The best of Writer Beware: 2021 in review
We’ve lost Joan Didion
JK just won’t leave it alone
Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice has died
The most important skill is failure
New imprint, Winning Team Publishing, launched by Trump acolytes
Recent Fiction
Paper Nests, by Laurel Miram—Pale yellow pads are best. They contrast well with black Sharpies. No one can miss a bumblebee.
Recent Poetry
Three Prose Poems, by Kathleen Rooney—This day could use the excitement of receiving a surprise package. Even better if that package reads THIS SIDE UP.
Recent CNF
Thank You, Girls!, by Dvora Wolff Rabino—I’m culling needless items from kitchen, baths, and linen closets. I’m curating friendships. Now it’s your turn to go.
Accidents
by Midge Raymond
We’re having the same argument before my sister and her kids come over for a barbecue. I’m running out of reasons he hasn’t heard before, so I tell him, “This morning I saw a woman at Stop & Shop with a bullet on her key chain.”
Piano
by Joyce Sutphen
Somehow, it keeps itself in tune. / Each key remembers its name / and loves its neighbors— / black and white.
Us
by Raymond Philip Asaph
A social researcher, she had actually been affiliated with Harvard University, part of the team which had issued an important, ignored report on the mental health of the American people.
Midnight Recital
by Kurt Lovelace
Kneeling to untangle my dog’s leg from its leash, / how did I get here, walking a pit bull in the dark under the sour leaves of drought resistant Texas oaks?
The Cope Paradigm
by Jim Davis
But boy, I’ll tell ya, a moment / in the woodshed with Kathleen would shake the rust / from the long-handled lopper and the pruning saw— / she’ll make you think this whole thing’s worth doing, / and worth doing right.
The Hollow
by Kathy Fish
Their mother works hard, but the girls are unkempt and secretive, given to a layered, sarcastic wit.
This Meatless Heaven
by Anna Mantzaris
Shiitake Happens. Soy to the World. The Girl From Echinacea. The slogans were printed on heavy hemp T-shirts with vegetable dyes.
Sculpting the Desert
by Robert S. King
Even in desert sun no scales crack through / your skin of almost pure light. / Your tracks do not hurry around themselves / like a twisted puzzle.
Choose Me
by Erica Orloff
I read an interview with a Buddhist holy man in which he said a miscarriage is a sign that the soul of that baby-to-be had a change of heart, perhaps was not ready to be reborn.
At Least One Point
Jim Tilley
My father never settled for clumsy solutions, / some leap of insight always required, / a transformation to an equivalent problem / easy to solve.
It all began around a campfire…
Beautiful language
is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.
Contributor Spotlight:
Difficult Joy
by Brian Glaser
Open Contests
Lascaux Vol 8
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review
