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Thrilled to announce that my poem. “Legacy,” was published today in Dulcet! My poem is on page 44. The theme is “Moonglades: A Reflective Issue.”
It’s also a great joy to be publication twins with my talented friend, Terri McCord; check out her amazing poem, “the world turns pointillist,” on page 21!
Dulcet is open for submissions. Check out their theme calls and submission guidelines at: clickety-click.
Photo courtesy of Camille Brodard at Unsplash.com.
Photos by yours truly. 🤗
Splendid news to share: two of my poems, “Yellow,” and “Listening to a Grandfather-Clock ASMR Recording after Reading a Short Poem by Lorine Niedecker” were just published in the latest issue of October Hill Magazine!
Check out the opening lines of “Yellow” below, and clickey-click on this link to read the two full poems at the issue, as well as the work of many talented fellow authors as well. Also, consider submitting your own work—they were wonderful to work with.
“Yellow”
today it feels exceptionally good
to use this yellow
marker, to draw it across
the lightly lined page,
just to run as heavy as possible a line
with the fine nib
pressed into the thinner gray line
to mark it off that I’ve already
answered early work emails, had
lunch, cleaned up after, organized
my desk, sorted through a stack of books
for donation, and it feels good, too,
to hover in the air above the page
to think about drawing a sun with wavy rays,
the petals of a sprightly daisy, a compact car
negotiating a curvy road, but then…
[continued at October Hill Magazine: clicky]
I’m excited to announce that my flash fiction, “It was just supposed to be,” was published this week at Bright Flash Literary Review! 📚
Check out my story below as well as the awesome stories by fellow authors at their current issue. If you write flash, consider submitting, too.
“It was just supposed to be”
a quick zip through aisle seven and back.
Somebody said she’d moved outside Rawston somewhere after, so it never occurred to him that Tuesday before New Year that he’d turn the corner with the laundry detergent in his right hand and there was Maisy.
“Hey,” was all he thought to say.
“My sister needed a few things,” she half-smiled.
Photo courtesy of Eduardo Soares on Unsplash.com, free stock
There was a baby strapped onto her in one of those carrier things he didn’t know the name of. She was someone’s mom now. That was weird, and new. Fifteen years together. They never. He never thought she’d wanted one. He didn’t. Doesn’t.
The baby bopped legs and arms in herky-jerky movements. The baby had Maisy’s curls.
“Just getting this,” and he held up the neon plastic jug like he was proving something, as if until he’d pointed it out it’d been invisible.
Should he have said something, asked about the baby—Maisy’s baby—a name maybe? An age? He hadn’t seen any teeth when the baby had grinned at Maisy, but how old are kids when they get front teeth? Do back ones come in first?
Maisy had bounced a bit on the balls of her feet near the stacked boxes of soda crackers; the baby laughed in reply. They made a tableau together like he’s seen mothers and kids do on TV.
“Yep, everyone needs clean clothes,” she said.
She looked tired in her eyes, but happier than she ever was their last few years. Calmer somehow.
“Good…good point. Hey, great seeing you,” he said, because he could think of nothing else to say but random inanities. The baby’s hair the exact raven black of Maisy’s the night they’d met as freshmen. He’s got some grays now.
The baby had some other guy’s eyes. Weird. He’d turned away.
“You, too, Darvin,” she said, using her sympathy voice.
The baby kicked into cracker boxes, and the front one wobbled but didn’t fall.
“Look what you’ve done, little cutie. Yes, you, my little cutie,” Maisy cooed and laughed.
He ducked into aisle four; he dropped the detergent onto a random shelf. No longer any energy left for waiting in line, for another possible sighting. He couldn’t. He was outta there.
He lightninged through electronic double doors, out of breath but not running.
He’ll grab another detergent at the QuickShop after work tomorrow and stew about Maisy tonight. He leans back in the tan recliner; they’d picked it for their first apartment after college. He’d liked the red one, but Maisy said tan would go with more things. She’d been right about that. About more than that, he guessed.
He should take his mother up on her offer to reupholster it.
“Give it a new look,” Mom had said. “Or else donate it to charity, get something new.”
Yeah, but the chair’s the last thing left from their years together.
He keeps the living room lights off tonight; his laptop casts a pale green light that wobbles against the opposite white wall, the same color it was when he moved in.
Is Maisy still at her sister’s on Root Lane? Seven miles is nothing; how easily he could jump in his truck, drive out that way. Just to see.
He presses back into the tan upholstery, but there’s nowhere further to go. It was far easier when he could think of Maisy as alone, like him, near Rawston at night.
He feels it in his gut: Maisy’s gone home to the man whose eyes the baby shares. Their baby.
Biography: Melanie Faith is a night-owl writer and editor who likes to wear many hats, including as a poet, photographer, professor, and tutor. Three of her craft books about writing were published by Vine Leaves Press in 2022, including her latest, From Promising to Published. She enjoys ASMR videos, reading, teaching online writing classes, and tiny houses. Learn more at https://melaniedfaith.com/ .
Very pleased to have one of my photos, “Open Space Silhouette Portrait,” published in the current issue of Suspended Magazine. Check out the issue, and consider submitting poems, art, or short fiction to this amazing literary magazine: details here.
More insights from the magazine about my photo: “I’m interested in the numerous exciting permutations portraiture and self-portraiture can take. From precise likenesses to figures that could be a stand-in for almost any character or human form, the possibilities when documenting the self and others are encouraging for photographers who wish to explore. I took this self-portrait using a Nikon 35 mm DSLR, creating a window reflection and then playing with filters that introduced light leaks that offered a compelling interplay between buoyant, yellow warmth and movement against deep, calm shadows of introspection and stillness. I’m intrigued by how the finished photo suggests both anchoring and spaciousness.”
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Also, just a reminder that Women on Writing’s Thankful for Books Giveaway runs up to November 20th! 🍂📚
Copies of my book, From Promising to Published , will be part of the prize packages for three lucky winners.
Read more and enter the contest at: Thankful for Books Giveaway!
So pleased that my article was published today as a Women on Writing Spotlight article. Check out the prompt I share as well:
“Abounding Images: An Invitation to Imagery Power: Photography for Writers”
By Melanie Faith
I found three rolls of brand-new film in a drawer earlier this week that I’d forgotten I’d purchased. It felt a little bit like unwrapping a Christmas gift to myself. Eager to head into the great weather, I took my ‘90s Canon Rebel outside for a few nature shots. The heft of the camera body nestled in my hands just right. Working with a physical, clicky dial to blur the background and focus on the foreground was like stepping back into a favorite pair of blue jeans—comforting and the perfect fit. Need I say that I took the rest of the roll and returned to my desk, smiling?
I’ve also been taking a lot of photos with my cellphone camera and find it a wonderful photographic experience, too. It is featherweight, and I can take as many pictures as I please. Cellphone cameras have come a very long way in the past ten years. Smart phones are equipped today with much better software and make sharper photographs than any of my first digital cameras. And they’re quite easy to use, and super handy. Rare is the person without a phone as a near-constant companion, which (of course) makes them absolutely the best for capturing inconspicuously as we go about our daily lives. And sharing cellphone photos is so easy it’s a dream.
Whether you prefer making photos with an old-school film camera that takes film or film cartridges, taking pictures with your cellphone, or a combination of both, there’s something meaningful and meditative about the art of photography. Much like the craft of writing, we begin to see our surroundings, our daily lives, and even ourselves a bit differently, a bit better in some ways, by taking the time to focus on elements we might previously zip past on our way to the rest of our appointments and to-do lists. The fact that no two people see the same images in the same way nor interpret them in the same way enhances our development as artists.
Making a photograph, like making a poem or a short story or a song or a chapter in a novel or an essay, is deeply personal. We have so many options that it’s exhilarating. We get to choose the subject. We get to choose the angle we take the image from. We get to choose the crop or zoom of the photo. We get to choose if we print the photo to make it a physical object in the world or if we keep it a digital file. We get to choose if we make the photo part of a series on a subject or if the photo is a one-off and stands alone. We get to choose light source and time of day and if we scan or upload the photo to software to alter its hues (hello, black and white!) or shoot in black and white mode or with b & w film.
It is in making these choices, often intuitively and in quick succession and very frequently learning and experimenting as we go, that we grow in other art forms as well.
Thinking about making a better photograph certainly continues to influence and encourage my poetry as well as my prose. Photography, much like writing and other art forms, focuses on the importance of the image, the resonance of created expression, and the great fun and challenge when we take the world as we experience it and offer a new creation that very likely will connect with other people who themselves make writing and other art.
There’s no prerequisite needed, and I’ve had students who made visceral, beautiful, jaw-dropping photos from disposable cameras, phone cameras, underwater cameras, instant cameras, pinhole cameras, film cameras of many makes, and even from photosensitive photographic paper.
The field of photography is wide open to individual interpretation and vision. Begin where you are, with that little “Hmmm, that’s interesting” when you’re out on a morning walk, and see where it takes you. One snap, one click, one moment documented at a time.
Try this prompt: Make a photo today of an object someone else uses every day. Aim to show a special quality about this object—whether its shape, its size, its hue, its placement in the home or outside, or some other quality. After taking the photo, either write a few sentences describing this object, why you chose it, and who uses it OR create a character who uses this object and write about that character for fifteen or twenty minutes. What would happen if the character reached for the object and it was missing? Go!
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My online class Imagery Power: Photography for Writers starts Monday, July 3rd. Sign-ups open: to register, clickety-click!
I also wrote a fun craft book called Photography for Writers that’s packed with photo tips and prompts, sure to get your writing and your camera inspired. Get a signed copy here at Etsy or through Amazon.
Photo by Worachat Sodsri on Unsplash
A true delight to get to participate in Bait/Switch, an innovative, inspiring “call and response art publication” where creatives are given a piece of art as a prompt to then create a new piece of art.
I had the best time creating my cyanotype, “On the Move,” and had a blast talking art, letter-writing, and more with multitalented editor and executive director Lu Valena. Check out the latest/fall 2022 issue for the work of wonderful creatives here: clickety.
Extra props and a very special shout-out to powerhouse of art and dear friend Christine Tierney. Many thanks for your encouragement to submit to Bait/Switch and for the marvelous poetry and life conversations. Such a joy to be publication twins with you, and kudos on your group show! 🥳Check out Christine’s gorgeous collage art and interview in the issue as well as her fabulous poetry book, chicken+lowercase=fleur .
To continued artistic inspiration!
Splendid news: I’m honored to be published today in Film Shooters Collective, a very inspiring resource and encouragement for photographers who practice the art of film photography.
I had the pleasure to take a pocket camera (sometimes called a “spy camera”) for a whirl recently, and after shooting two rolls of 110 film, I wrote about it. 🥳Curious? Remember these unobtrusive dynamos? Thinking about taking your own pocket camera for a spin or getting one? Clickety to read and learn more. The article is packed with tons of insights, photo examples, and tips to get you started.
Many thanks to the super talented Amy Jasek for her interest in my 110 camera shoot and her enthusiastic camera and cyanotype camaraderie. Please check out Amy’s amazing photography and wonderful cyanotypes.
To the marvels of film photography!
Once upon a time (circa 2015), I started writing a Jane Austen fan-fiction story that over a few months turned into a novella, it was so irresistible to keep writing. Happily, it was published as an e-book a few years later by Uncial Press.
In the time-honored tradition of Romance writers, I pen-named it. Recently, I had the great joy of writing an article for The Uncial Letter about why it’s so fun to read the Regency genre.
Read my article below, and then do pop by the Uncial Press website and/or Amazon to treat yourself to some of their many fabulous books in genres as diverse as Fantasy and Science-Fiction, Westerns, Paranormal, other Historical Fiction eras, poetry, and more.
To subscribe to The Uncial Letter is also a must and easy-breezy: just send an email to uncial-letter-subscribe@googlegroups.com, and you’re all set to receive the latest book updates and many other fine articles, too.
Without further ado, I’m so pleased to announce my featured article:
Enjoy plucky protagonists with minds of their own and strong convictions? Like historical times and places? Want something--anything--today to make a modicum of sense? Regency romance may just be the perfect balm for these tumultuous, wearying days of 2022. Read on!
Regency tends to be character-rich. Readers follow lords, ladies, commoners, clerics, dukes, and duchesses as they populate a British town or city and, best of all, take part in the growth experience of the protagonist. Let's talk about this protagonist for a moment. She tends to be youthful and, while a bit inexperienced, filled with hopes and ideas about how the world works. She's a young woman of conviction with goals that frequently don't pan out as easily or even in the same way as she'd hoped, especially when it comes to her experiences with love. Yet, by the tale's ending, she's realized life lessons about herself and become a more thoughtful, less selfish, more accepting person to her friends, to her family, and to her love interest.
The pleasures of escaping into another world. While I was researching my novel, Her Humble Admirer, it was a great deal of fun to enter back into a place and a time where flowers had secret meanings, from undying friendship to unrequited love to secret passions and more, based on the colors of the blooms. A world where calling cards were on everyone's desk, and ladies and gentleman who were single were only allowed to dance one dance in a row with each other, lest they raise gossipmonger's eyebrows by scandalously dancing away the evening together in public.
The mores and customs of Regency England are far different from 2022, and that's a great thing. Nobody in that era has heard of a thing called Covid nor felt worried and annoyed again because the cost of rent and groceries and gas have skyrocketed yet again this month because of inflation. Nope: readers can time travel and drop in by the fireplace for a cozy conversation (and a bit of village gossip or a reading of the latest Lord Byron poem that's the talk of the Ton) or enjoy an afternoon's carriage ride to visit a relative or the scintillating excitement of a costume ball in a fortnight. Spending time in a different era via characters and scenery is a staycation for the senses that won't cost a penny (and no jetlag!).
Bring on the happy ending! What do we most crave in times of stress and drama? Times when our lives have been upended and are still being put back together? That's right: familiarity. A pattern, order, the sweet pleasure of our expectations being met. What more satisfying pattern could there be than what Regency delivers time after time: the spark of first feelings, obstacles to those feelings, more misunderstandings and a clash, followed by an upturn, a tender admission or a quick reunion, and then together again, this time forever.
While everyday life certainly offers headaches and hassles that don't frequently tie themselves together with a neat little bow, it's a soothing experience to enjoy the protagonist's HEA, page by page. Now, more than ever, that vicarious joy is an especially delightful part of our entertainment, and one in which Regency particularly excels.
So, go ahead: grab a Regency novella or novel today and prepare to encounter another world, a heroine to root for, and a HEA that makes 2022 a bit more palatable and a lot more entertaining.
~*~
We couldn't have said it better. Immersing yourself in a Regency can allow you to escape from yesterday's scandalous headlines that have barely been assimilated when today's upheaval makes news that's followed far too quickly by tomorrow's disasters.
We have a great assortment of Regencies for your pleasure, in all lengths and moods. A great place to start is with Lucy M. Loxley's Her Humble Admirer, a sweetly traditional story with its share of quirky characters, including an innocent maid who is ready for love, a faithful swain who seems interested only in being a good friend, and a sophisticated gentleman from London who wants something from Miss Livia Hightower, but is hesitant about telling her exactly what. Caught up in the summery swirl of country society, Livia weaves romantic dreams about the future...but will they ever be more than hopeless fantasies? [ISBN 978-1-60174-232-2, $3.99]
Super excited to announce that my article, “Fabulous Flash: Diving Headfirst into the Pool of Uncertainty,” was published today at Women on Writing. I end the article with a fun prompt to take for a spin. 🌹
Clickety-click on the article title above to read more, and check out the many inspiring writing workshops in an array of genres available from talented published writers via the WOW classroom page .
My online class flash fiction workshop is accepting students between now and the July 1st start date. To learn more, check out: In a Flash Workshop. Flash is one of my favorite genres, and I’d love to work with you and your writing friends.
Copies of the text we’ll use, also written by yours truly, are available at Amazon and (for signed copies) at my Etsy page. Write on!
