it’s sponsoring today from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at BookPeople in Austin. I offer two photographs as proof. Some of the people in them are duplicated. (My assigned task was to cut up paper for the raffle. Mission accomplished.)
This post, which is being typed around a large cream tabby who insists on operating the space bar, is directed to people like me–people who forget to register, to sign up, to RSVP. People who put things off.
Part of large cream tabby
The message is this: RSVPs are not required for Anatomy of a Mystery.
If you wake in the morning with an insatiable urge to attend a workshop about how to write the mystery novel, do not despair.
Come on down to BookPeople.
Authors Reavis Wortham, Janice Hamrick, and Karen MacInerney, all of whom have proved they know how to write–and have accepted for publication–multiple mystery novels, will share some of their secrets with other writers, aspiring writers, and readers.
It would be a shame to miss this opportunity just because you forgot to tell us you were planning to come.
It would be more of a shame to miss the great swag we’re handing out. One example is pictured here. There are also some books and who-knows-what-else.
Swag
So take the advice of a veteran procrastinator: show up at Anatomy of a Mystery–and if you can’t stay all day, spend the morning or the afternoon with us.
And don’t worry about crowds. If the room is SRO, you can have my chair and I’ll sit on the floor.
Provided, that is, that you promise to help me get back up.
Have you ever wanted to write crime fiction? Or, want to learn more about how your favorite authors create those fast-paced plots and complicated characters that manage to keep you up all night reading?
Come to our FREE special one day event: Anatomy of a Mystery @ BookPeople on Saturday, November 9th, 2013 from 9:30am-3:00pm.
Our panel of highly-acclaimed mystery novelists will give you the inside scoop on what it takes to create some of today’s most memorable mysteries. Janice Hamrick, Karen MacInerney and Reavis Z Wortham will cover topics ranging from plotting and characterization to how to balance action and humor in crime fiction.
Special Bonus: First 25 attendees receive a FREE Austin Mystery Writers notepad and pen, plus a chance to win a free AMW tote along with other raffle items including books…
Sherlock Holmes in black tights? Mrs. Hudson acting out? Dr. Watson being displaced at the altar by his best friend? Nevah! I say.
But in this post reblogged from Killer Nashville, Amnon Kabatchnik gives evidence that those things, and more, have indeed happened, on the stage, and to the sound of applause.
My love affair with detective fiction began decades ago in a far-away country where people read and write from right to left. Paperbacks began to arrive in Israel from the U.S. and England, and I couldn’t resist the pictorial, enticing covers. I ploughed through the works of American writers like Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, S.S. Van Dine, Erle Stanley Gardner, and the English writers Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edgar Wallace, and Sax Rohmer. Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles left a lasting impression. What could be more intriguing to a young, eager reader than strong plots, eccentric sleuths, pulsating action, heart-stopping climaxes, and matters of life-or-death?
I am a director by profession. I have staged dramas, comedies and musicals for off-Broadway troupes, national road companies, drama departments at universities, and summer stock; I’ve done Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams – but I have always had…
Once upon a time, a few days before Halloween, my friend EM called and said, “There are thirteen men under my house. They’re leveling it. For the second time in five years.” She then asked whether David and I would go with her and her husband to see the Edgar Allan Poe exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center, on the University of Texas campus. The next day, I presented EM, via email, the following verse. Mr. Poe would probably be horrified, but since EM is my Muse, the end product is bound to be a bit quirky.
The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.
THE MAVEN
To G and EM, in celebration of their tenth trimester of home improvement, with gratitude and affection
Forgive me for making mirth of melancholy
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a rapping,
As of someone gently tapping, tapping at my chamber floor.
“‘Tis some armadillo,” said I, “tapping at my chamber floor,
Only this, and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the dry September,
And my house was sinking southward, lower than my bowling score,
Pier and beam and blocks of concrete, quiet as Deuteron’my’s cat feet,
Drooping like an unstarched bedsheet toward the planet’s molten core.
“That poor armadillo,” thought I, “choosing my house to explore.
He’ll squash like an accordion door.”
“Tuck,” I cried, “and Abby, come here! If my sanity you holddear,
Go and get that armadillo, on him all your rancor pour.
While he’s bumping and a-thumping, give his rear a royal whumping,
Send him hence with head a-lumping, for this noise do I abhor.
Dasypus novemcinctus is not a beast I can ignore,
Clumping ‘neath my chamber floor.”
While they stood there prancing, fretting, I imparted one last petting,
Loosed their leashes and cried “Havoc!” then let slip the dogs of war.
As they flew out, charged with venom, I pulled close my robe of denim.
“They will find him at a minimum,” I said, “and surely more,
Give him such a mighty whacking he’ll renounce forevermore
Lumbering ‘neath my chamber floor.”
But to my surprise and wonder, dogs came flying back like thunder.
“That’s no armadillo milling underneath your chamber floor.
Just a man with rule and level, seems engaged in mindless revel,
Crawling ’round. The wretched devil is someone we’ve seen before,
Measuring once and measuring twice and measuring thrice. We said, ‘Senor,
Get thee out or thee’s done for.’”
“Zounds!” I shouted, turning scarlet. “What is this, some vill’nous varlet
Who has come to torment me with mem’ries of my tilting floor?”
Fixing myself at my station by my floundering foundation,
Held I up a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.
“Out, you cad!” I said, “or else prepare to sleep beneath my floor,
Nameless there forever more.”
Ere my words had ceased resounding, with their echo still surrounding,
Crawled he out, saluted, and spoke words that chilled my very core.
“I been down there with my level, and those piers got quite a bevel.
It’s a case of major evolution: totter, tilt galore.
Gotta fix it right away, ma’am, ‘less you want your chamber floor
At a slant forevermore.”
At his words there came a pounding and a dozen men came bounding
From his pickup, and they dropped and disappeared beneath my floor.
And they carried beam and hammer and observed no rules of grammar,
And the air was filled with clamor and a clanging I deplore.
“Take thy beam and take thy level and thy failing Apgar score
And begone forevermore.”
But they would not heed my prayer, and their braying filled the air,
And it filled me with despair, this brouhaha that I deplore.
“Fiend!” I said. “If you had breeding, you would listen to my pleading,
For I feel my mind seceding from its sane and sober core,
And my house shall fall like Usher.” Said the leader of the corps,
“Lady, you got no rapport.”
“How long,” shrieked I then in horror, “like an ominous elm borer,
Like a squirrely acorn storer will you lurk beneath my floor?
Prophesy!” I cried, undaunted by the chutzpah that he flaunted,
And the expertise he vaunted. “Tell me, tell me, how much more?”
But he strutted and he swaggered like a man who knows the score.
Quoth the maven, “Evermore.”
He went off to join his legion in my house’s nether region
While my dogs looked on in sorrow at that dubious guarantor.
Then withdrawing from this vassal with his temperament so facile
I went back into my castle and I locked my chamber door.
“On the morrow, they’ll not leave me, but will lodge beneath my floor
Winter, spring, forevermore.
So the hammering and the clamoring and the yapping, yawping yammering
And the shrieking, squawking stammering still are sounding ‘neath my floor.
And I sit here sullen, slumping in my chair and dream the thumping
And the armadillo’s bumping is a sound I could adore.
For those soles of boots from out the crawlspace ‘neath my chamber floor
Shall be lifted—Nevermore!
Detail of the statue of a raven on the grounds of the Edgar Allan Poe National Historical Site in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) By Midnightdreary (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsReposted from Whiskertips.
Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. ~ Jane Austen, Emma
*
Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really
about Mr. Frank Churchill’s not coming… ~ Jane Austen, Emma
*
Remember what I said about the furniture and assorted stuff in my living room maybe going Poof! and disappearing?
A couple of things did.
The recliner, for one. David, who normally sits beside it, got a long look at it head-on and asked whether we should dispose of it immediately, before getting a replacement.
Oh, my, yes.
Poof! It disappeared.
The chair was a good and faithful servant, but it should have departed about the same time George W. Bush did.
The search for adequate lumbar support that followed lasted the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday, and it wasn’t pretty. I despaired of being able to get out of bed the next day without a forklift. But I could and did. And the living room looked better. And that was a good thing.
Tuesday night, after listening to considerable moaning and groaning on my part, David asked whether we should shop for a chair Wednesday instead of waiting until Friday, and we did, and bought the one I’d coveted ever since I first tried it out, about four years ago, and he assembled it and the accompanying footstool, and, after I’d tried to poison us all by spraying the cushions with Scotchgard (I’m waiting for people who know me well to say, “Why did you get beige?”), in an inadequately ventilated space (It was raining), things turned out pretty well. I stopped moaning and groaning and concentrated on keeping Ernest from making biscuits on the nubbly fabric.
So far he hasn’t expressed much interest in sitting there. He’s tried it only once. After about fifteen seconds he moved to the nearby rocking chair. Relocation was possibly due to the rocker’s new green seat cushion, purchased during our shopping trip–it matches his eyes–but I like to think he responded to my schoolteacher glare.
William, who does not respond to schoolteacher glares, enjoying the lumbar support of the new IKEA bathtub
As to the other item that went Poof!–it didn’t exactly disappear, because it was never here in the first place.
Like Mr. Frank Churchill, the carpet cleaner, who was scheduled for “sometime after 9:00 a.m.,” did not come.
Unlike Emma, I did care really that the carpet cleaner did not come. I waited for him almost as long as Emma waited for Mr. Frank Churchill.
And I waited with a backache.
Well. It seems the carpet cleaner canceled because of the rain. That was sensible.
But somehow, through no fault of his, I didn’t get word until my ability to extend immediate forgiveness had passed the point of no return. Too little sleep compounded by the mother of all backaches propelled me in the direction of the most convenient scapegoat, and the carpet cleaner was first in line.
So file that part of the day under Phooey!
As soon as my new chair was ready for occupancy, however, sanity returned and unconditional forgiveness reigned supreme. I am once again a veritable Pollyanna, spreading gladness to all I meet.
Which is another good thing, because the carpet cleaner is scheduled to come next Monday “sometime after 9:00 a.m.”
William resting on an old blanket covering the new IKEA footstool
Tomorrow morning, or, to be exact, later this morning, the nice man with the loud motor and all the hoses and the soap will arrive to clean our carpet.
There is nothing we need more. There is nothing I desire less.
Because before the nice man comes, I have to move all the living room furniture into the dining room, which is already filled with a table, chairs, a sideboard stuffed with china, and a stationary bike. Some of the furniture will spill into the kitchen. If I’m not careful, I won’t be able to get to the cabinet for a glass, the sink for water, or the refrigerator for whatever is in there.
Worse yet, before the nice man comes, I have to pick up everything else that is on the floor. The furniture is nothing. I’ll drag three chairs, two tables, and two lamps onto the tile and tell the nice man to work around the piano, the electronics, the couch, and possibly the bookcases, depending on how hard I want to work.
The tables are a bit of a challenge because I have to move their marble tops separately, and marble is heavy. One of the lamps is old, an oil lamp wired for electricity, that I’ve always loved. It’s a challenge, too, because I’m obsessed with its fragility. My mother bought it in Maryland in 1946. We coexisted peacefully for my first forty years, but since I inherited it twenty years ago, I’ve been afraid I would break it. Someday I’ll post a picture of it, but first I have to remove the cobwebs. In case of breakage, I’m counting on cobwebs to hold the shards together.
But, as I said, all those things are really nothing. David will help. He’s home for Columbus’ Day. He might even be looking forward to the experience. He was furloughed–or, as I prefer to call it, shut down–two weeks ago. He doesn’t appear to be growing restive, but cooking breakfast every day is bound to get boring. Variety is a good thing.
The big deal is that I have to pick up all the books and papers previously stacked and now collapsed all around my chair. Books I need to read, books I have read but need to read again, books that were on shelves until I had the impulse to put them where I could reach them. Notebooks of every shape and size and color, a different one for each purpose, and all now multipurpose because I can never find the right one when I need it. Paper paper paper comprising manuscripts of, it seems, everything I’ve ever written. And other stuff. I suspect there’s more other stuff than anything else. I expect to find several items already given up for lost. Especially another pair of socks. They have to be around here somewhere.
Remember the piece Fancy Fairchild posted on the 15 Minutes of Fame blog, about the cloth-covered boxes stacked behind her couch that she’s trying to pass off as an end table? I have some of those too. But without the cloth or the boxes.
So why, you ask, am I writing about getting ready for the carpet cleaner when I should be getting ready.
Denial, that’s why. Just plain denial. If I look at the monitor rather than at the–stuff–it might tippy-toe over to the kitchen all by itself. It might disappear. Vanish. Atomize. Poof!
Stranger things have happened.
***
The dining room pictured above is not mine, more’s the pity.
Have to share this one, too: Kate Shrewsday, Andra Watkins, Angela Amman, Cameron D. Garriepy, Elizabeth Yon, Kameko Murakami, and Mandy Dawson share seven ghost stories “to chill you to the bone”–and just in time for Halloween.
The Italians create a lavish meal: a feast fit for their loved ones. And you know how those Italians love to cook.
And then, they leave it for the ghosts of the ones they have lost, and will never see again. They walk out of the door, and down the road to the church, leaving the meal steaming – for whom? Is it just a game, a fantasy, a fierce longing for those wraiths to be wholly present just once more?
It is the very essence of Hallowe’en.
In parts of Britain, on October 31st, the Reformation soldiers stamped on the tradition of leaving a candle burning in the window of every window to guide long lost loved souls home to the place their clay feet once trod. Soul Lights. The French would take the direct route, kneeling next to graves and praying, leaving bowls of milk for the departed.
M. K. Waller 