A Song for New Year’s Eve

The year, whose hopes were high and strong,    Has now no hopes to wake; Yet one hour more of jest and song    For his familiar sake.       Oh stay, oh stay, One mirthful hour, and then away.   The kindly year, his liberal hands    Have lavished all his store. And shall we [...]

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The Death of the Old Year

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year you must not die; You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year you shall [...]

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Christmas Long Ago

Frosty days and ice-still nights, Fir trees trimmed with tiny lights, Sound of sleigh bells in the snow, That was Christmas long ago.   Tykes on sleds and shouts of glee, Icy-window filigree, Sugarplums and candle glow, Part of Christmas long ago.   Footsteps stealthy on the stair, Sweet-voiced carols in the air, Stockings hanging [...]

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The Write Stuff

It’s hard to believe that this is my 300th post.  As I saw this occasion approaching, I reflected on the last twenty-eight months of commentary, criticism, musings, poems, favorite literary quotes and passages, biographies, portraits, event information, and original fiction and nonfiction excerpts I’ve presented and wondered, as I often do, what is writeaboutable?  What [...]

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Little Tree

little tree little silent Christmas tree ……………………………………………………………………..  who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see        I will comfort you because you smell so sweetly ……………………………………………………………………..  only don’t be afraid   look         the spangles that sleep all the year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out [...]

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An Evening with T. Jefferson Parker

The Pen on Fire Writers Salon is once again pleased to present an evening with crime fiction writer and three-time Edgar Award winner T. Jefferson Parker on Tuesday, January 17, at 7:00 p.m.  This monthly speaker series, hosted by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, features authors, literary agents, and others involved in the field of writing.  The events [...]

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The Threshold

I just finished my modern British literature course thesis on female liminality (from the Latin limen, signifying “a threshold”) in the works of Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, and A. S. Byatt.  During the last three weeks, countless hours were spent applying the anthropological theories of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner to Carter’s revisionist fairy [...]

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The Motive for Metaphor

You like it under the trees in autumn, Because everything is half dead. The wind moves like a cripple among the leaves And repeats words without meaning.   In the same way, you were happy in spring, With the half colors of quarter-things, The slightly brighter sky, the melting clouds, The single bird, the obscure [...]

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Time to Submit – Fiction Open

Glimmer Train’s December Fiction Open is currently accepting fiction submissions between 2,000 and 20,000 words until midnight (PST) on January 2, 2012.  This quarterly opportunity is open to all writers and all themes.  Unpublished novel excerpts are considered, provided they feel like complete stories.  Multiple submissions are also accepted.  The reading fee for each submission [...]

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A December Day

That’s no December sky! Surely ’tis June Holds now her state on high, Queen of the noon.   Only the tree-tops bare Crowning the hill, Clear-cut in perfect air, Warn us that still   Winter, the aged chief, Mighty in power, Exiles the tender leaf, Exiles the flower.                                     ~ Robert Fuller Murray  

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