A New Perspective

The story below was submitted to Writer's Digest for a short story competition (https://www.writersdigest.com/your-story-competition/your-story-97-submit-now) based on the picture attached to this post. Let me know what you think: Dev had never seen one up close before. Sure, his parents had told him about the magnificent creatures, but it was different to actually spy one cavalierly …

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Why I Write

Have you ever felt defined by one characteristic? The world sees just one facet of your personality and latches onto it with zero compunction. Maybe people only see the dark side of your persona, or maybe they assume something about yourself based on a quick first impression and never take the time to truly get …

How to Write

Step One: She stares at a blank screen, the unnatural white of the word program flickering like an incandescent bulb about to blow. She adjusts the brightness. The screen plummets into darkness. She adjusts the brightness back up, one click at a time until she is satisfied that she won't get a blistering headache. Step …

Looking in the Mirror

There was a poem or lyric that mentioned looking in the mirror and not recognizing your own face. Matthew never understood that trite saying. Even if one underwent a physical metamorphosis, there would still be some semblance of the person one was before. Regardless of whatever life-altering transformation people might experience, people were innately the …

Coffee*

He'san      acquiredtaste,    like a strong, black coffee: bold and hot, with an acerbic   aftertaste, prone to scald if taken in too quickly. The kind   of coffee that people pour in copious amounts of sugar and  creamer, in the deluded hope of masking the bitterness. Butno amount of      sweetness, usually of the mollycoddling and …

Pedants and Platitudes: Christmas Edition

"It wouldn't be Christmas without snow." You heard it here first, Australia and any other place south of the Equator. You can't celebrate Christmas. You are snow-less and Christmas-less. Buh bye. "Christmas is a time to be with family and loved ones." I regret to inform all those children living in orphanages that you can't …

Music

She composes a symphony, not with the dots and lines of musical notes but with the dots and lines of letters. The plot is the melody, consistent throughout. Themes pop up at intervals like recurring motifs, reminding the reader of what is at stake... Read the rest of the poem in my anthology Ephemeral Impressions: …

Art

She splashes the page with vibrant colors, blues of melancholia, greens of envy, reds of passion. She forms each paragraph with the utmost precision, a balancing act of carefully placed adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Each word, each letter, each line, each squiggle, each dot, is meticulously laid to create the perfect image.... For full poem, …

Pedants and Platitudes Part I

"You'll find your husband as soon as you stop looking for him." "You can't wait around for your knight in shining armor to ride up. You have to actively search for him." "Just be yourself. Let him see the real you." "Make sure you always look your best. Men don't like ungroomed girls. And always …