MFA candidate Yi Shun Lai’s latest essay is up at TheHairpin.com: http://thehairpin.com/2013/05/miss-manners-doesnt-live-here

MFA candidate Iris Graville read her winning essay in Oregon Quarterly’s Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest at UO on May 30. http://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2013/5/14th-annual-“oregon-quarterly”

MFA candidate Iris Graville’s essay Cycles is in the current issue of Spry Literary Journal: http://www.sprylit.com/cnf/cycles/

MFA Candidate Marie Hartung’s nonfiction essay In Considering My Mother will appear in the June publication of River Poets Journal.
2013-06-02 13:24 PT

MFA candidate Iris Graville’s essay, “Boris’s Bluff,” won first place, student category, in Oregon Quarterly’s Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest and is published at http://www.oregonquarterly.com/summer2013/web_extra_4.php

MFA candidate Robert Hoffman’s first chapbook of poems, “15 Shady Poems and a Love Sonnet,” is available at Amazon.com with an official release date of June 20th and 21st to coincide with the summer solstice. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=15+shady+poems

Congratulations to Melinda Moore, winner of the May Penn Cove Literary Arts Award. Enjoy.

Blooming Hedgehog

Laura relaxed in the cushioned, wrought iron chair. Waves of heat radiated off the rocks at the edge of her backyard in time to the flow of the patio fountain. She lived for this moment every day: the time when she basked in the afterglow of the sun without fear of being burned. Her husband Steve would be home soon, asking why she kept the house so god damned hot. She would clench her teeth and say that it was his choice to live in a desert, forcing the nightly battle to begin.

Or maybe he wouldn’t come home.

She looked at the cell phone sitting next to the potted cactus on the table by her. If it rang, the marriage was over.

Forcing her eyes away from the phone, she stared at the cactus. It was a hedgehog variety that had refused to bloom for three years. She glanced at the phone again. Maybe Steve was on his way home.

The gate creaked. She stopped breathing while she waited for Steve to walk around the corner of the house. But Connor did instead.

She gaped both at his arrival and his appearance, which she had never gotten used to even when they dated. His two hooves clopped. The auburn fur on his legs was thick but not thick enough to cover the most protruding part of his body. His chest and arms were those of a muscular man; his horns sprouted out of the shaggy hair on his head, and the whole look was tied together by his rakish grin.

The chair scraped against stone as he pulled it out and sat down. “So, how is my favorite human?” He leaned back and waited. Laura just stared.

Finally, she took a deep breath, sat up and slapped the soles of her sandals against the ground. “What are you doing here?”

“You’ve been calling to me for about a year now. Steve was clever to hide you in a desert.” As he spoke, he leaned forward and caressed a cactus needle.

“What are you talking about? You and I broke up and I married Steve. I haven’t been calling you.”

“I heard moments when you thought of me. They were like whispers on a welcome breeze.” Laura’s eyes widened, but Connor laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t hear your exact thoughts. I just sensed you still cared.”

“So? Everyone still cares about past loves. I’m married now.”

“Yes, I know. How’s it working out?”

Laura looked at the phone and said, “Like any normal marriage.”

“Are you waiting for him to call?”

She ignored the impulse to share her suspicions. “He should be on his way home from work.”

“Oh good. We have time to talk.”

“I’m not in a talking mood.”

“I think I at least deserve an explanation,” said Connor.

“I gave you an explanation.”

“That you loved me too much? Seems like a strange thing to say right before you get married to somebody else.”

“You made me love you. It wasn’t a true love.”

“I didn’t make you love me. Satyrs only magnify what’s already there.” As Connor spoke, he pressed his forefinger into a cactus point. Watery liquid flowed from his finger. Soon, a bud burst out of the flesh and bloomed into a bright pink flower. He withdrew his finger and looked at Laura. “You already loved me.”

Laura brushed her fingertips over the flower and whispered, “I didn’t think it knew how to bloom.” She jerked her hand away. “But this is what I’m talking about. It wasn’t natural. It’s supposed to take time to bloom.”

Connor laughed. “It’s tried to bloom for three years. It just needed a little help.”

“Well, I don’t. I can fall in love on my own.”

“Are you in love with Steve?”

Laura paused. Of course she loved her husband. That’s what people did. “I love him in the human way.”

“The human way of wondering if he’s going to call?”

“He’s just had several late meetings.”

“Meetings with his boss?”

“Or women he’s met in the elevator. Oh, hell.” Laura pushed herself off the chair and walked to the edge of the patio. The heat of the day was fading, but the air still felt like a fluffy towel right out of the dryer.

“So you’d rather be with someone who cheats on you than someone you love too easily?”

“As if you wouldn’t cheat. You’re a satyr.”

“When I find true love, I’m monogamous.”

“But how many true loves have you had? You’ve been alive forever compared to me.”

“Oh, I see. Somehow, I’ve already cheated on you. But you expect Steve to be faithful while you’re still in love with me.”

Laura spun around and would’ve slapped him if he had been standing next to her.

Synthetic tones ripped through the air. She stared at the phone and let it ring again before grabbing it. “Hello.” Her voice cracked.

“Sorry I’m late, honey. I got caught up with some paperwork.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Honey, I’m not going to discuss your delusions while I’m in traffic. What do you want from me? A note from my boss?”

“For all I know, it is your boss.”

Laura dropped the phone on the table.

“Are you ready to leave, then?” asked Connor.

“Leave? Where?”

“Wherever you want.” He reached across the table and grabbed Laura’s hand. She gasped as she felt her spirit flow to him, but her glance stopped on the hedgehog cactus that had finally bloomed: a bloom that had taken three years. Her finger stroked a needle. Had she done anything to help the cactus, or just expected it to bloom on its own? She pressed her finger into a needle. A drop of blood splashed onto the green flesh and burst into a flower; a warm breeze took the place of Connor’s hand as she heard a car rolling into the driveway.

Laura decided it was time to turn on the air conditioner.

The End

I am saddened the decision has been made to narrow the entry field of submissions for the Penn Cove Literary Arts Award (PCLAA) to American writers only.

The reason is simple . . . this year alone we’ve awarded outside America in USD (United States Dollars) as was modified in our rules. In truth, the award has always been in USD, but a few winners were unable to cash in the gift at their respective banks. For this to happen to one winner is sad enough, I’ve recently been informed that this year alone three winners have announced the impossibility of cashing their gifts.

We wish to burden no one, especially winners. And I’m tired of breaking hearts.

We are, simply, a student website and will do our best in the future to correct this — if we can. Until such times that we can award funds in currency relevant to the winners (the added expense would be too much) then we are forced to narrow the field of submissions to American writers only. Announcements will be made in the near future that would include who we can take submissions from, if any additions will be allowed.

My sincerest apologies,

bob
editor and webmaster

Well, the news for May is this . . . submit!!

April must’ve been cold as our judge decided to keep the socks on. So, if you’re not getting chills on your own words, the odds are nobody else will either. Keep at it, just as we all are here at NILA, and submit submit submit! The theme for May will be Flowers.

Congratulations to Almiria Wilhelm, winner of the March Penn Cove Literary Arts Award. Enjoy.

Timothy Blarney Tells the Truth

Timothy Blarney told many far-fetched stories, but none as unbelievable as that which goes with the photograph I am holding. I’ve been sorting through years of accumulated junk, but I can’t toss it onto the ‘discard’ pile as cheerfully as holiday snaps of my younger self or cheap trinkets from improbably named places. An unexpected wave of nostalgia overtakes me. Not that Timbly – as we called him – had been a close friend. We met him through Sven Karlson, who first brought him on a camping trip. Even after Sven exited this world somewhat dramatically by falling off the side of a mountain, Timbly continued coming. I wonder now who kept him in the loop. Probably the American, Mat Mitchell. He was the communicator, one could say the instigator, of our group of travel-crazed buddies.

I find I can’t go on sorting junk for the moment. As I brew myself coffee, it strikes me that the trip Timbly documented with this photograph was the last one I’d been on with the boys. We did not know that it was the last at the time, of course. Subsequently there were occasional discussions about a trip to India, or a visit to the Rockies, but they never happened. Scattered around the globe as we were, we couldn’t meet up over a drink and fire up our enthusiasm for novelty again after loosing the second member of our adventuring band.

I carry the photograph, taken in the days of dark rooms and negatives, to the window and study it in the fading light. What amazes me is the stillness it exudes, how it shows none of the panic of the days that followed. Even less can I see anything of Timbly’s wildest tale in it. To me it looks, as it always has, like an uncomplicated winter landscape with the sun’s rays distorted into a star by the lens of Timbly’s camera. Perfect, in fact, as a snowy seasonal greeting card.

Tall stories were a tradition with us. We told them on skiing trips, the warm glow of the apres ski firing up both our blood and our imaginations. We tried to frighten each other around camp fires in Africa, our rifles beside us as though we were still in the legendary dark land where something wild might surprise us. I told quite a few myself, but my aim was always to make them almost believable. Timbly, on the other hand, never bothered with even a semblance of reality. His tales were about animals like the ice-age exhibits in the Natural History Museum, or of romantic encounters with women composed of energy and light.

I wondered why, in the end, he showed this photograph only to me. He wasn’t usually shy with his imagination. I had taken a fall the day before and considered this reason enough to stay in bed for the day while the others chased records down hair-raising slopes. Except Timbly, of course. Timbly did not like skiing. He preferred long walks with his camera, returning with beautiful photographs and tales of monster wolves and ice phantoms. When we asked him why he didn’t photograph these things, he said such phenomena did not exist on a frequency his camera could capture.

“I have something to show you,” he said that day, not bothering to knock. I looked up, my mind far away in a world peopled by rotten cops, ex-servicemen and CIA agents. I was prepared to admire his photography, especially as he showed no intention of boring me with the whole batch he had just developed. I was not, however, going to listen to his latest improbable tale. I preferred my improbable novel. He got as far as the radiant spot on the photograph not being the sun but an alien ship in the process of landing before I kicked him out. At the door he stopped and tried to tell me about the beings that had streamed out of the UFO. They were weightless and composed of light, much like his fantasy women. I threw a book at him to make him go away. Not the one I was reading. The one I’d finished the night before. He placed the photograph on the folded underwear in my open suitcase and left.

When Timbly didn’t appear for supper, we assumed he’d gone to bed. At breakfast we assumed he’d taken an early morning walk. Only that evening did the uncomfortable feelings in my stomach become insistent enought that I convinced the others to take action with me. As we pushed our weight against his unyielding bedroom door, I sweated with worry over having missed a coded signal that he intended to commit suicide. But there was no-one inside the room. His luggage was there and his photographic equipment, all except for his camera. We went out into the snow to search for him. The next day, professionals joined us. The third day they called a helicopter.

The photograph was shut into my suitcase when I threw my things in for an early departure. The silence between us was making me jumpy. The local authorities promised to notify us of any findings. I wondered vaguely whether they believed us. Men do not vanish like beings of light and air. Nevertheless, Timothy Blarney was gone. I cannot say that we grieved greatly for our friend. As I said, he was not very close to any of us, but his mysterious dissapearence left a lingering sense of discomfort which, I now believe, prevented us from getting together again.

I tear the photograph into strips, watching the radiant paper sun split down the middle. I intend to exorcise this ghost. Tomorrow I’ll call up Mat, ask him to arrange something. Pleased with my resolution, I stare at the setting sun outside. There must be something funny in the atmosphere today. The sun’s rays are consolidating, coagulating into the shape of a star

The End

Congratulations to Sarina Dorie of Oregon City, Oregon. She is the February Penn Cove Literary Arts Award. Enjoy.

GNOOCHI

by Sarina Dorie

It wouldn’t have happened if I was out watering the garden with my fourteen-year-old brother, Antonio. He got to play in the water with the bambinos. My head would have been clearer if I’d been where there was a breeze instead of being stuck in a muggy kitchen stirring red sauce for the past six hours. Mama thinks that’s where I belong cuz I’m the youngest and a girl. And that’s the way they did things back in the old country. But merda, it was hot.

I was rinsing the homemade fettuccine noodles in the strainer, trying to catch a breeze from the open window when I noticed a dumpling on the gray counter. I set down the strainer in the sink and nudged it with a wooden spoon.

It had to be a gnocchi. Mama called them ‘little ears’ since our family’s tradition was to press and drag two fingers into the potato dumplings. The indentions made them look like ears. Only thing is, she hadn’t made any gnocchis lately. Then again, maybe the noodles had gotten mixed up in the drying racks in the basement. If I’d been thinking right in that terribilmente heat I would have remembered you don’t dry out gnocchi.

I stirred the pot of bubbling red sauce, eying that gnocchi. It was definitely as pale as a potato noodle. But it was far too plump and large. I picked it up and turned it over. I would have sworn it was an ear, only that wouldn’t make sense cuz it wasn’t cut off looking or crusty with blood. It was softer than a potato dumpling noodle. Maybe it was a shriveled apple.

Well, I figured if it was in the kitchen, it had to be something good, right? So I popped it in my mouth. It was chewy like rubber, pretty much flavorless. Maybe a little salty. I couldn’t chew through it, though.

It had to be raw, right? Oh well. I ladled out a spoonful of red sauce onto a saucer. If I dipped it in, that would add a little flavor at least.

Mama came into the kitchen. As usual, she was wore her red fazzoletto, or kerchief. Her gold hoop earrings sparkled in the sunlight. How embarrassing. She looked like an Italian peasant woman holding one of the bambinos on her hip.

My little cousin wore a fresh set of overalls. I knew what that meant.

I asked around my mouthful. “Did someone poop his pants again?”
Mama moved the strainer and picked up the hot pads from the counter. She asked in her thick accent,

“Where’s Giuseppe’s ear?”
I choked.

“You know, his genetically grown ear?” she threw up her free hand in the air gesturing dramatically. “It fell off. Antonio said he threw it in through the open window so it wouldn’t get lost.”

That’s when I saw the hole on the side of my cousin’s head, his ear missing. No one had ever told me he had a genetically grown ear. Why am I always the last to know important stuff like that?

I spit it out. It flew across the room, hit the fridge and dropped on the floor. Giuseppe clapped his hands, laughing and gurgling.

Mama crossed herself and then swore in Italian.

I swear I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never eat anything that looks like an ear on the counter, or nothing else left out either. And hey, it’s not like I swallowed it . . . like I did with that finger at my aunt’s house that I thought was a yellow carrot.

But that’s another story.

The End

The following is a short list of those students who are both submitting and publishing as well as being involved in the writing community at large

Marie Hartung’s poems “Why I am Out Of Money” and “Blank Page” have been accepted for publication in the June edition of Perceptions Literary Magazine, http://www.mhcc.edu/studentlife.aspx?id=1612

Cynthia Beach gave the lecture “Short Forms” at faculty lunch scholarship series, Cornerstone University.

Iris Graville’s profile, “Sweet,” can be found the Feb/March issue of regional lifestyle magazine North Sound Life, http://northsoundlife.com/eat_and_drink/sweet

Jim Gearhart’s essay “Letting go of the Comfortable” is in the regional newsmagazine High Country News February 1, 2013 http://www.hcn.org/wotr/letting-go-of-the-comfortable#1359837507399028

Robert Hoffman showcased a number of his poems at the San Gabriel Valley Lit Fest at W Covina City Hall on February 16, 2013