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.
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.
Thirteen
by Rebecca Foust
I was thirteen, and there was a boy’s mouth / where my legs met.
Satin Nightgown or Flannel Pajamas
by Claire Scott
Suspended between lover and caregiver and not doing either / especially well.
Crystal Pigs
by Allison Brice
I took my breakup quietly, like a pitiful February rain with no lightning.
My Stepmother, Myself
by Abi Stephenson
She didn’t have to love me. Biology didn’t force her hand the way it does for mothers.
Changing Hearts
by David Watts
I heard for the second time / the news of his heart transplant, / details like a post card from a foreign country
Playground Doctrine
by Myna Chang
In the grit of a 1975 farm town, 9-year-old girls weigh about 60 pounds, even wicked little girls with bad women for mommas.
Ecru
by Oak Morse
We were all one beautiful blend / of mama’s love. My brother, / the color of ecru, the other one / sepia, and me, ebony.
Dear Madeleine
by Stephanie Vanderslice
I can tell you this now. Both times I was pregnant, I worried. I doubted my ability to raise a girl.
The Company of Shallow Holes
by Dino Parenti
One unremarkable March day, a man began puncturing random holes in his withered pasture with a post-hole digger.
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
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review
Lascaux Vol 7
