Crack the Spine Literary magazine
Issue 142
Issue 142 March 9, 2015 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2015 by Crack the Spine
This issue is generously sponsored by:
Outskirts Press
Cover Art: “The Reader” by Christopher Woods Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and Chappell Hill, Texas. His published works include a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. HIs short fiction has appeared in many journals including The Southern Review, New Orleans Review and Glimmer Train. He conducts private creative writing workshops in Houston. His photography can be seen in his gallery.
CONTENTS David Spicer
Little Walter and Puccini
Steven Fortune Vanilla Boy
Zak Block
s
Strike Back with Unholy Fire
Miranda Roehler Best of Intentions
Alan Semrow
Pretty When I Cry
David Klugman Hideous Tedious
Chelsey Clammer
Swerve
David Spicer
Little Walter and Puccini
Little Walter, a twenty pound Maine Coon tabby, cried at night until the two servants awoke and stroked his back and throat with their fingernails. He perfected cries and graduated to wails of pain and then yodels. His servants couldn’t believe it: a singing cat. The more they petted him, the better he sang. To reward himself for the concerts, he slept between the servants, his body parallel to theirs. After a short time he began singing the blues and then opera. The three slept very little. Finally, they took a road trip to small towns with karaoke bars. They placed Little Walter on a barstool, where he held the microphone between his two paws to stand on his rear legs and belt out Puccini. The drunks couldn’t believe it, cheered and yelled with hoots, whistles, and yee haws. Little Walter
and his servants loved it, and earned gas money by passing a hat. Before long, word spread and fans began following the trio. They couldn’t eat or sleep without someone asking for an autograph. Fop that he was, Little Walter grew nervous and constipated, refusing to perform. The three retired to the country, and their songs echoed in the night. For Little Walter, 2005-2014
Steven Fortune Vanilla Boy
Defining me is spelling out a hundred-letter word Essence of existence seized in a vowel-less commute through a dreamless sleep between the suns of definition and identity Applications of passivity become of me then bail on potential to become me Nothing here to see say the signature police Move along evolving as you were Vicissitude's aloof to the morose settlement cited only in a mime around the fringes of inclusion's stunned recess Outspokenness seduces in its transparent slip of tongues Intellectual arousal cowers under impotence of
aural relevance Praying to the ghost of Helen Keller for a shadow based influence I resent my senses on the basis of their comfort on a fence Why am I denied essential evidence? What nuances seal the appeal of pretense? I can lay no claim to tragedy I'm too preoccupied with verbal travesties and inclinations of Van Gogh's spite towards awarded senses I'm inclined to take my eyes first like an inconveniently enlightened Oedipus or have them taken from me by a bastard boy keen to my attempts at nurturing to health the wrongings of divine right Gloucestershire sauce imprints a bitter stain
on my incessant appetite for gluttonous libations of assured affirmations
Zak Block
Strike Back with Unholy Fire s
T'were a ruby-faced old Vixen at nightfall as'd slash'd open Pretty Pete's big vein—t'were yest, I gather'd—and, in doin', used 'em up fer good 'n all, thinkin'—as she might've done—as he were comin' fer her Cubs, and with most wicked intention, but o' which we can't speak; nor upon, comment. Pete bein' ironically named Pretty, a terrible olde knight o' th' trencher himself, as t' be all guts 'n garbage and bacon-faced, and so bleedin' and long dyin', and unquietly, as he were, th' porcine gent. No great tragedy t'were, said 'n thought all we, seein' as th' late gollumpus were as zad as all th' bog's snakes combined, but a mystery, his perishin', nonetheless as fit fer Young Withers, who'd witness'd it all that night, amid a crap in th' near bushes,—and me uncle, Hezekiah or Zeke Block,—fit fer t' take 'em a poke round th' dirty old farm and conciliate earnest after th' old bitch's safety, as it were, and 'er Hidden Gold it must've been, that she'd as soon do a big bastard as Pretty Pete than part with, thought th' cuter Zeke 'n Withers, and their boys—thought they, gigglin' o'er a history o' th' four kings that same bloody night. She were thought, th' old murderin' quean, a bawd, and th' farm, some secret'd School o' Venus o' days bygone where'n decrepit elder women o' th' town still haunt'd, and th' lowest o' Newgate birds came as t' do their tiffin'.
They set out all o' 'em sick from th' dinner what'd surely been “A water-rat stew'd in dog farts,” cried th' quakin' vomitin' Zeke, th' innkeeper bein' as he were cook ruffian, but so a-fear'd as t' incur th' cupboard love no matter how vile were his concoctions, bein' as he were another Uncle, th' varment Ezekiel Block, also Old Zeke by assig, always in twig and o' a murderin' touch—in Zeke, as he were long-stomach'd and as well th' upright man here, havin' of had th' greatest share o' which vittles, now in th' throes o' th' most bitin' whip-belly vengeance envisageable. Passin' with th' rumbumtious hullabaloo o' th' shittin' through th' teeth o' it all were they all through th' gate, and on did they venture t' where Pretty Pete were sliced, said Withers, an, some, old farm, as I mention'd, dirty as it were, and through which gate did they pass, which gate were called Fever Gate, from days gone. “Were this a cavaultin' school o' Venus,” opined one a' his, Withers', old catchfarts, named Two Bob, an upstart one it'd seem from th' trumpetin', “Would o' I not known it fer 'un?” “Why,” counter'd me young uncle, “would as open arsed a medlar as yr'self augur anythin' o' th' laced mutton, me honest man?”—t' th' resoundin' laughter o' th' legion, and which maunderin' broth settled, with a pinch o' his nozzle, th' unthinkin' questionin' fer all... …as surely th' murderin' touch were a bawdy, dirty work, as were becomin' a protector o' elder ladies o' easy virtue,—or, lest her gold be stole, be it gold already purloin'd, then all th' more just were she bein' rolled by th' boys 'n Young Withers 'n me young uncle.
Before long they saw th' flesh-broker herself, a horse godmother t' behold, obscure in th' night, but surely clad in all begrimed, holy vampers, hangin'; and she, rotund as ever would she be by them reckon'd. “Hark, th' whoremother!” said Withers with a whisper and th' boys hunker'd down. As plain as day did Withers, me Uncle Hezekiah, and th' boys, behold th' hellish crone pull aside th' crotch a' 'er rotted vampers and pull out 'er own cock 'n piss fer all th' day. Whispere'd Two Bob, “As t'were some manner o' chimera!” and before not long did th' mother o' th' maids step out a tid farther into th' dooryard there and, perfectly aright, crap fer all th' night. “Th' like o' it I never did seen!” murmur'd me young uncle,—amid which crappin' o' the cock bawd did the upright men 'n their boys close in o'er th' quarry, th' arse o' 'er festoon'd with fresh fartleberries, and th' stink o' which arse brought back up and th' guts o' 'em th' dread water-rat 'n dog fart victuals 'o me old Uncle Zeke's contrivance o' earlier. With a quick movement forward, th' bolder Zeke me young uncle made a dash o' it, and knock'd down th' shittin' bawd and “Hi-ho! thou dirty puzzle!” said he, triumphant, and made t' grab 'er by th' hair and deal with a near rock th' jordain, and death soon t' follow, but which revealed which seemin'ness o' hair t' be th' bawd's own piss-burn'd caxon, coverin', as it did, th' flesh-rotted knowledge box o' 'er, disfigured 'like as if by some mutilation, and with th' muns well grog-blossomed. At that did Zeke,
pitch-kettled now as ever before at th' cock o' 'er,—did he shit through th' teeth greatly across th' bawd's mangled crown, at which instance did th' others advance, and did th' bawd scamper back o' th' house, white-liver'd, 'er gayin' instrument 'n fartleberries hangin' from 'er enormous round-mouth for all. “Th' eight-eyed trapes!” cried Pastor Lew, a boy o' me young uncle, and upon th' trail o' 'er crap they hung, t' behold an empty yard back 'o th' dirty house and th' backdoor swingin' shut, and “All in!” th' latter cried, and they did, t' find this seemin' cock bawd, now not any more unrigged but still as stinkin', and, in th' lamplight, in th' clearer guise o' a man, th' face o' 'em bestrewn with dabs o' paint. and at his feet, two cannons! “Cease thy pursuit!” called out th' cock bawd in a strong-throat'd bass, near laughin' 'n showin' his ivories. “Thou art arrived,” and with which fired off one, sendin' t' his death me young uncle and, unsadly, Two Bob, and then settin' afire one or two o' his boys and th' house itself. “Why thou trebly murderin' cock bawd!” said th' unscathed Withers, so that th' cock bawd fix'd th' second cannon on 'em and made t' light it. “A cock bawd,” said th' cock bawd, “I am not, but a high pad,” said th' high pad. “But a high pad no longer,” said th' high pad no longer, as he step'd forward t' face Withers. “Hand o'er thy gold, Doctor Walker!” “What art thou blatherin' about thou nigmenog? I am no Doctor but Young Withers. Who wouldsn't thou take me fer?” With a crack, th' roofs caved in
above 'em, and fire engulf'd 'em, and in th' dark, smoke 'n confusion, in through th' eaves did jerrycummumble me old uncle, Ezekiel Block, a truncheon t' each o' his mitts, and did old Zeke then batter t' th' death th' cock bawd and his men, and with th' survivors made off with one o' th' cannons. Such be th' tale a' th' death o' me young uncle, Hezekiah Block, and o' how me old uncle, Ezekiel Block, and Young Withers, acquired a cannon.
At th' inn, round th' hearth, sat th' survivin', ponderin' what'd transpired with th' cock bawd, bemused by th' mystery o' it. Proffer'd Old Zeke that “This Doctor Walker, what th' cock bawd took Withers fer, must be expected at th' farm sometime soon, and seen fit by th' bawd and his boys t' be robbeded.” “You suppose they took Pretty Pete fer th' Doctor?” said Pastor Lew. “That's what I reckon'd,” answered Old Zeke. “Regardless o' th' gain, I'm fer findin' th' soddin' fook and chargin' 'em with th' tragedies.” “I'm fer an ambush,” supplied Withers, “But I'd wager as th' Doctor's anticipatin' a house o' some kind at th' farm o'er at Fever Gate. O' which house there's no more left nor a pile o' smoulderin' boards.” And thusly were born th' grand ambition o' me old Uncle Zeke 'n Young Withers, t' paint, from their own besotted memory, a picture, as it were, o' what th' house might've looked like,—painted upon th' boards,—tie 'em all together and erect th' spindly semblance o' that house, in which t' hide themselves fer th' arrival o' th' eludin' Doctor Walker.
It were known t' even th' thickest 'n most chimpin' merry among them that th' illusion would fail in th' day, and so all hoped that th' Doctor would arrive at night. And hope were given them by a report, one day soon, from th' southern gatedwellin' lollpoop 'n rattlin' mumper Possum Burt, that th' Doctor had stopped with his kit there, alone 'n cover'd in gold, earlier in th' day, which revelation did excite th' conspirants. So that night they hid them in th' structure they'd forged and waited, bethinkin' themselves clever like to 've brought along th' mysterious cannon, should th' Doctor prove not quite as alone 'n cover'd with gold as all o' that.
Th' Doctor, or who appear'd t' be, a man o' a hang gallows look, arrived at midnight with a retinue o' many great large men and a large 'n concealed package in tow, thought by some among Withers 'n Old Zeke's boys t' be a great 'n mighty weapon o' death—and thus givin' th' cock bawd call fer his havin' a cannon or two handy. All o' Old Zeke's 'n Withers' boys 'n them had a not terrible vantage from which t' view 'n hear th' arrival: th' Doctor step'd down from th' footboard and looked round him, and t' his nearest mate said, “What sort o' nugging-house is this, all board'd windows as it is and rudely hewn?” “Only another o' thy less visible clients, Doctor Walker. But payin' not th' less,” he answere'd, “and well, I'm told,” as he'd been told.
Soon after, th' Doctor step'd round t' his cargo and began t' pull its tarpaulin coverin'—t' which Old Zeke signal'd th' others t' ready with th' cannon. But what were reveal'd were no weapon o' unholy fire but, t' Old Zeke's 'n Withers' 'n their boys' horror, a pile o' human bodies, skinless, and bound all together with thin white filaments o' rope resemblin' th' very envisageable ligaments and tendons o' them on display. And this were met with much horror 'n retchin' 'n pukin' up o' me cook ruffian uncle's earlier prepared meal o' ground shite in a lamb's head.
Now, as everythin' be done 'n settled we might sit round t' tell each oher 'o what happened farther that night: I'm told that, either from knowin' that th' illusion o' th' fake house couldn't last no longer, or simply out o' sheer fright at th' vision o' them unskinned folks, Old Zeke 'n Withers fired th' cannon through th' painty boards, pullin' down th' structure and a good third o' th' Doctor's men. A skirmish ensued, fer th' most o' which th' Doctor seemed t' disappear, returnin' t' th' unfoldin' near t' th' very end, when only he, Old Zeke 'n Withers were still standin', th' latter twain easy routin' him and took him back t' his unicorn coach 'n cart t' demand th' rum cod. “O' what gold dost thou speak,” th' Doctor asked 'em. “For I am th' great Doctor Walker, known throughout th' land as th' man o' flesh. I deal in bodies fer
bodies, not bodies fer gold,” by which point his captors were fairly pitchkettled, and th' look o'er now their visages shew'd it. “But isn't it plain, thou nocky boys!” said th' Doctor. “What nonsense dost thou say,” return'd Withers sharply, “Bodies fer bodies, not bodies for gold?” “Alas,” th' Doctor explain'd that “Th' world beyond these gates hold wonders o' which you may never make hide nor hair, nor may never know nor see. A world o' flesh, wherein th' currency's flesh. These poor, back'd bastards you see were once food fer th' knob, that were, o' Newgate birds from town t' town and back; paraded round and, fer a fee, bugger'd 'n rodger'd t' fooker'd all holy hell. And now, as they're no more good, are they become food fer th' eatin', o' who can pay th' askin' price. T' ha' been traded, here, fer th' fresh dead o' th' bawdy woman—dead o' th' Venus's curse—t' take their place...”
Miranda Roehler Best of Intentions
It was another stormy Sunday in Grassdale, another morning where the only thing more depressing than the gloomy skies were the sighs of Father Arnold. That morning he had tried once again to unite the congregation, this time by hosting a carry-in dinner. But as always, his hopes were dashed. Each family filed into the church, not saying a word to the others while they arranged their crockpots and baking dishes. Father Arnold hung his head in defeat as he watched; knowing yet another one of his attempts to unite us had failed. At times I wondered if he felt that the long-standing feuds amongst families such as the Pinbrooks and the Dales or my family and the Wilmersons were stronger than God himself. Father Arnold let out another long sigh as each family took their usual seats, all in a pew of their own, at least
one pew away from the next. He went through the sermon as usual, trying to reach us with a message about goodwill towards others, but his words fell on deaf ears. Yet after the sermon I could still see a glimmer of hope light up his face as Mrs. Wilmerson began the line to eat. However, the glimmer vanished as soon as Mrs. Wilmerson took a scoop of her cheesy potato casserole, and nothing else. The Dale family ate nothing but shredded chicken, refusing to use the buns the Pinbrooks had been responsible for bringing. All my family ate was my grandmother’s homemade macaroni salad. Father Arnold dared to be different, making a point to fill his plate with a sample from each dish. “Perhaps next week,” he said to me, piling the Dale’s shredded chicken onto the Pinbrooks’ sandwich buns,
“we could do some volunteer work to help us bond as a church. What do you think about that Kerry?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him we couldn’t be saved.
Alan Semrow
Pretty When I Cry
She has two choices before her shows: dirty blonde or dark brown. The dark brown one is curly, long—bad girl, yet in a way, innocent. The blonde is straighter, long—more 60’s chanteuse than anything. Most nights, she chooses the dark brown. It’s the more authentic version. She chooses the dark brown and pairs it well with a colorful and floral dress, or one with that baby doll cut. She walks on stage shoeless. She waits for the eerie music. And then she mouths the words. “In the land of gods and monsters, I was an angel looking to get fucked hard.” Her father was a holy man. He went to church and never made it much further than a plain financial analyst. He was a man who worked late, loved taking the dogs out, held himself politely, and made friendships with anyone who gave a shit. This included his friend from church, Bernie. They moved in together after the separation became official. He left the house, bought two Shih Tzus, moved in with Bernie in a small suburban duplex, and never really called her too often after that. He still goes to church twice a week and sings in the choir at Christmas time. That is what we know. She gets her dresses online, usually on eBay—vintage. She doesn’t search long. It is only for the sake of the performance, she tells me. She wants to look like her, but it can’t be too intentional. It must be subtle. She spends no time practicing lip-syncing, for it comes naturally. Every time a new song comes out, she says all she has to do is imagine the video and it’s done. She gets up on stage
to a sold-out crowd. Madonna has just gotten off. Before her, Dusty Springfield performed. She walks across the stage and puts her right arm in the air, configures it into the rock and roll sign. She’ll taunt the audience. Smiling, winking, frowning— looking angry, bored, sad, happy…fucking crazy. She’ll look at me and smile. “Down on the west coast, they got a saying.” After the divorce, her mother became a creative person. She wrote books and drew pictures and they were all very nice, featuring, for the most part, cats and yellow flowers. She worked a job as a graphic designer. She seemed happy, but the creativity made up for something. Her mother owned many dogs. She had a home studio, where she did all her work. She’s told me that her mother’s work was never all that commercial, but she still loves her. The audience cheers—cheers for the performance. She knows how to play them and has more confidence than the real life figure. I stand in the back, clapping, smiling, happy, as she blinks the eyelashes that took her over an hour to apply. After the show, I meet her backstage, where she removes her wig and offers me a large kiss. She seats herself in front of a mirror, next to several others like her. She removes the makeup with an expensive product. We don’t talk much about the show as he becomes himself. When he talks about his childhood, he says all he ever wanted was attention.
David Klugman Hideous Tedious
New Year’s Eve 1999 How do you make poetry of this, this gummy knotted griping in the gut, this deadness that is no feeling but resistance this nothing in the absence of distraction? Walking on a path along the river consciousness stares back at me, churning its guts in a laborious right-left-right like this old barge climbing up the Hudson from New York hauling the stench of so many burgers and bottles and otherwise burnt-out weekends - enough to kill a hill somewhere consciousness stares back at me as if to say, Ugh, you again. Later comes the always unfamiliar rhapsody of lunch, something healthy today like tuna salad maybe, something light so that food will not become the predicate of afternoon's lugubrious decay. Vitality at three o' clock - surprise! And with it comes a summer rain, the distant chant of children and an unexpected surge of productivity: more nothing for the dollar, more dollars for the nothing that we do.
Outside people walk by, their desires on the street, guts and genitals sprawling in the late day's summer heat. Long hours in the office feel like ghosts upon my back as things settle into what we still call evening. You get home first ... late dinner and some dialog, the color of your eyes. We climb into our bodies and spoon up in bed together as if nothing original will ever happen to us, as if we didn't care, with just each other and this night - a full century’s crumbling in this dark, empty night.
Chelsey Clammer Swerve
The early-evening chill of an earlyNovember night transformed the contents in Sadie’s lungs from air to mist one last time, that whoosh of finality, her last exhale. Her first and final fall. Sadie soared to the ground, but Jasmine’s still alive. She was in her car, rounding the corner. Though now she is forever re-living her best friend’s descent. Her mind circles through the images. Replays the details. Infinity loop. And how she showed up a millisecond too late. How variables can carry a story’s outcome. Its meaning. Sadie and the ground. Shame, too. Guilt trip for not saving Sadie. Disappointed she’s not God. If Jasmine got there earlier, then… If Jasmine didn’t keep Sadie on the phone, then… If Jasmine only, then… The Mobius Strip of self-inflicted
shame. But arriving earlier would mean she would have seen her best friend slip. Would have watched her fall. Helpless even in this scenario. Hopeless. Forever. Because regardless of her time of arrival, Sadie’s soul still would have left. Jasmine will always feel a millisecond too late. Now it’s six weeks later and Jasmine’s driving in the parking lot she has been avoiding for six weeks. The garage where it all happened. She’s approaching the spot, right here, right there where Sadie’s soul departed. A feeling: there must be some part of Sadie still there. Still here. Molecules of self. Cells still trying to survive. Six weeks later. Sadie seeping into the asphalt. Always. The memories. They bleed. She swerves.
Things aren’t supposed to be like this. Milliseconds. Sadie. Nineteen years old. Alcoholic trying to get sober. The night of a relapse and a small platform nestled between two cement columns. It hangs over the edge of a parking garage under construction. Sitting with Sadie are the thoughts that have followed her since her first attempt. Try it again. But tonight she gets past the urge to fling, because her best friend Jasmine keeps her on the phone while she drives to her, to the garage, this spot, and convinces Sadie to try life just one more time. She says okay. Jasmine says she’ll be there in a sec, just stay on the phone with me. That’s what Jasmine says. Great idea. Seriously. Keep Sadie company. Stay with her until she’s there to help her off that ledge. She’ll be here any minute now. Gather yourself. Stand up. Get ready to return to life. Climb around the column and back over the
railing. To safety. Cell phone in hand. Railing grabbed. Foot lifted. Slip. Jasmine hears a scream. Then silence. The horrific logistics. Security camera caught it all. The dangling. The final let go. There she goes. The ground. Jasmine’s car then rounds the corner. One millisecond too late to touch her best friend’s final breath. Then six weeks later. Swerve.
Contributors Zak Block Zak Block’s short fiction appears in Gadfly, Paper Darts, and/or, the Santa Fe Writers Project Journal, and Quail Bell Magazine, and is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review. He is the founder, editor-in-chief and illustrator of (the) Squawk Back, a semi-weekly online literary journal of transgression and alienation, baptized by fire in May of 2011. Chelsey Clammer Chelsey Clammer has been published in The Rumpus, Essay Daily, The Water~Stone Review and Black Warrior Review (forthcoming) among many others. She is the Managing Editor and Nonfiction Editor for The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review. Clammer is also the Essays Editor for The Nervous Breakdown. Her first collection of essays, BodyHome, was released from Hopewell Publishing in March 2015. Her second collection of essays, There Is Nothing Else to See Here, is forthcoming from The Lit Pub, Summer 2015. You can read more of her writing on her website. Steven Fortune Steven Fortune is a member of the poetry editing staff for Miracle arts magazine. While attending Acadia University in Canada, he served as Editor-InChief of the campus arts journal, as well as News Editor of the student union newspaper. His poetry has appeared in several literary publications, and his
first independent collection of poems, “A Waltz Around The Swirls,” was published in November 2013. David Klugman David Klugman is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Program, and has been a practicing psychoanalyst for the past 25 years. He works in Nyack, NY, where he also lives with his wife and daughter. David’s work has recently appeared in Black Fox Literary Journal, Empty Sink, Foliate Oak Literary Journal and Postcard Poems and Prose. Miranda Roehler Miranda is a two-time recipient of the G. G. Bruer Award in Creative Writing at The University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. Her writing has appeared in The University of Findlay’s student literary magazine From the Writer’s Kitchen and the online literary magazinesInsert Lit Mag Here and The Furious Gazelle. In addition, Miranda has served for the past two years as a prose editor for The University of Findlay’s international literary journal Slippery Elm. Alan Semrow Alan Semrow lives in Wisconsin and is a graduate of English from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. His poems and fiction have been featured in multiple publications, including BlazeVOX14, Red Fez, The Bicycle Review, Earl of Plaid Lit Journal, Potluck Magazine, Blotterature Lit Mag; The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society; Former People: A Journal of Bangs and Whimpers, Barney Street, and Wordplay, and he won the Essayist Award from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point English Department for his nonfiction
work. In 2015, his stories are set to be featured in several journals, including EAP: The Magazine, The Radvocate, Indiana Voice Journal, and Golden Walkman Magazine. Semrow spends the majority of his free time with his boyfriend, friends, family, and Shih Tzu, Remy. His work can be read on his blog. David Spicer David Spicer has, over the years and in pursuit of the word, worked as a paper boy, dishwasher, bottle loader, record warehouser, carpert roll dragger, burger flopper, ditch digger, weather observer, furniture mover, Manpower flunky, gas pumper, bookseller, tutor, 11th and 12th grader babysitter, magazine and book editor and publisher, typesetter, proofreader, librarian’s assistant, carney barker, chocolate twister, artist’s model, and last but most certainly least, clinical trial subject for a laxative. He is the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, plus eight unpublished manuscripts. He has published in the usual slicks, non-slicks, and online journals. Christopher Woods Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and Chappell Hill, Texas. His published works include a novel, THE DREAM PATCH, a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK. HIs short fiction has appeared in many journals including The Southern Review, New Orleans Review and Glimmer Train. He conducts private creative writing workshops in Houston. His photography can be seen in his gallery
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