Behind the Words: December 2024
There are an astonishing number of new people subscribed! I think almost all of you come from
’s recommendation. Welcome (and thank you, Rebecca)! I want to share some news and some work you might not have seen before.
First of all, I’ve fallen off my weekly posting regimen, but there’s a great reason for this. I’ve begun submitting my work for publication and most places don’t like it if you’ve published your work elsewhere. Even if that “publishing” was posting to a small corner of the internet that no one was gatekeeping. Even if only five people see what you’ve shared, and two people actually read the whole thing.
I have to play by the rules here. That means if I want to submit my work for consideration, it can’t be up here first. This bums me out, honestly. But I told myself I’d give the whole mainstream publishing thing a fair shot.
So while this doesn’t count as having been published, one of my poems was selected to be included in a community art challenge! Yay! More on that post-event.
In the meantime, especially for the new folks here, I’m sharing below some older pieces that I’m real happy with and it seems that other people enjoyed. I’m going to take these next few weeks as downtime and not beat myself up for not having anything new to share. I hope y’all are also protecting your time for rest and renewal.
Thank you for being here. I hope to share lots of wonderful news and new pieces in the new year.
The Stars That Fall - a very short story.
I saw it coming down. It was impossibly slow, wreathed in flame against the backdrop of night. There was no sound, no crackling, no shriek of air. Just the hush of autumn wind through almost-bare branches.
i know that precious things will escape our gaze if we’re looking over our shoulder
so when my time is up I will turn around - hurry back down the hall...
we found a bridge to the moon rooted in the front yard like the thirsty willows and the everywhere-mint...