5/06/2018 10:32 AM. Manzanita Beach, Oregon. Amy Cleron. Somedays I wish I could get away from this stupid town. I kick at the sand. The tide is coming in. All is gray. I'm glad I live on the Pacific and not the Atlantic though. I should kick off my shoes and put my feet in … Continue reading A Minute
Writers I Have Known
By Michael Barrington As a shy fifteen-year-old schoolboy, I was often the unfortunate victim of having to stand before the class and read my short stories out loud. At that time I was living in a boys only boarding school in the Lake District- not the fun loving Hogwart’s School of Harry Potter- where the … Continue reading Writers I Have Known
No Different Than a Frog
By Christine Benton Criswell Originally published in Jimson Weeds. Has also appeared in Down in the Dirt and Impspired In front of me were two heavy, ancient-looking, wooden doors, and beyond them—the thing I dreaded most about becoming a doctor. My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly hear the voices around me. I’d … Continue reading No Different Than a Frog
Please Put Me in the Sunlight
By De’Anne Roye The top lid holds on tight To the bottom lid And darkness covers my eyes Silence so beautiful Moments without thoughts Meditating, and my mind rests And recharge. The sun rays on my skin Soak so deep in The light permeates my soul Light as a feather Where worries flutter away And … Continue reading Please Put Me in the Sunlight
A Patch of Green
By Ebony Haywood Previously published in Five on the Fifth When my student, Cristina, told me that she lived next door to a cemetery, my ears perked. “A cemetery?” “Yeah. Sometimes it feels creepy.” Cristina is fifteen with eyes that are always alert and a ponytail that sweeps the air like a pendulum. She is … Continue reading A Patch of Green
After Bushfire
By Julie Holland Bushfire came through Evil as devil may be No thing, nor thought, spared Just a trail of black Shapes rising to ether To sapphire sky, to smoke and sour Young and tender wind, a calling to Green, that pulls life from ash Look at that Dad, said the child A rescue helicopter … Continue reading After Bushfire
The Landing Day
By J. P. Rizo Richard Cadmen, professor of Holistoric Reconstruction, Third Year, guided his class through the sandy trail leading to the beach. Now and then he had to stop, annoyed, to reprehend the lingerers who were picking little shell pieces. “Focus, gentlemen. We are not on a beach day with grandma. Henry, where the … Continue reading The Landing Day
Writers Block
By Pat Spencer As a life-long author of both fiction and nonfiction, I would never admit to suffering from writer’s block. But it’s fair to say I’m stymied. It’s not that my words are cumbersome or clumsy, falling short of what my story deserves. It is that I simply have no words. I sit so … Continue reading Writers Block
To My Hero and Other Poems
By Roselainie Panginuma Saidamin To My Hero To the woman who is worthy of my respect, You are the color of the garden of my paradise. A mother of five with a soft-enduring heart, Your love is wary and so is your sacrifice. To the woman who gives comfort and solace, You are the luminous … Continue reading To My Hero and Other Poems
Animated and Other Poems
By Susan Shea Animated Every week, at the library you filled shopping bags high with children's picture story books for me to drive home for you so we could go innocently grow up together in full color, away from the cemented melancholy I crawled through away from the parent-centered place where I wasn't seen or … Continue reading Animated and Other Poems
Academy of the Heart And Mind 