Philadelphia Stories Summer 2010

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FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

Kathleen Furin

SAY IT. THAT’S ALL. Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey

WHORE TIE sylvie beauvais

THE BABY author profile

C.G. BAUER

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FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

CONTENTS FEATURES 3 8 12 14 16 18 20

Say It. That’s All (fiction). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathleen Furin Whore Tie (essay). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey The Baby (essay). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sylvie Beauvais C.G. Bauer (Author Profile). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jamie Elfrank Keep No Secrets (novel excerpt) . . . . . . . . . . . . Julie Compton Revise, revise, and then try revising (column) . . Aimee Labrie Quickpicks

POETRY 5 6 10 11 13

The Solitary Canoeist.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Grant Clauser The Jetty.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Morrow Dowdle Trails.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .George Bishop A Supermarket in Pennsylvania. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kathryn Elisa Ionata The Gardener.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .William Hengst

PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG Publisher/Fiction Editor Carla Spataro Publisher/Managing Editor Christine Weiser Essay Editor Julia MacDonnell Chang Associate Fiction Editor Marc Schuster Guest Poetry Editor Deborah Burnham Director of Development Sharon Sood Production Manager Derek Carnegie Web Design Loic Duros Board of Directors Kerri Schuster, secretary Mitchell Sommers Christine Furtek Michael Ritter 2 Interns Zeba Baksh

Justin Davis Angela DeMott Amy Kates Greg Silber Contest Coordinator Jamie Elfrank Editorial Assistants Jamie Elfrank Diana Restifo Editorial Board Zeba Baksh, fiction Courtney Bambrick, poetry Anne Buckwalter, fiction Jackie Cassidy, fiction Christine Cavalier, poetry Liz Dolan, poetry Sandy Farnan, non-fiction Teresa FitzPatrick, fiction Marylou Fusco, fiction Pat Green, poetry Joanne Green, fiction Fran Grote, fiction Steven Harbold, fiction Matt Jordan, non-fiction Amy Kates, fiction Cecily Kellogg, poetry Aimee LaBrie, fiction Nathan Long, fiction Walt Maguire, fiction

3 2nd Bank Fresco by Thomas Johnson.

Thomas is a native of the Delaware Valley.

He has had a camera in his hands for most of his life and believes finding beauty in details is the best way to explore the world around us.

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Back Bay by Anna Marie. Anna Marie Zabielski's watercolor paintings are an expression of her eclectic style. She has exhibited throughout PA and NJ and serves on the Board of the Cape May County Art League and is a member of the Ocean City Fine Arts League. Her paintings hang in both corporate and private collections on both the east and west coasts, as well as in Great Britain.

7 Unhealthy Obsession by Colleen D. Gjefle. Colleen has been exhibiting her work for many years and has artwork included in several dozens of private collections, both in North America and Europe. Ms. Gjefle is not only a fine art painter, but a muralist and photographer as well.

Her website is MsSurreal.com.

8 The Open Doors by Brian Griffiths.

Brian is an artist and photographer living in the Greater Philadelphia area. He began using the camera as an artistic tool in college that began a love affair that’s lasted nearly a decade and a half. More of his work can be found at www.briangriffiths photo.com

Cover Art: My Flower Garden by Lois Allen Charles. Lois is a professional artist who works in watercolor and acrylic on canvas, and is known for her "Olde Philadelphia" series of watercolor painting. Lois’s one-person show, "My Garden of Colors," opens at the Tyme Gallery (17 West Eagle Rd., Havertown) in September and runs through early October. Reception: Sep 10th, 5-9pm. For more info: www.tymegallery.com & www.loisallencharles.com George McDermott, poetry Elizabeth Mosier, fiction Julie Odell, fiction John Shea, poetry & non-fiction Greg Silber, fiction Mitchell Sommers, fiction Janice Wilson Stridick, fiction Valeria Tsygankova, poetry Michelle Wittle, fiction

Philadelphia Stories is a non-profit literary magazine that publishes the finest literary fiction, poetry and art from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and distributes free of charge to a wide demographic throughout the region. Our mission is to develop a community of writers, artists and readers through the magazine, and through education programs such as writer’s workshops, reading series and other affordable professional development programs for emerging writers and artists. Philadelphia Stories is a 501c3 and is managed completely by a staff of volunteers. To support Philadelphia Stories and the local arts, please visit www.philadelphiastories.org to become a member today!

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SAY IT. THAT’S ALL.

2nd Bank Fresco by Thomas Johnson © 2010 hen your sister calls from Johannesburg and says, “I’m in the hospital,” say, “Hold on a sec,” then point to your phone and mouth important to the hostess, whose jeans are too tight and lipstick too bright for a fiveyear-old’s birthday. Glance over at your kids, who are intensely focused on the artwork they are creating, little jewelry boxes covered with paints and beads and baubles and rustily bits of tissue paper.

The little one will be poking out her tongue like she always does, gluing, cutting. They won’t miss you. Step outside.

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Pay attention to the daffodils. Were you really waiting so long for a sign of spring this year, or does winter always

feel this way? Say, “What happened?”

Say, “Are you okay?” Remember to breathe—in out in out, yes that’s it. She will say she is okay, but you will know immediately that she is not. She will say she was attacked. She will say the word you don’t want to hear. You will feel like crying. Don’t. Wait.

Don’t be scared that you don’t know who she is for a second, that she sounds like she’s completely out of it; she is, it’s only the drugs they gave her so she can rest, get some sleep. The good news is she won’t need surgery. The guard came in time, before they could do whatever else they could have done with the rope, the knives. Breathe—that’s it, breathe.

Say, “Do you want me to come get you, come be with you?” Say this even though you have no intention of getting on a plane, no intention of leaving your kids long enough to make a trip like that. Say it anyway. Say, “Who are you with?

When are you coming home?” Make sure she is safe. Make sure she has someone with her. Say, “I love you.” Say, “I’m here for you.” Let her hang up first.

Stay outside for a minute, even though the skies have burst open, engorged clouds exploding like the leaking breasts of a new mother. Get wet.

Feel the rain. See the daffodils—yellow, green, white. Go back in, to glitter and bright latex and hands and lips that are

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stained with chocolate and princess-pink frosting. Don’t think, yet, that anything can happen to these lips, these bodies,

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these little-girl hands. Even though your sister said, “It could have happened anywhere,” pretend for a moment like it can

never happen here.

Say yes to a slice of cake. Eat it all, even though it turns to sand in your mouth. Thank the hostess. Schedule a play date. Buckle the girls in—one, two, three. The third isn’t yours but sometimes it feels like she is, she’s with you so much.

You like her. She has a tiny body and a big voice. She sizzles with way too much life for that little body. She’s fun, usually, to have around. Once, when you dropped them off at school, she asked you for a kiss good-bye; now you always kiss her, too. She will be staying for dinner, so pick up an extra pizza. If you cooked tonight nothing would taste like it’s supposed to.

Put on a DVD. Tell them if they don’t agree on which one, they can’t watch anything; they’ll agree. DVDs are a big deal since they usually aren’t allowed. Go

Back Bay by Anna Marie © 2010

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS It was about one year ago when we sat down with Marc Schuster, our book acquisitions editor, and Alison Hicks, founder of the Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, a well-known Philadelphia-based creative writing workshop. Alison, who has run the Studio for more than thirteen years, had a proposal for PS Books: to publish an anthology that would offer a sampling of work from her students both past and present. We liked it, and agreed to take on the project.

Publishing the anthology was not the journey we expected. Alison’s father became very ill during the production of the book, and she often had to travel between Pennsylvania and California to care for him. During this difficult time, she managed to juggle author edits, formatting questions, permissions issues, and more. Co-editor Elizabeth Mosier spent many hours helping to fine tune the book, and the result is Prompted, an anthology that explores the human condition via poetry, personal essays, and fiction. From internationally published author Julie Compton (Tell No Lies, Rescuing Olivia) to first-time poet Marsha Pincus, Prompted’s connective tissue lies in a deep love and respect for the craft of writing.

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Alison’s father passed away the week before the book launch this past May, and while she was unable to attend the launch party, her voice was present throughout event. It was a beautiful day – the sun broke through the rain in time for the event, and more than one hundred people came out to celebrate the launch. It was another moment that reminded us why we volunteer so many hours for Philadelphia Stories – to see so many people gathered together to celebrate words was proof that the muse is alive and well here in the Philadelphia region. We’re honored to be a part of it.

Thank you for the journey, Alison. Your father would be proud.

Christine Weiser and Carla Spataro

www.philadelphiastories.org

k a t h l e e n in the bathroom and close the door. Call your husband.

Tell him what happened. You can probably cry now, but you won’t. Love him for offering to go find them and kill them, even though deep down you know that’s really just a stupid thing to say. Love him even more for offering to go get her, too. Love him when you realize he’s pulled over, on the side of the road with hazards blinking, in as much shock as you. Love him the most when he knows without saying that you won’t be having sex with him tonight, even though he picked up a bottle of wine and the hottest peppers he can find to make the nachos, even though wine and sex and snacks is what you do on Saturday nights since you had the kids.

Wait. Wait and wait and wait. She calls you from Tanzania, then Malawi.

Ethiopia. She is staying with friends. You want her to come home, but she won’t.

“Home is here,” she says. “This is home now.” Worry about her, constantly. Feel relieved that she is still far away, that you don’t have to deal with it. Feel relieved that she doesn’t want you to come. Feel relieved that her job is giving her a year of paid leave so she can cope. Wonder if her job feels guilty for only paying for guards at night when it was already too late anyway.

Try to remember what you learned when you worked the rape crisis hotline ten years ago. Remember what it was like to walk in to the ER with core-shattered women. Remember how different they all were. Some calm, some hysterical.

Not one of them would ever be the same.

Hate yourself for a moment for thinking you were doing something to help. Hate yourself for whatever it is that you said to their families, to them. Forgive yourself for thinking it’s all bullshit. Most days, bullshit is better than nothing.

When you finally see her, be extra kind. Meet her at the airport with an icecold Snapple, her favorite, something that she can’t get over there, something refreshing after her long flight. Laugh with her about the care packages you sent even though she always told you not to because they never made it to her intact; the only thing she got last time was an empty box filled with cookie crumbs, not even the popsicle-stick picture frame was left. Laugh about some postman in South Africa enjoying your cookies and People magazines. Have dinner already made, at home, and make the table with linen and china and flowers.

Move the little one’s bed into your room so she can have her own space. Don’t panic that she trembles constantly. It’s just the meds, she says, the meds that help her sleep, get through the day. Don’t panic that you can still see the scar on her neck, deep, whitish on the inside, pink all

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around it. Don’t think that is where they pressed the knife. Don’t think you need a better explanation when she tells your friend that she fell on the plane on the way over. Who falls on a plane? And if you did fall on a plane, how could it cut you like that? Don’t panic that she looks like she is fifty years old and so skinny that your five-year-old could snap her in two. When she tells you she is seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist, believe her.

Trust. She is smart. She is resilient. She’s a doctor, for god’s sake. She knows what to do, where to get help.

Try to do the normal things. Go see the Sex and the City movie even though you saw it already. Get butter on the popcorn even though you hate butter. Go to Target. Take long walks. Say, “I’m here for you.” Tell your daughters, “She’s sick. She got sick in Africa.” They will be confused: Why is she sleeping all the time? Why

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doesn’t she play with us anymore? Try to convince her to stay, but in a respectful way so she doesn’t feel like you think you know better than she does, even though you know you do. Feel sick and sad but

a l l . relieved when she goes back anyway.

Pray. Even if you never have before.

Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do, the only thing that helps you finally get

The Jetty

by Morrow Dowdle With a lowball of Jack and fading ice In one hand, he took me my by the other, And without shoes on our feet, Two streets and one block’s sidewalk Traversed to reach the shore that stretched Left and right for what seemed To me, at five, forever.

Wading perhaps too tame for the happy hour Burning in my father’s veins, We stepped up to the first black rocks Of the jetty, stepping stones for giants Taking respite at the beach, But more treacherous for simple humans, Sides obsidian-slick, all at once coming To rough points obscured by reflection.

We ventured out upon that pathway Into the sea, the closest we would ever get To walking on water, My father trying to lead the way, His unsteady steps making an irrational path, His stride outmatching mine.

Without warning tipped the balance of tide, And then the waves were upon us, My father shouting retreat Even as we began to fall, his glass

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Swallowed up, returned sand unto sand.

Miraculously sobered, he swept me up, But looking down, I saw his shins Had taken the brunt, jagged runs in the skin, Red sluicing into the wet fibers of leg hair, The first time I had ever seen my father bleed.

Morrow Dowdle spent her childhood on the Jersey Shore, in the town of Spring Lake. She studied writing at Emerson College's MFA program, then got her Master's in Physician Assistant Studies. She currently lives in Mount Holly, NJ, balancing time as a family medicine PA and poet.

to sleep at night, when you lay smooshed between your husband and your daughter who comes in every night around midnight, when you lay with your heart beating in your stomach and your throat on fire and know for sure more than at any other time that we are all completely powerless and there is nothing anyone can ever do.

Agree. When she calls and says, “I’m coming home. Nothing good can ever happen in Africa,” agree. You have lived in Africa, too, and you know the good things that can happen there and the good things that can happen here are totally different kinds of good things, and you weren’t even working with people who were dead and dying, like she does.

Invite her to stay with you; she won’t.

The kids are too much. Invite her anyway.

Go see her. Leave the kids with your mother-in-law for once. One weekend of high fructose corn syrup and non-stop TV won’t kill them. Practice your speech the whole way there. The speech about how you’re worried for her, she needs to be in treatment, she needs help, she’s not recovering from this on her own. How you would want her to say this to you, if the situation were reversed. The words will freeze on your tongue, melt into your throat the minute you see her, angry, pacing. When she snaps, “I had a bad day,” listen. She is looking for work, now, depressed. Her life can’t possibly have meaning unless she is living it right on the edge. Don’t tell her that children in New York or Miami or San Antonio need help just as much as the children over there.

Don’t tell her that she needs to help herself first, even though you want to say this more than anything. Listen. Just listen. Be there. Eat spicy samosas and savory lamb korma and go to the mall. Buy sheets of stickers with flowers and kittens for your girls, a small bag of peppermints for your mother-in-law. Help her pick out a blouse.

Don’t say that she looks like your eightythree-year-old grandmom from behind,

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­ all skin and shoulders. Say, “It’s nice. That color looks good on you.”

Plan another visit; she’ll come see you this time.

Don’t be surprised that she doesn’t. When she calls you from the airport, say okay. Don’t be surprised. She’s going back. Of course she’s going back. You already knew that, she already knew that, it was just a matter of when. “There are lots of doctors here,” she says. “And hardly any there.” Say, “I understand.” Say, “Whatever you need to do.” Say, “I’m here for you.” You don’t know what that means, how to be here, or where here even is. Say it anyway. Say, “I love you.” Say it. That’s all.

Kathleen Furin is a social worker, childbirth educator, and the co-founder of the Maternal Wellness Center, www.maternalwellness.org. She was a regular contributor to The Mother magazine from 2005 to 2007. Her work has also been published in Literary Mama, The Mother’s Movement Online, Midwifery Today, the anthology Operation Homecoming, and other journals.

Unhealthy Obsession by Colleen D. Gjefle © 2010

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P a l i a t s a s - H a u g h e y

WHORE TIE y grandfather’s name was Efthimios Vasilios Patouhas, but I called him Papa. As a toddler I could only manage to spurt out the first syllable of the Greek word for grandfather, pappou.

The repeated pa, pa, pa eventually became Papa. I’m nearly four years older than my next sibling and decades older than some of my cousins, so the name stuck long before any of them came along.

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Every summer, Papa went back to Greece to run his bar. He spent the winters living with Angie, his youngest daughter, in a trailer park off of Route 70 in Pennsauken. As a kid I would sleep over there, falling asleep watching old movies with my aunt. In the morning, I’d wake up to Papa and Angie whispering, so as not to wake me, and the smell of scrambled eggs and English muffins.

“You’re too skeeny,” Papa would say through his thick Greek accent.

I ignored him, in order to act offended, but then got myself to the table for my breakfast. When I was chowing down, Papa’s complaint would change.

“They don’t cook for you at home? Eat, eat. Bravo, bravo.”

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When he died in November 2006, I couldn’t attend the funeral, because it was in Greece and I was 7,000 miles away, in New Jersey, in the middle of the school year, teaching “The Odyssey” to ninth graders. Logistics, like time, money, and distance kept me from a farewell. It was all for the best though, because I wanted to remember Papa in my own way.

A few weeks after his death, when I talked to my Aunt Angie on the phone from Greece, she said, “When you get

The Open Doors by Brian Griffiths © 2010 here you can look through his jewelry box.”

“I only want the tie,” I told her. I didn’t have to explain which one I meant.

“Okay, it’s still hanging in his room.”

For two more years, until I could get to

it, the tie hung on a hook in his room with all the others. At last, in 2008, I boarded the plane for six weeks in the Mediterranean sun with only a long narrow piece of fabric on my mind. The thirteen hour trip exhausted me. I wanted nothing more than to collapse on the lumpy bed in the house that Papa had

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­ built but my mother and her siblings now owned. But not before going into Papa’s room to retrieve the tie.

From the cool of the dark long windowless hallway I knocked tentatively on his closed bedroom door as if he were still in there. I opened it and looked in. I wasn’t ready to study the pain of the room just yet. I only wanted my souvenir of his journey. I opened the door further and saw the hooks full of ties by the master suite bathroom door. There on top was the tie, my tie, the one I was after. It hung so neatly and was still knotted as if Papa had loosened it from around his neck, pulled it over his head, and hung it there the night before.

I grabbed it and pulled it over my own head and retired into the adjacent room. I slept carefully, so as not to undo his handiwork.

Efthimios was born the fifth child of eight in a rustic mountain village in December 1938. He was an identical twin, but he was unlike any of his siblings. He had a wandering and wondering spirit that led him at the age of fifteen, to traverse 20 miles of dirt road that wound down through evergreens and Cyprus trees to escape the andartes, the Communist rebels who were stealing children from their homes to fight civil warfare among the rocks of the motherland. By foot, by bus, by boat, by the grace of God he made it to Wilmington, Delaware and became an American, Tom Patouhas.

During the day, he loved everything about being an American, especially the work and the money. He worked his way up and down the country from Delaware to Tennessee to Florida to Ohio. It was while working at Libbey Owens Ford Glass Manufacturing in Toledo, Ohio that he met Simela Spirides. In the 1960s and ‘70s, he was a short version of Errol Flynn with a mustache, and he always wore a three-piece suit when he went

out. That’s probably why Simela, on first seeing him, told her girlfriend that she was going to marry him. She did and they soon had three kids. The first was my mom.

Weekends began on Thursday at 10 p.m., Greek Night, at the 70 West Bar and Lounge, and ended Sunday, at 4 a.m., in the adjacent diner, with pancakes and eggs for breakfast.

During the night he liked everything about being Greek. Smashing plates, dancing on tables, and drinking until he felt like smashing plates and dancing on tables. He loved his “Johnny Walker with a splash of Coke,” smoking a half pack of cigarettes in half an hour, and laughing his wheezing squeezed-lung laugh at dirty jokes. This may be why he and my grandmother divorced after five years.

She later joined a convent.

Papa bought me my first legal drink.

“Johnny Walker with a splash of Coke, hun,” he said to her. “You drink whisky, no bad shit,” he said to me.

In 1996, when I turned twenty-one, I hung out at the same bar Papa did. It was the only bar in South Jersey that played Greek music, so all the Greeks gathered there to smoke and drink and break things. I worked full time, studied at college full time, and partied full time.

My drink was delivered right to my hand. He lifted his and we toasted Yiamas!, to health. I lifted the short stout glass to my lips and swigged a few gulps.

The liquid ran through me, marking a path like a brushfire from my tongue to my stomach. For a second, I felt faint. I

“What you have?” he leaned in and asked over the blaring belly dance music cut with a techno beat.

“Ummm.” I looked at the waiting barmaid, completely lost.

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swayed enough to put the glass on the counter. In case I dropped to the floor, but I recovered almost instantly.

“Yeah?” Papa caught my attention out of the blaze in my brain.

I turned up a weak smile. “It’s good,” I said, and promptly left the drink on the bar to go dance and sweat out the flames.

The Christmas I bought him the tie, I was working as a cashier in an expensive women’s undergarment chain that used to be classy before it became campy. I worked, cascading small, medium, and large undies into panty table waterfalls and layered the sleeves of fuchsia ostrich feather robes as they hung from padded

hangers. I kept myself motivated through the late winter work nights by saving every penny to buy my summer vacation in the Greek sun.

Two weeks before Christmas, the company that owned my store gave us a 40% off discount throughout all its stores. Since the conglomerate owned three-fourths of the mall, I was set to get some decent gifts at reasonable prices.

By then, in his sixties, Papa still wore a three-piece suit when he went out to the bar. Usually, it was a tan ensemble—jacket, pants, and vest. I figured a smart tie would be the perfect gift to go with his pressed shirts, but I struggled picking it out. The sales guy hovered over me as I

TRAILS

By George Bishop

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So she could cope with the guilt she renamed the dog before taking it to the pound—which got me thinking about guilt and how I’ve shaken it most of my life, lost it on one of the false trails I fashioned.

It wasn’t easy being rescued all those times, forgiving the home in homeless and naming the streets just off the streets. I found real self pity needs strong family ties and accountability can only be absorbed by something thick and hidden like a wallet, something heartless like a heart. So, I told her not to forgive herself just as the dog didn’t for soiling every living space in the house. Guilt is part of a good home, I said, sometimes the only thing that can pick up a scent.

George Bishop was raised on the Jersey Shore before moving to Florida in 1985. Recent work has appeared in Merge Review, White Pelican Review and The Griffin. His chapbook, Love Scenes, was released by Finishing Line Press in November 2009.

touched the silk of each tie on display and scrutinized the individual designs.

Finally, I chose a tan one with a design of inch-high rectangles that had binoculars, lanterns, or four tiny license plates with horizontal or vertical striped backgrounds. I chuckled about the binoculars.

Papa used a pair to watch pretty girls on the beach, from the balcony of that home he’d built in Greece, with all those American dollars he’d made. I picked out a tan pair of socks and was done for that season.

Christmas at my parents’ house was always a big deal. We had to all get dressed and wait for my grandfather and aunts and uncles to show up before the gift exchange could begin. That year I was sure everyone would love what I’d gotten them. It was my first real job and real money I’d ever had to spend on gifts.

I’d gone all out, or as far out as my budget allowed. Papa strolled in with my Aunt Angie and us five kids and my parents settled around the living room close to the tree to hand out packages.

Papa had a system to his unwrapping.

He made two piles, one to keep and one to return. There was no polite pretending he would use the electric toothbrush or the back massager. He held them aside so he could give them back to you to exchange at the store yourself. I worried the tie would end up in his reject pile.

He unwrapped the socks first.

“Oh, these are good. These are nice,” he said showing them to everyone in the room.

“Look, they’re the kind that won’t cut off my circulation.”

I beamed. “I got them at the mall,” I said. “Now open this one, too.”

“Oh, more for me?” He tore the paper from the box and lifted its lid. He nodded more approval. “It matches the socks,” he said holding them up next to each other.

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­ Both were placed in the “keep” pile.

I was proud that my hard work and hard-earned money had garnered such a fine gift.

Weeks later, deep into the new year, I came home from a class to find Papa drinking coffee with my mother in her kitchen.

“You know that tie you got me for Christmas?” he asked as I walked in and unloaded my book bag.

“Yeah,” I half-listened as I rifled through the cabinets for a snack.

“It’s my whore tie,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked peeking out of the cabinet.

“My whore tie.”

A Supermarket in Pennsylvania

By Kathryn Elisa Ionata I saw my old psychiatrist at Trader Joe’s, sampling organic hand lotion.

We last faced off 50 milligrams ago, when he talked about stress, and I watched the clock’s hands march, an army of gears ticking like the rattle of pills. This 2-pill-day, I gather dried fruit, herbs, everything organic. My old shrink, smaller and greyer, bags peppers and free-range chicken with his dark-haired wife.

“Why?” “Because, when I wore it to the bar, all the whores came around me.” He wheezed out that hysterical asthmatic laugh and exposed the gold that replaced his upper right canine tooth.

That’s the Papa I remember when I see the tie, his whore tie, now hanging on an antique hook by my own bed, knotted still, exactly as it was when he last put it around his collar and headed out to the bar.

Tense despite the lavender plant I hold, my gaze flings to my love, the engineer, weighing cranberries versus apricots. He has seen me through deflated 1-pill-days.

My old shrink has brown bags happier than dopamine, and I want to block his exit, show him my fruit bars and engineer, whose perfect serotonin levels mock health insurance. I am 8 years, 200 milligrams better. I buy only organic and my lavender plant doesn’t talk back.

I see my shrink slip away, like an expired prescription— We pay for the plant and dried cranberries, which, I have told the engineer, taste best.

Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey is a writer of small important things and a teacher of small important people.

She is grateful for a story-rich family, Michael, and the Rowan Writing Program. “Whore Tie” is dedicated in memory of Efthemia.

Kathryn Elisa Ionata is a student in the graduate creative writing program at Temple University. Her writing has appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Hyphen, NYTimes.com, and other publications. She was the sixth runner-up in the 2008 Bucks County Poet Laureate Contest. She lives in Doylestown, PA.

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THE BABY s I turn 38 and keep stocking drawers full of dreams and half-completed projects, I’m pushing forward with one big initiative: I’m having an imaginary baby. Why not? My friend Laura and I share imaginary cocktails via instant messenger at work. I talk to my guardian angel a lot (if shadows are angels). I sometimes comfort myself with the idea of alternate universes where I’m adored and published, or in prison, maybe all of these.

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Reasons why I want this baby: 1) I’m selfish. 2) My routine bores me. 3) Imaginary babies are less creepy than imaginary boyfriends. 4) I’m pretty sure I have really good advice to give. Unlike the dreamy-eyed hippies I got for parents, I will be candid. Here’s the set up: each family is a mini kingdom uniquely composed of demanding princesses with half-baked ideas about ruling. Every time you leave the house, you run into princesses who refuse to admit their titles, but like to pull rank. The important thing to remember when dealing with royalty is that there is protocol.

Like any good tourist, you must observe the customs to the best of your ability and when committing a faux pas, remain polite. The other good bit of advice: it’s okay to go to bed drunk without brushing your teeth. I’m having this child because I’ve earned it—the search was long and arduous—because I’ve found the right child for me, and because it makes the commute to work that much more pleasant. And finally, because my child is fun and has good ideas.

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Before my plan was formulated, my baby was hard to find. I looked for the baby in the eyes of men, sometimes in the eyes of women, but I did not find my baby. I only knew its ghostly absence in my arms weighing on me. I clutched a

gaping space, not in my body, but on my body. Full of the absence of the baby I didn’t have, I carried the emptiness around like an invisible baby front pack—you’ve seen them. They’re called Baby Björns, by the way.

I’m an accomplished singleton: I make and eat delicious food alone. I’m an expert at solo lovemaking. I’m not an imaginative daydreamer, but I am close to my heart’s desires. My heart is full of invisible people—the friends and family I bring with me everywhere I go, inspiring authors and heroes whom I love, the halfbaked crushes that add intrigue to my daily life. They are a rich society that is known only to me, part anchored in the world, and part whispering wishes.

The real world is, well, tangible, and quite demanding. Case in point, my friends’ lively offspring whose charms have matching drawbacks—like the bossiness and the tears, and the abundant curry-colored shit overflowing the diaper and dripping onto the carpet.

These are drawbacks I would only dream of tackling in a team formation. Thus my baby, imaginary, and loaded with optional features tailored to my lifestyle.

No curry-colored shit for me. I won’t deny that I long for the body warmth of a real baby, but for now, I will be satisfied with this: My baby tells me stories to put me to sleep at night and holds my hand when I cross the street, but walks at my pace and I don’t pack a stroller. This is ironic because I lust for the big-wheeled strollers ambitiously fit parents run behind. Just cause they look so sporty and nurturing, simultaneously.

My baby wasn’t born all at once. Or rather, she has been born often and dissipates back into star-stuff as needed. This process, like the singing of a song, is repetitive and allows for fine tuning or

the universe’s baby-sitting, depending.

She’s kind of a lease baby, but these are advantageous terms. She’s sleek and plush, and shape-shifty, like a dream car or a good pet rolled into one. But human.

Making an alien would be too weird.

What’s nice about parenting is that there are no licenses and no tests, it’s your business until it becomes the State’s.

You can fuck up just until the damage is so extraordinarily obvious that law obliges third parties to call in licensed professionals. Abuse notwithstanding, what scares me about parenting is that there are always plentiful bystander judgments. You’re being observed, and you are found wanting. More than usual, I mean.

Thus again, imaginary baby. Who never cries herself to sleep.

The baby doesn’t have a real name yet, but that’s her doing. She’s to pick out her name. She likes to change them up.

Today she’s Roujika, but I bet she’ll go back to something a little less interesting in a few days. Emma seemed to stick for a while. I sometimes wish I had a boy so I could call him Rafael. I’m a sucker for Italian boy names. But I really wanted a girl. Girls are easier, and I can relate. I’m not sure what I would tell a boy. I’d cram his head full of feminist ideas, encourage him to read books— he’d be reviled by jocks. It would be tough going.

Obviously, I haven’t fully imagined my baby yet. Most parents enjoy a minimum of nine months to accustom themselves to the notion of parenting. So I’m taking my time getting to know my baby. For example, I’m pretty sure that my baby is a good sleeper like me, not an early morning person, but a child that likes the smell of coffee. Specifically I start the day in a leisurely fashion. My

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­ child only wakes once I have drunk one full hot cup of java. A friend suggested that I have a baby whose nostrils, when I squeezed the baby’s head, produce coffee. Now that’s monstrous. I’m not looking for a coffee maker. I have a coffee maker.

Having my baby wasn’t so hard.

There was no need to locate an inseminator, no need for a pre-baby diet, special baby vitamins, or post baby regimen.

No need to think about the sad fate in store for my breasts, inflating and deflating, sucked dry. My baby is body friendly. No c-section about it.

Ponder the word delivery. Delivery is a strange, ominous word. It implies imprisonment or the arrival of packages that require a signature. Your body is to deliver the goods, the giant, multi-pound, independent mechanism that wants you to spend all your money on its education.

Luckily, I have no educational costs, I home school my baby while I work.

The day, as I said, starts with coffee.

We take a shower, the baby scrubs my back, and I help her shampoo. We moisturize. I get dressed on my own. The baby draws the clothes she wants to wear that week, they materialize, she puts them on, and we have a fashion show. Sometimes I suggest alternate colors or fabrics, but, by and large, we agree. This takes place on Sundays; I don’t have time the rest of the week. On Mondays, the baby helps me with my commute; she holds my bags and we comment about the people on the trolley: their weird hats, their unfortunate lipsticks, their sleepy eyes. We wonder what their professions might be. My baby girl, she wants to be an archeologist or a dentist—precision instruments for cleaning either way. She doesn’t get that from me. I suck at cleaning.

Once I get to work, the baby plays with my feet while I check my email. She

sings songs, and draws, and generally has a good time ripping paper all day. When I need a break, or when I feel overwhelmed, we take five minutes and she holds me close and pets my hair. At lunch, I tell her stories, other jobs, other places I’ve been. She likes it when I talk about Hong Kong. We agree it’s a cool city. At 3 p.m., I riffle through my candy drawer and the baby gives me looks because she knows I’ll complain about my thighs eventually. Luckily the baby doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth which is convenient when I’m sneaking chocolate and don’t feel like sharing. I don’t like saying no to her, so that works out.

I haven’t introduced her to my coworkers. They might be alarmed that she’ll distract me or lower my productivity. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I work harder when the baby’s around—it’s easier to do things for someone else. I am working hard and saving up for vacation.

I can’t wait to show her the world.

After work, we walk home together and enjoy the changing seasons. There’s no fighting at bath time, and she likes to go to sleep early in the evening. Before I make dinner. She’s easy going. If I go out for drinks after work, she’ll let herself into the apartment, eat a little something and go to sleep on her own. The universe turns out to be a generous neighbor—It’s always Saturday night, and the universe is always available, knows infant CPR, and doesn’t eat my food or make prank calls from my landline.

This leaves me with a lot of time for dating, which apparently I should put more energy into. So she tells me, the baby, not the universe.

Sylvie Beauvais received her Master's of Liberal Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. Her novella, Fly, Rapunzel was a finalist in Low Fidelity Press’s 2006 Novella Award Contest. She has been a writer and editor for start-ups and non-profits, but is now focused on publishing her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

THE GARDENER

By William Hengst Sometimes as he cuts back the spent blossoms or lessens the height and girth of some shrub, he sees himself cutting hair—handfuls.

Women’s hair, feathering, layering, perhaps trimming snipping off split ends.

He becomes a sculptor, moves full circle around the hair, preens and pats, steps back to admire his work, steps in to make strategic cuts.

The only gossip is that of blade and blossom as he cuts away the frivolous chatter.

He prefers the silence of what is shorn.

William Hengst is a long-time resident of Philadelphia who writes poetry and short stories and gardens professionally.

Finishing Line Press recently published “Yard Man,” a chapbook of his poems inspired by his gardening life.

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p r o f i l e

C.G. BAUER

By Jamie Elfrank

help of the Devil. It gave me chills thinking about how perfect a plot anchor it could be for a horror novel. I should note that the setting of the novel is not a foreign country in medieval times but rather in 1964 in a German Catholic parish in fictitious Three Bridges, Pennsylvania, a town I set just outside Philadelphia in Bucks County.

How the allegedly demonic manuscript found its way to a small parish in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is something readers will need to learn on their own.

Can you give us a quick rundown of your novel?

What do you get when you take a satanic text and add corporate corruption, an ailing child, and an elderly church caretaker? Set in a small town in Pennsylvania, C.G. Bauer’s thrilling novel Scars on the Face of God, tells the story of Johannes “Wump” Hozer and his fight for justice against a company that’s been polluting a small town. The novel is a roller coaster ride of suspense and mystery laced with modern horror and ancient hysteria.

Scars on the Face of God is inspired by the Devil’s Bible. How did you first come across the Devil’s Bible?

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The movie The Devil’s Advocate starring Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves produced an “a-ha” moment when Pacino’s Satan talked of “rewriting history.” It made me ask if there was evidence of attempts to relate religious events in history from Satan’s viewpoint. An Internet search produced the Devil’s Bible, also known as “Codex Gigas,” which translated means “The Giant Book.” A 13th century religious artifact now on display in the National Library of Sweden, dubbed at one time the Eighth Wonder of the World, and a spoil of one or more European wars, the enormous and lengthy (nearly 700page) Devil’s Bible was written as a penance, according to legend, in one night by a Bohemian monk with the

Church caretaker Johannes “Wump” Hozer, 65, survived a knockabout childhood as an orphan and a stint in prison (his nickname is from the sound a crowbar makes when it hits a man’s head) with the help of his beloved wife Viola. He’s lost his faith mostly because the Catholic Church has apparently ignored the repeated salacious behavior of the parish’s monsignor. On a second front he’s taking matters into his own hands, looking for satisfaction against a tannery that is dumping waste into the local water supply, something Wump is sure caused his son’s leukemia. What he doesn’t count on is resurecting a 19th century hysteria that leads to confronting what may or may not be the anti-Christ. It’s oldschool, personal horror laced with suspense and mystery, and I’m really happy with how the multiple plotlines worked so well together.

What type of research did you do for your book?

There was what I considered to be an abnormal cluster of impaired children living in my Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood during my childhood. Couple that with having read Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action, which chronicles the alleged effects of dumping carcinogens into the environment by leather tanneries in a small town in Massachusetts. Additional research revealed that there was a proliferation of leather tanneries around the Philadelphia region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Note: The tannery waste dumping issues and the impact they have on the novel’s Philadelphia setting are strictly fictitious.) A writer friend revealed that tanning leather could be hastened by using dog feces in the process, knowledge passed down from his grandfather who during poorer times had collected neighborhood dog droppings and delivered them to a local tannery; debatably one origin of the phrase “pay dirt.” For a

somewhat livelier and colorful aside, I endowed my protagonist’s childhood with a similar pursuit.

More input from my wife, a social worker and my best muse: In mid-to-late-19th century there weren’t enough U. S. laws to protect children from abuse by their parents. Child protection groups cite anecdotally that orphanages were built in some urban environments because local sewer systems couldn’t handle the volume of infant bodies being discarded by poor families with too many mouths to feed. With too few laws to stop such barbarism it wasn’t uncommon for some of the outraged citizenry to invoke local animal rights and abuse statutes and penalties in attempting to stem this and other child mistreatment when it was discovered.

You’ve spent much of your life living in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, among many other places. Why did you choose PA for your novel and how did your years of living here influence your novel?

I’m a product of Philadelphia Catholic schools and Penn State University, and I received excellent educations from both. I could say that this fits into the “write what you know” writing method, but the story could have had been told in many eastern U. S. settings where growth of 19th and 20th century manufacturing had caused urban expansion to encroach unregulated into rural areas. So choosing this environment was frankly a comfortable thing for me, where I felt I could visualize the events better because of an inherent feel for and attachment to my hometown. Plus there is one other key relationship the novel shares with the area: the fictitious orphanage that plays so prominent a role in the multiple plotlines is fashioned after St. Vincent’s Home in Tacony, truly a Philadelphia icon. It’s ceased its existence as an orphanage and is now part of a program of Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia known as St. Vincent Homes, providing services to Philadelphia’s abandoned, abused and neglected children and their families. Dating back to its life as an orphanage, it’s been providing these services for over 150 years.

How long did it take for you to write your novel?

The novel took three years to complete (I have a very demanding day job) then over a year to interest a publisher. Drollerie Press is a little-engine-that-could small press that delivers stories steeped in legend and fairy tale. Inspired by the legend around The Devil’s Bible, Scars was a natural fit for them. Available from Drollerie first as an eBook, the publisher released it as a trade

paperback in December 2009. In its electronic format it’s a finalist for a 2010 EPIC Award (formerly known as the “Eppies”) in horror, awarded annually for excellence in electronic publishing.

Who is your favorite character in the book?

Hands down, narrator Wump Hozer is my favorite.

Writing him in the first person provided for a strong, inyour-face voice. He’s a man’s man with a nearly debilitating burden, the recent loss of his son, a burden that drives him to confront utility company bureaucrats, tannery management, and Archdiocesan dignitaries. He’s aged gracefully, is sure he can still beat the snot out of men half his age and, if necessary, do the same to demons many centuries his senior. He’s very much in love with his wife of forty years and is quite attached to the nuns who run the local orphanage, and to the orphanage’s residents. He’s closest to one orphan in particular, the ambitious but slow-witted Leo, his gopher for parish custodial duties.

What do you hope people will experience while reading your novel?

I want them to continue to turn the pages. I want to thrill them with characters’ insights and discoveries. I want them to be so drawn into the story that they try to finish it in one sitting. I want them to experience a character’s pain, feel his adrenaline rush, her euphoria, his shock and awe, her surprise at an “a-ha” or a twist, his and her sentimentality and humanity. I want readers to say, “Whoa. That was good. What else you got?” What they won’t experience: excess squeam. While displaying blood and guts was necessary and fun to do in spots, the novel isn’t terribly horrific in this regard. I’ll add here that no zombies or vampires were harmed in the creation of this work of fiction simply because no zombies or vampires are in it. Not that there’s anything wrong with them.

I love zombies. My wife says she’s married to one.

Did you incorporate your personality into your novel? Do any characters share your personality?

My personality is surely in there. Hopefully it’s only the more interesting attributes. With Wump, it’s his stubbornness and his short-fused responses to hopeless situations, where he tells his infinitely more powerful adversaries to go screw themselves. Not necessarily a smart thing to do, but he does it anyway, daring them to make their move. He shows plenty of misplaced hubris but also a ballsy-ness I feel we all aspire to.

Read the complete interview at www.philadelphiastories.org

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c o m p t o n

AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL

KEEP NO SECRETS ou smell the scent.

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It’s happened before. The first time, when you and your wife Claire cut through the cosmetics department at the mall, your heartbeat soared with such trepidation that you clutched at your chest, startling her. Another time, alone in line at a coffee shop near your house, it came up behind you like a wind on a blustery day. Both times you experienced the same physical sensation – the

fleeting but intense pounding of the muscle that signaled life – but it ended as soon as it began, when your mistaken assumption quickly (and with much relief) became apparent.

Those other times, no touch came on the heels of the scent. Neither the girl at the cosmetics counter nor the woman who stood behind you in line at the coffee shop knew you intimately enough to touch you.

This time is different. It happens so

The Solitary Canoeist

By Grant Clauser This red cliff above Neshaminy, and a wind left here by the fat of winter — only one hawk, talons curled into the juice of her breast, made light in reflection by the curved note a solitary canoe cuts like grief below. But how this tawny mud, this olive snake and rise of late March shakes off another hour by the bleat of geese?

Another reluctant passion

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alone. And now far upstream the red boat and tick of spring follows winter and this man down.

Grant Clauser is a medical magazine editor near Philadelphia and freelance technology writer. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Hatfield, PA. His poems have appeared in various places including The Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Wisconsin Review, The Maryland Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly and others plus a TV show about bass fishing. He is the 2010 Montgomery County Poet Laureate.

fast. So fast that your brain doesn’t have time to think, “Someone wearing the same cologne must have just walked the same path I’m about to walk.” No time to reassure yourself, “It’s nothing more than a scent.”

It’s late. Almost midnight. You’ve just left the law library at the university, a spot you now frequent to escape the incessant demands at your office. You don’t resent the demands or the people who make them, but you appreciate the solitude you find at the vacant library, hidden from sight between the stacks.

Most students and lawyers do all of their research online now.

At this time of night, you could have stayed at your office and experienced the same quiet. It’s a government office; come five o’clock, your attorneys and staff would have been long gone except, possibly, the newest assistant prosecutor, Briana. She has her first trial the next day, a simple assault and battery, and she’s nervous about it. You stopped by her office on the way out and ended up staying another hour just to let her talk about the case. This helps your attorneys, to talk it out, to pick your brain for ideas.

But you have another case on your mind, one that mesmerized the city when the crime first occurred two months before and will turn into a full blown circus once the imminent arrest is made. A husband murdered, his wife the prime suspect. On the surface, it sounds like so many other domestic murder cases, but your instincts told you something about this one was different.

Perhaps it was the fact that the man was the victim, the woman the presumed perpetrator. Perhaps it was the manner in which the murderer had disposed of the body, or maybe, even, it was simply the pictures of the couple in their younger, happier days, but something made you

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­ decide it would be irresponsible not to handle it yourself. This decision didn’t sit well with some of the more experienced prosecutors, who hoped for their moment in the spotlight.

So while the office would have been quiet, you’ve learned that your mind isn’t so accommodating, not when surrounded by the files and memos and post-it notes that clutter your desk. For better or worse, you’ve come to require the large, clean mahogany table at the law library.

You walk across campus and enter the pedestrian tunnel that will take you to the other side of Forsyth Avenue, where you parked your car. Your footsteps become louder in the tunnel; your eyes glance at the blue light above the emergency phone attached to the tunnel wall, but other than the simple recogni-

tion of its existence, you don’t think twice about it. You’re not thinking at all, really, and it’s nice, the respite from the noise in your head.

If a hand unexpectedly reached out of the dark and touched you at midnight on a deserted college campus, your first response would probably be fear. Your first instinct would be one of two – fight or flight. But not when the hand touching you has already left its mark. Not when, in the split second before you feel the touch and hear the voice, you smell the scent that has the power to weaken your knees and make any protective response impossible.

No, in this case, your response is altogether different. It’s still instinctive, but it’s not the response that will save

your life.

“Jack, it’s me,” comes a voice from the past, barely a whisper, its owner unseen, but known.

You’re left with only one response.

Just one.

You turn, and without a beat, you submit.

Julie Compton is the internationally published author of two novels, Tell No Lies and Rescuing Olivia.

An attorney by profession, she gave up law to pursue writing full-time when her family moved from Philadelphia to Florida in 2003. She now lives near Orlando, where she is writing Keep No Secrets, a sequel to Tell No Lies. Learn more at www.julie-compton.com. This excerpt appears in the latest PS Books title, Prompted, an anthology of work from Alison Hicks’ Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio that explores the human condition via poetry, personal essays, and fiction.

Philadelphia Stories is pleased to announce the 2010 Second Annual Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction

in the amount of $2000.The Prize also includes travel expenses to an awards dinner in Philadelphia on October 15, the evening before Philadelphia Stories' Push to Publish Conference.The winning story will appear in the Winter 2011 print and online issue of Philadelphia Stories.

Submission period:

May 4, 2010 to August 4, 2010 Judge: Ru Freeman’s debut novel, A Disobedient Girl, is published by Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. She calls both Sri Lanka and America home and writes about the people and countries underneath her skin.

Requirements:

1. Previously unpublished works of fiction up to 8,000 words.

2. $10 reading fee for each story submitted.

3. To be eligible, the authors must reside in the United States.

All entrants will receive a complimentary oneyear membership to Philadelphia Stories. No current or former Philadelphia Stories editorial board members are eligible. The Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction is made possible by the generous support of the McGlinn family and the Dry Family Foundation.

Philadelphia Stories complies with the ethical guidelines for contests set forth by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

For more information, email jamie@philadelphiastories.org

a i m e e ’ s

T i p s

REVISE, REVISE, AND THEN TRY REVISING Aimee LaBrie

Years ago, as a graduate student in writing at DePaul University, I took two fiction classes from Phyllis Moore. She had long, white hair, a gentle Southern voice, and a way of critiquing short stories that cut straight to the quick of the story’s problems. Her sweet-sounding critique had an iron backbone—it could make you consider never writing another word. Unless, that is, you could find a way to separate yourself from your writing; to not consider her critique of your work a personal assault.

It took me awhile to get the hang of this skill.

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In my second class with her, I wrote a short piece about two estranged sisters. I thought it was pretty good—it had a lot of physical detail about Chicago (which I knew well). Phyllis thought it was okay, but a little too precious. She questioned every part of it. What was the deal with the paper dolls? How long had it been since these two sisters had seen one another?

What happened to this phantom mother who is hinted at throughout the story? How much time is passing in the world of the story?

I wrote the story again, deleting the scene where the narrator reminisces about a bad haircut. I added a paragraph describing the sheet of ice covering the window of this South Chicago apartment, which then logically led to a flashback about the sisters iceskating as kids. Phyllis read it again and, in her sweet way, asked me why the story still read as if it were written by someone who never had a sister in her life (how did she know that I’m an only child)? She said, “Oh, some of it is so precious…Get rid of all of that.”

I wrote it again. She critiqued it.

I rewrote. She said I was getting closer…but really, did I need the scene about the Singer sewing machine? I started to get angry. I looked at the story again. I forced myself to strip it bare—to ask the important questions: what is at stake? What does the narrator want? How will she fight to get what she wants? I turned it in to her again, daring her to find fault. She did. I revised. This back and forth continued until I was on the twelfth draft and the story had been cut from its original 5,000 words to a mere 2,500.

She read it carefully in front of me after class had ended while I kneaded my fingers together underneath my desk. She said, “Okay, baby doll…I think you got it.” She sent my story in to Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshop, 1997. The editor of that edition, Carol Shields, chose to include my story. I know she wouldn’t have if I had sent the first version. Or the seventh. Or the eleventh.

My teacher forced me to look very, very carefully at every piece of the story. Every sentence, every word, every description, every flashback—and to also look at what was missing. She made me see too that the first few stabs at a story are just the beginning. The real writing, I learned from that experience, comes during the revision. It happens when you are forced to examine the story in the same way you would a new building; checking for leaks and unfinished parts, places where the structure is vulnerable or faulty.

This does not mean that you need to go through a dozen drafts before the story is successful, but it does mean that the first draft is often just the beginning.

n a m e

o f

a u t h o r

ResouRces foR WRiteRs and aRtists

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The 2010 MCCC Writers Conference November 5‐6, 2010 Blue Bell, PA

November 5: An Evening with Pulitzer Prize and Hugo Award Winner Michael Chabon Author of Wonder Boys, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

November 6: Agent pitch sessions and workshops on fiction, poetry, journalism, nonfiction, memoir, and more.

For more information, visit us at www.mc3.edu/writers‐conf/

PUSH TO PUBLISH

Strategies and Techniques to Get Your Work in Print and Online

1400 Montgomery Ave. Rosemont, PA 19010 Saturday October 16, 2010 9:00am-5:00pm

ROSEMONT COLLEGE CAMPUS

Whether you are an established writer or just getting started, this one-day workshop will provide valuable resources you can use to get your work in print and online. Highlights Include: * Speed date with the editors: Meet real editors who will review your specific work. * Learn how to increase your chances of getting published. * Get great marketing and networking tips to break into the competitive world of fiction, children’s books, and poetry.

books you might have missed! by marc schuster

SUMMER QUICK PICKS There’s the boy whose job is to pretend he’s the dead son of a lonely divorcee. There’s even the aspiring swimsuit model who wakes up from

Elysiana by Chris Knopf In Elysiana, Chris Knopf plies the tools of the suspense trade (honed to perfection in his Sam Acquillo mystery series) to a tale that’s equal parts mystery, romance, nostalgia, and political intrigue. Named after the mythical resting place of the brave and virtuous, the island town of Elysiana—a fictionalized amalgam of Avalon and Cape May—is populated by heroes of a distinctly modern stripe, most notably the town’s lifeguards. Yet Elysiana is, thankfully, no Baywatch, and Knopf’s lifeguards run the gamut of intellectual and emotional complexity. For example, there’s the brain-damaged yet brilliant Jack Halcyon, the sole inhabitant of an otherwise abandoned resort hotel that towers over the island. Then there’s Avery Volpe, the no-nonsense head of the beach patrol whose heart belongs to the local crime boss’s wife. Add to the mix a host of scheming politicians, stoner surfers, petty thieves, and other wayward souls, and you have the makings of the perfect summertime page-turner that rivals even the Beach Boys at evoking the classic American summer of our collective dreams.

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If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home by John Jodzio In his debut collection of short fiction, John Jodzio presents twenty-one comical tales of woe. There’s the kid who stumbles upon a corpse while collecting golf balls in the local bog. There’s the sad clown who’s lost his dog.

sunbathing one day to find that a barnacle has attached itself to her thigh.

Despite the crummy hands they’ve been dealt, however, Jodzio’s characters never feel especially sorry for themselves. Instead, they reveal the author as somewhat of a closet romantic who graces his characters with hope and leaves their lives open to miracles. None of this is to say that If You Lived Here is especially inspiring; that’s hardly the point. The point, I would venture to guess, is to say that life can be ridiculous at times, disappointing at others, and is largely a crap shoot, but that we just need to deal with it. If this collection is any indication of what’s to come, Jodzio is definitely a writer to watch.

Don’t Smell the Floss

by Matty Byloos The subtitle of Don’t Smell the Floss says it all: “Amazing short stories by

Matty Byloos.” Though it’s tempting to read this as a bit of snarky self-promotion, Byloos has the writing chops to pull it off legitimately. The fourteen stories collected in this volume really are amazing in every sense of the word. For one thing, they take the reader behind the scenes of lives we might not normally think about (or even want to think about) but which are no less real despite their clandestine nature. In one story, for example, he takes the reader behind the scenes of a pornography shoot to reveal the soft side of the business—which isn’t to say that he romanticizes his subject at all in this story. On the contrary, he explores the effect of pornography on everyone involved in the business from all of its intricate angles. Yes, the participants are jaded, but their lives are so complicated and splintered, their loneliness and insecurity so palpable, that it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for them. A cross between the work of George Saunders and Chuck Palahniuk, Don’t Smell the Floss is occasionally gross but always fast-moving, smart, and funny.

Small Kingdoms

by Anastasia Hobbett Small Kingdoms explores the complicated relationship between the Western world and the Middle East by following the interconnected lives of four characters living in Kuwait during the period between the Gulf wars.

Here, underpaid servants from Pakistan, India, and the Philippines

labor silently and without complaint beneath the watchful eyes of their Kuwaiti employers. At the same time, the Americans who visit the nation on business or for humanitarian reasons eye the Kuwaitis with equal parts fascination and suspicion. Given this mix of cultures, everyone in the novel is a stranger in a strange land, and by allowing her characters to grope almost blindly through the mysterious terrain of this land, Hobbet allows her readers to do the same thing. As such, Small Kingdoms sheds light not just on life in the Middle East but also on what it means to be human, to be engaged in the world at large. It takes big issues and examines them on a human scale. That Hobbet pulls this trick off while also giving us a gripping, multi-layered narrative only underscores her gifts as a writer. Both moving and intelligent, Small Kingdoms is nothing short of amazing.

Racing Hummingbirds

by Jeanann Verlee There’s no easy way to read Jeanann Verlee’s latest collection of poetry.

Her subjects include rape, incest, death, and all manner of abusive relationships. At the same time, however, they’re not poems of accusation.

Rather, they’re poems that try to make sense of the world and, more importantly, poems that strive to forgive and comfort the ghosts that haunt the victims in all of us. In “Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair,” for example, one can’t help reading the poem as a desperate attempt at turning back the clock, at reaching back in time to offer advice to a former, naive self. Of course, Racing Hummingbirds

is not just about victimization. It’s also about moving on—as in “40 Love Letters,” which, as the title suggests, consists of 40 brief notes to past or potential lovers explaining in no uncertain terms why each relationship simply won’t work out. As visceral and searing as it is compassionate and forgiving, Racing Hummingbirds explores the darkest reaches of the human heart in order to demonstrate that although we are all flawed and damaged, we are, more than anything, capable of great beauty.

The Road to God Knows…

by Von Allan Von Allan’s graphic novel, The Road to God Knows… opens with a series of images depicting the stark yet curiously hopeful Ottawa in which the action takes place. It’s a city where boys play street hockey in short sleeves, homeless men sleep on sidewalks, and oneeyed jack-o-lanterns smile at passers by. Against this backdrop, teenage protagonist Marie struggles to cope with her mother’s schizophrenia. To balance the story, however, Allan follows two arcs at once: while Marie’s nearly overwhelming struggle on the home front undergirds the narrative, her quest to attend a pro-wrestling match (an all-but impossible dream for a poor girl growing up in Ottawa) buoys the proceedings. With The Road to God Knows…, Allan demonstrates that he’s talented as both an artist and a storyteller. The Ottawa he conjures is on par with the London of Dickens or the Cleveland of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor.

Stylistically, the book is also reminiscent of Black Hole by Charles Burns and Sloth (among other things) by Gilbert Hernandez. Regardless of its

pedigree, however, what’s clear throughout this graphic novel is that Allan is an optimist who strives to explore the human heart in all of its intricate complexity.

Straining to Parallel Park in an Empty Field by Jessica Kane It comes as no surprise when, a few tracks into Jessica Kane’s new audio book, Straining to Parallel Park in an Empty Field, the author/narrator mentions that she’d been listening to NPR when she spotted a fly dancing on her window ledge—for the musings, casual epiphanies, and slice-of-life vignettes that Kane includes on this four-CD set are steeped in the tones and cadences of such public radio fare as This American Life and A Prairie Home Companion. Indeed, Kane, whose voice falls somewhere on the spectrum between that of author Sarah Vowell and comedienne Kristen Schaal, would be right at home on either of those programs. Her material ranges from the mundane (shopping at thrift shops) to the cosmic (the relationship between forgotten pieces of furniture and the meaning of life), and throughout the proceedings, her observational humor sheds quirky light on the peculiar vanity of the human animal: our toes speak volumes with respect to our ancestral origins, Kane opines on one track, while our fascination with cars and rear view mirrors reflects the insular, hyper-self-conscious mindset of the species as we move into the twentyfirst century.

Marc Schuster is the Associate Fiction Editor of Philadelphia Stories and the editor of Small Press Reviews. To read more reviews of books from small and independent presses, visit smallpressreviews.wordpress.com..

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