Excerpt of 1st Novel ACCEPT ALL CHANGES now published in
Come hang with the fools, anorexic expats, and other parasites as we feel the lasting sting of childhood abandonment deep into our adult years, years that we are spending in the lap of laps: Bali, Indonesia.
Always happy never sad. Always delighted never disappointed. Always mindful never forgetful. Always grateful never begrudging. Always open never closed. Always fresh never spoiled. Always helping never helped. Always wandering never lost. Always curious never complacent. And always, always, thrilled to be featured in Little Patuxent Review, never anything less.
In the Poet’s Corner of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, pause to find Plath’s stone laid bare. Carved upon it is the opening line from her poem, “The Moon and the Yew Tree”:
This is the light of the mind,
Cold and planetary
There will never be a greater statement made in this or any language, for here is an intergalactic declaration of independence.
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It is late-fall in New York and I’m in a flap of a mood having found a stack of rare and original papers in Columbia’s Butler Library with titles like “The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald” and “Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald”. The best of the writings deal with Fitzgerald before Zelda and, in the coming freeze of the season, I like hearing from the man himself about how he held together through hot transitions, time, and matters of the heart. Fitzgerald knew something about pain.
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Married domestic by day, dashing secret agent by night, Pamela has done and seen it all. But the years have taken their toll, and it is finally time to hand the work over to young blood. In this exclusive exit interview, Pamela describes her closest calls, her greatest exploits, and the trip to Paris that nearly did her in.
I have nearly completed a working draft of my first novel. Having reflected a bit on the writing process in general, and what I have learned in particular, here are my 18 takeaways:
Thrilled to have been nominated this year for two Pushcart Prizes, a top award for American literary arts published by our smaller presses. One nom for a poem, another for an essay, all totally unexpected and a pleasant surprise indeed.
Onward, 2019!
Summer preview! June 30 is poet and professor Czeslaw Milosz’s birthday, born in Szetejnie, Lithuania in 1911. He maintained “Language is the only homeland,” was fired from his radio position for his leftist views, and received a tip that the Stalinist government was going to arrest him and put him on trial so he fled.
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So many poems have been falling out of the sky lately and landing on my head/page/lap/grocery list/tire repair receipt– everywhere. I love this gift of life and learning, the hard work that goes into it, but also the inevitability. The roll of it. Honoring this means stopping to get against a solid service to get the line down, and it also means granting permission to do so rather than denigrating my talent with bullshit like “Oh, that’s stupid” or “Who even reads poems anyway?” or “I can’t do this.”
Answers: “No it’s not.” “Everyone, whether they realize it or not.” “Yes you can.” Good, glad that’s clear now.
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…Turn those lemons into a short story complete with a raucous reading by old friends! I wrote this piece for a competition (that I lost), but went on to place it with FIVE:2:ONE and their esteemed audio-centric site. How funny to watch a truly terrible professional experience emerge as belly-chuckles art. Lemons! Lemons, everywhere I say!
Caroline M Cooper 