tidbits

Autumn came in with a gust of rain and my soggy back yard looks green but wilting. Summer didn’t even say goodbye; I woke up one day and she was just gone. It’s like losing a friend, especially when the usual seasonal affective nonsense starts to kick in. This time I’m diligently taking vitamin D in absence of the sunshine, and I’m seriously thinking about investing in some therapy. My winters get very very dark, and I need to do something differently this year to manage my mental health.

My daughter is going to be TEN in a couple of days. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I can’t. A decade. I’ve been a mom for a decade. It just boggles the mind, to think that she was once this tiny, hairy little creature that changed my entire life. She was so soft and gorgeous, and now she’s this fiercely independent girl, who challenges me and who has these huge ideas and I often wish I had the energy to go along with all of her schemes and pranks. She’s so busy, all the time, and I love her imagination.

I’m published again, this time in a micro fiction contest at Tidbits Writing.

While I didn’t place in the contest itself, the ebook anthology is filled with the winners and honourable mentions, and you’ll find me in the section entitled Fairy tales remixed.

(Because they’re all so wonderful, I’ll also include the second batch of stories )

As ever, I am humbled and thrilled beyond words to be included in such a vibrant anthology, alongside such creative and imaginative wordsmiths. While it is so tempting at the end of the day to curl up with a show and a cup of tea, I’ve been realizing lately that my writing career will never have the success I want it to have if I continue to spend so much time binging Outlander from the beginning.

So, here’s to a more self-aware and disciplined winter, with defences in place to battle the Depression beast, and a re-dedication to creative endeavours.

busy summer

I can’t believe the summer is half over. Does anyone else feel like it’s positively FLYING by? Camping, BBQs, waterslides, lazily floating down the river getting burnt to a crisp… all the wonderful things about summer are passing by me in a blur of fun. Meanwhile, my eldest daughter is currently spending a week with my mom in another province, and it’s not that I didn’t think I would miss her. I knew I would, I just intellectually knew she would have such a good time that it would go by fast and she’d be back in my arms with all sorts of new ideas and stories to tell me and there wouldn’t be any time for me to feel sad about it. But I said goodnight to her over the phone last night I couldn’t keep the tears in. Her bedroom is empty and I’m sad about it. She’s only nine. But I miss her nonsense.

In other news, I am thrilled to announce the appearance of my short story, The Time Train, in Twist in Time Magazine’s fourth issue. I have been trying to find a home for this one for a very long time, and its very satisfying (despite a couple of past tense slip-ups) to have it out there for the world to read. If they were so inclined. (I’m really proud of it though so you should check it out.

Dodging the Rain has been good to me again and published another collection of poetry, and you can find it here. There’s one in there I wrote at a much darker time in my life, and to have it published feels both a little inauthentic and also a relief, that I can file it in the “published” folder and not think about it anymore. Who knew this long labour of love would be so cathartic?

A little damaged in the mail, but…

 

Here it is! My poem, “Kiss-flavoured tea” is right there, in print, in Poetry South Magazine’s tenth issue! I’m absolutely thrilled to be included among these other authors; the writing in this journal is just excellent.

Back issues of Poetry South are available on their website, except for this most recent one. Hard copies can be ordered using this form. I collect no royalties.

 

 

hungry?

My very naughty poem, Lock and Key, can be found published here, in The Hunger Journal’s inaugural issue. I am delighted and humbled to be included with these breathtaking pieces.

A+

As the daughter of an academic, I was always expected to pursue higher learning, though I missed the boat on valuing it, as it were. I took a year off after high school and then when I went back I did really well in my first semester of a BA, but ended my second semester on academic probation. I lost momentum and got lazy. Then babies happened, and life came before education. I went back in september of 2013 to do one course per semester. I got an A and an A+, and was bolstered by the idea that I could maybe do this school thing after all. I knew that I could have academic success while juggling my two babies and husband and home and everything. I just had to set myself up to succeed.

Now, with three kids and husband and home and very physically demanding job, I got back into it this past fall, and it was HARD but AMAZING. I took Film 101, which feels very indulgent, but it was an admitted blasty blast. It was 3 hours every thursday night, a 1 hour lecture and then a movie of the prof’s choosing. There were many LONG textbook readings, two exams and a term paper, but it was so chill and amazing and I felt like I was really doing something for MYSELF. Also, I saw some classics that I’m very happy I got an opportunity to see, like Psycho and Raging Bull and Double Indemnity. I wrote my paper on Django Unchained, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s genius, highlighting that infamous after-dinner scene in which he slams his hand down on the table and actually cuts his hand, but continues acting with blood pouring all over the place. I WROTE A 2000 WORD PAPER ABOUT LEONARDO DICAPRIO’S BLOOD.

Fast forward to JUST NOW, when I checked my grade. Any guesses?

A+ baby. I’ve still got it. January, here I come.

sharing is caring

I am very excited to announce a couple more publications that have decided my stuff is worthy of recognition, and I am thrilled and humbled. Find them here and here. The first is at Borrowed Solace magazine, and you’d have to buy the issue to read the poem I submitted. It’s $7.50 and I don’t receive any royalties. The second publication accepted three of my poems, and I am truly honoured to be featured among the other authors on that site.

stirring

Every woman has a secret.

Mine lives in a fairy glade,

dancing with the willow daughters

around the maypole,

dragonflies and marigolds in her hair.

sunset locks undulating over

pale moon-white shoulders, bare feet

glancing off cool night grass

voices raised

hands beat on drums of weathered hide

song swells above ribbon branches

ash, oak, birch, yew

kissing the stars – and me –

with saccharine uncertainty

she whispers to me and

my peter pan admires

the soft fingers leaving traces

of fairy dust, shimmering

and I have come full circle.

You and I

It’s been a while

since I thought of you –

tucked away,

ever sweet and soft and safe

and quiet, always quiet

lest you make a sound

and wake the sleeping little one.

You used to take me by the hand

along snowy streets in winter-time,

child of bitter cold and ice and regret

cigarette in the corner of my mouth

as we stopped to gaze

at Baby Jesus, peaceful

and brimming with possibility.

You sank into the corners of my eyes

permeating my self-restraint,

showing me that I was weak

and needing something more

than what we made together.

I watched as you floated away,

sails outstretched,

making love to the breeze,

and I needed you more

when you were gone.

I am Vanilla to your chocolate,

like water dripping through the creases

and folds and stretched skin

yearning to hear I’m beautiful

to someone.

I am you as you are me,

and I am Mother as you are just a girl,

dreaming.

Sun-kissed

I used to be Winter Child,

cold nose comforting

and sweaters piled on thick.

Now I am Woman,

borne of summertime,

of grass and flowers

and blistering sun,

cool breezes like kisses

on sun-soaked flesh.

Short skirts reveal

a too-vulnerable girl,

sipping at the space

between his legs,

and I am hardly weak.

Vampires sleep today;

I am safe from her

sharp mind-teeth.

She made me forget who I was,

but these compromises

were never written

in blood on parchment.

I just love,

so fully and completely,

and I can’t imagine

a life without sweet marzipan

kissing my lips,

the wind kissing my skin,

and him kissing

the secret places

that make me come

undone.

The king

I walk home,

feet don’t touch the ground,

hovering above bent,

wrinkled sidewalks,

head disconnected from milky neck.

The rainbow boy did not give me a line,

in dark alleys on dumpster seats

where world spins, and keys dole out

sweet powder kisses.

Instead, we ran behind old,

withered buildings,

dodging puddles,

against sullen bricks

[resentful of our stories]

he held me and pressed my back to cold anchors

hands on me

and I was devoured.

By him, and to him, and through

him and the ground,

to somewhere cold and damp and quiet;

but irony was better suited to be

the voice of reason,

while Gravity looked on

with her inconceivable capacity

to forgive.

We lost our minds,

somewhere in an abandoned playground

behind a cloud of smoke,

and we lost ourselves

and pressed ourselves

to Gravity’s waiting breast

and suckled her sweet reticence:

eager, anxious

hands and faces.