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Style and Story – Has the muse moved…Or, is man really a friend of the vultures… Featured Quote: “Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of any conceivable equivocation between the language of “truth” and the language of “creation.” [...]

Time Back from Beyond…New focus and new writing prompts… Quote of the week: “I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.” ~ Samuel Beckett Short Story Focus and Topic: “The Open Boat” ~ Stephen [...]

Alive © 2009 Cacy Ann Minter I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. I was aware of a pressing sensation on my chest, but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I tried to look around and realized my field of vision was limited to the area directly in front of [...]

Kaylee’s Quarter © 2009 – Rebecca Laskowitz Kaylee grasped her mother’s hand as they made their way up the icy stone walkway. Snow covered the edge of the path where flowers usually blossomed during the spring. She watched her step so as not to fall and ruin her new pink puffy coat. It was her [...]

The Final Fortress © 2009 – Rebecca Laskowitz There wasn’t much time left. Philip knew this. The entire village knew as well. What did they have? Hours? Very unlikely. More like minutes. Minutes that flew by with increasing speed as the enemy drew closer. Philip looked at all they had accomplished. The walls were high [...]

The Snake’s Slither © 2009 – Christopher Brancato To most people it was just another Monday, but this wasn’t the case for a selected few. The day started like any other for Mike Johnson. Mike would wake up, organize his attire for the day on his bed in a very civil manner, jump in the [...]

The Lady of the Fountain © 2009 – Amy Priddy George woke up that morning with a splitting headache and found himself in a whirlwind of confusion. He rubbed his eyes and seemed to glare back at the sunlight pouring through the shutters. George hated the sunlight and almost everything else that morning entailed. He [...]

Too Low For Dinner © 2009 – Bryan Kaminsky Dark clouds spanned the early afternoon sky as Edward walked out of the back door of the storage room of a florist. Edward was wearing a black cloak, ripped black jeans, and a black shirt. Edward liked the color black because it absorbed every spectrum of [...]

The Adventures of LaBertha Johnson © 2009 Akilah C. McDaniel The Beginning Imagine a nice neighborhood with somewhat quiet streets and nice neat little houses with nice, manicured little yards. Now we will zoom in on one house in particular. This house is a small red-brick one with a dark red door. As we look [...]

In the Blink of an Eye © 2009 Cacy Ann Minter Franky couldn’t pinpoint the exact day he first saw the creature. He guessed he’d always had a feeling that something in his existence wasn’t quite right, but he never could put his finger on it. And so he went about his usual boring daily [...]

The Darkeness of Past © 2009 Courtney Lyn Blystone The streets of Kyoto were dark and not a single lamp nor house was lit. It seemed rather strange that there would be not a single soul in the town. Kat Myamouto was on her way home in the southern corner, when a solid black figure [...]

The Slope of War © 2009 Yael K. Miller He was a scout. He could have been an officer but he made his choice years ago. He had no interest in being an officer and his job as a scout kept him as far away from officers as possible and for a majority of the [...]

Honesty Is © 2009 Aaron Eugene Lee Frosted Flakes, or Wheaties. Cheerios are all gone: only two little o’s remain. The boxes are full of words like “Best” and “Brightest”. “Be all you can be”, that’s our army’s slogan. Tiger Woods ate the Wheaties, I wanna be like him. The tiger says his are “Grrrrrrreat!” [...]

NO SCHOOL FOR MY KIDS © 2009 Nan E. Fagan Twenty minutes later, after finishing breakfast on a warm and sunny Friday morning in mid-April, Kathy DiScala was getting her kids ready for homeschool, when she suddenly heard a knock on her door. “I wonda who that is this early in the mornin!” Kathy asked [...]