What’s Next? by Daryl Wood Gerber

Lake Tahoe - Setting of Daryl Wood Gerber's Book Girl on the Run

What’s next? What came first? Let’s see. I wrote as a girl. I wrote as a teen. I had teachers that told me not to and that I wasn’t any good, and sadly, I listened. I put aside my writing and became an actress. Luckily, I was pretty good and I worked a lot. I made a decent living. However, along the way, I realized in order to become a star, I needed projects, and the best way to do that was to write one for myself.

Typical me, I got right on it. I took classes. We read each other’s screenplays out loud. I learned. I studied. I wrote "Sparky"romantic comedies as well as thrillers. I was lucky enough to sell a show for which I created the format on television. But I couldn’t entice an agent to love my work and put me on the fast track.

Soon after, I moved out of state for my husband’s career. I couldn’t very well take a meeting (Hollywood speak for have lunch and chat about a project) from 3,000 miles away, so what did I do? I gave up screenwriting and decided I could still write…novels. But which genre? I loved mysteries. I loved thrillers. I wasn’t into rom-com. I decided upon suspense as well as mystery, and I started taking more classes. I joined Sisters in Crime and joined critique groups. I learned a ton!!! Then I submitted to agents. Over and over!! I was the rejection queen in my Sisters in Crime online group, the Guppies.

Finally I landed a contract to write the Cheese Shop Mysteries and that sealed my fate. I became known as a cozy mystery author. I followed that series with the Cookbook Nook Mysteries and narrowed my fate even more. I am currently known as a culinary cozy mystery author. I know cheese; I know cookbooks; I happen to be a cook. Presto!

Daryl Wood Gerber's BookshelvesNow don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. I love my fans. I have a great career.

So why self-publish a suspense novel like GIRL ON THE RUN? Because I want to see if I can.

You see, I still love writing suspense. Love it! And I wondered if my stories would resonate with my fans. I have a pretty darned good fan base! Not to mention, I still have eight suspense/thriller manuscripts on my shelves (or in my computer), and I’m wondering whether there is a future for them.

So far, thanks to my early-reader fans (beta readers) I’m finding that Girl on the Run is resonating. They are delighted with the story. The reviews they have posted on Goodreads (they can’t post on Amazon until the book releases) have been enthusiastic to the max and extremely heartwarming for me.

Does this mean I’ll throw over traditional publishing? No! I really like being published by a reputable publisher. I love working with Berkley Prime Crime. They have been very good to me.

However, when I asked my agent to market Girl on the Run, which had a different title at the time, my publisher and a few other publishers weren’t interested for a couple of reasons.

One: It wasn’t as tightly written as it is now. I rewrote it after the publishers rejected it. I took their notes to heart, and I was brutal to my baby. I cut out 40 pages and a few unnecessary points of view. The result is a tighter read with a faster pace.

Two: I wasn’t a known suspense author. Publishers really don’t like to switch an author’s brand midstream. They want to buy the known commodity. So do fans. I am a cozy mystery author. Period. There will be plenty of my fans that won’t want to read Girl on the Run based on that alone. Sigh.

Caveat to my devoted cozy mystery readers: Girl on the Run does not have any bad language, there is no explicit sex, and most of the crime happens off the page. The story is about Chessa, on the run, in search of the truth. It’s not a cozy but it’s not spooky, scary, or gross, and no children or animals were harmed during the making of this book! There are no recipes included.

So, therefore, as a suspense author, I am starting over.

Lake Tahoe - Setting of "Girl on the Run" by Daryl Wood Gerber

I’m looking for a new audience or trying to expand my current audience. What is my brand? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s: I’m a California girl! I will set all of my thrillers somewhere in California. And I’m a thrill-seeker. I have jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and hitchhiked around Ireland by myself. Definitely not cozy.

But let’s address the initial question: what’s next?

I have a few cozy mystery proposals with publishers right now. We’ll see if they want to sign new contracts. I have to admit I have enjoyed the process of self-publishing. It has been a blast!

And, as I mentioned, I do have more suspense novels written, but I will need to rewrite them, and I will have to be DWG girl on the run ebookeven more brutal than I was with GIRL ON THE RUN. So there is possibly another one to eight self-published suspense novels on the horizon. One a year? We’ll see.

FYI, my virtual assistant has been invaluable in this project! I could not have done it without her. I would have been pulling my hair out. She has taught me the ins and outs of social media and self-publishing. Everyone deserves her as a mentor!

Also coming up: GRILLING THE SUBJECT, the 5th in my Cookbook Nook Mystery series debuts August. I’m writing the 6th in the series, although I don’t have a contract for that yet. If I don’t get one, because who knows what will happen in this volatile publishing world, I’ll self-publish it.

My motto has become “One day at a time, one step at a time.”

Life has changed drastically for me over this past year. I intend to pay attention to what life has to offer, whether in my writing or in my personal life and family life, and I intend to to drink it in: One sip at a time.

Savor the mystery.

About the Author: Daryl Wood Gerber

DarylWoodGerberbioAgatha Award-winning and bestselling author DARYL WOOD GERBER ventures into the world of suspense with her debut novel, GIRL ON THE RUN. Daryl also writes the Cookbook Nook Mysteries, and as Avery Aames, she pens the Cheese Shop Mysteries.

Fun tidbit: as an actress, Daryl appeared in “Murder, She Wrote”. She has also jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and hitchhiked around Ireland by herself. She loves to read and has a frisky Goldendoodle named Sparky. Visit Daryl at www.darylwoodgerber.com.

I have written so often, by Æverett

rumbledbedsheets

I have written so often about your voice, but the feeling

remains, ever present, like a ringing in my bones. The taste of

your words as they leave your lips, like honey on my

fingertips… I wish to hear your whispering words, close

enough to feel your Tongue. The music from your mouth

amoung the sighings there in silken sheets. The sighing of my

dying Lungs, you steal my breath, with only a sound, a

whisper, a word. Your verses only make it worse.

 

About the Author: Æverett

ÆverettÆverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

For the Love of Letters

Late in the summer of 2015, I began a letter writing project with a friend. We chose to focus our exchange (mostly) Writing Letters in a Cafeon our creative lives and how everything else affected our ability to become more devoted to our creative needs and desires.

Eight months later, we are still exchanging handwritten letters around the subject of our creative lives and creative living on the whole.

It’s been an incredibly nourishing project and process. I’ve long preferred paper over email and cannot imagine why we didn’t begin writing sooner, yet it also forced me to take a good hard look at my need for instant gratification.

What happens in that in between times as I wait for the next chapter to arrive in my mailbox? What will she think of my letter? Was I too honestly naked?  How does waiting for an answer to a question make me feel? How does it nourish me creatively and spiritually?

I anxiously await the next letter. When it arrives, I savor it once and then again and maybe after a third (or fourth) reading, I pen a response. And then the process begins again.

Writing Letters early in the morning (with coffee)My biggest take aways from this process (so far) has  been:

  • The slower pace of letter writing is forcing me to slow down and is training my focus. In my inability to get an answer as quickly as my instant-gratification-trained brain would like, I am learning the virtues of patience in other areas of my creative life as well.
  • During the in-between times, I am anxious to not only receive the next letter, but more inspired to put my pen to paper and work on projects.
  • Writing letters has forced me to dig a little deeper, be more vulnerable, be more honest, and be a bit daring.
  • Since I began writing letters by hand (and writing in a paper journal), I more easily process my thoughts, emotions, and the world around me.

I’m not alone. Research shows that writing by hand helps us process information in a more conceptual way. While this study wasn’t about the process of letter writing, I can tell you that the process of laying open my dreams and fears on paper to a trusted soul via paper and ink has been a process that has helped me look at my creative life from a different lens.

The U.S. Postal Services has named April to be National Card and Letter-Writing Month.  The USPS’s goal is to boost written — and mailed — communications to build relationships through cards and letters:  “Touch them with a letter they can feel — and keep.”

Writing letters has been a loving way to tend my own creative life and my guess is that no matter who you are, taking a pen in hand and penning a missive to someone you trust would benefit your creative life as well.

If you aren’t sure who you would (or could) write to, might I suggest some options?

  • What if you were to write an open letter to a faceless, nameless stranger? Open letters can be good for the soul.
  • What if you took some advice from Chronicle Book and wrote one (or more) letters to the folks they suggest?
  • You know that apology you’ve wanted to make but can’t quite make yourself pick up the phone? How about you put it on paper and drop it in the mail?
  • How about writing little love notes to your significant other and tucking them into lunch boxes and underwear drawers?
  • What if you were to pen a missive to a younger version of yourself? Or a future version of yourself?
  • Write a letter to your muse or mentor (even if that mentor is long gone or fictional).
  • Write a series of love letters to yourself in your journal.
  • What if you were to write letters to various aspects of your life and yourself?

Susannah Conway is offering her “April Love” project with a month of love letters. She’s providing a prompt per day this month and in her words:  To practice love, kindness, honesty and probably a smidge of vulnerability, too. To find gratitude for what we have, where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

April Love

I’m not the only one here at Modern Creative Life that loves letters. In fact, we’ll be happy to take your letter for publication.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

debra_Smouse_mclDebra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not waiting for the mailman, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf. She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Studio Tour: Bernie Brown

Modern Creative Life Presents Studio Tours

My stories are born in my head, hands, and heart; but some practical tools are necessary to bring those inner visions to life. I have a pleasantly cluttered desk where I sit and write and think and procrastinate. Favorite reference books rest close by: a thesaurus, a dictionary, and an emotional thesaurus – the best book ever!

Each main character in my novel has a file, and I track when and where scenes take place by making notes on a calendar. Pictures of my family and friends sit close by to make me smile even when my writing makes me frown. And when I really feel discouraged, I look at my brag shelf to remind myself of past successes.

And every writer needs a widow to gaze at while they are dreaming up plots and dialogue, good guys and bad guys.

Welcome to my writing desk. You’ll find me here almost every morning.

MyTrustyAcer_BernieBrown

At my desk with my trusty Acer.

I can’t write a paragraph without these three books.

Icannotwritewithoutthesebooks_berniebrown

Other essential resources: character files, calendar timelines, and pictures of writer friends.

otheressentialreferences_berniebrown

 

My brag shelf holds all my published stories and essays.

MyBragCorner_BernieBrown

I look out these windows when I’m stuck.

Windowseat_BernieBrown

 

About the Author: Bernie Brown

berniebrownI live in Raleigh, NC where I write, read, and watch birds. My stories have appeared in several magazines, most recently Every Writer’s Resource, Still Crazy and the Raleigh News and Observer. I am a Writer in Residence at the Weymouth Center. Get to know me better my website and connect with me on Facebook.

Conversations Over Coffee: Mario Batali

Mario Batali

Conversations Over Coffee with MCL

 

In November, 2008, I had the great pleasure of interviewing one of my favorite celebrity chefs, Mario Batali for All Things Girl. Our phone call was only about twenty minutes long, but he talks even faster than I do (people who know me will be impressed by this), and we covered a lot in a relatively brief time.

We’re re-running this piece today (with a few edits), because it’s one of our favorite pieces, and because all of us on the editorial staff here at Modern Creative Life love to play in our own kitchens, and believe that cooking is just as much a creative pursuit as writing, art, or music.

Enjoy!

Mario Batali

First, tell us a bit about yourself: How did you get into food? How does someone from the West Coast end up in New Jersey?
I grew up in Seattle to a half-Italian half-French-Canadian family. We were always into food. Everyone in my entire family: my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my brother, sister, mom, dad. Everybody I know knew how to cook and was interested in food from the inception of picking something or growing something, picking things wild or harvesting them, or shooting birds or fishing and doing the whole thing.

My grandfather was actually a game guide in British Columbia, and brought home lots of moose and elk and all sorts of weird stuff for us to eat – so it was always part of our lives.

When I was fourteen, my family moved to Madrid, Spain. My dad worked with Boeing, so we had some kind of foreign brat lifestyle over in Madrid, which was delightful. And when it was time to go to college, it would seem to me that it would be easier to get to the east coast than to anywhere else, and I had never been to the east coast, let alone anywhere east of Idaho, for that matter.

Oh, wow. Was there culture shock?
You know what? I fell in love with it immediately. I don’t know that my brother or sister would have been ready for it, but after I spent a year there, my brother came and went to Princeton, just down the street. (I went to Rutgers.) I fell in love with New Jersey. I liked the idea of being close to New York without being in New York at that early age, and I went to school to get a degree in Spanish Theatre of the Golden Age and in finance, or economics.

I did that, but while I was doing it, I worked at a place called “Stuff Yer Face” which is a Stromboli and pizzeria in New Brunswick, and fell in love with the immediacy of a dinner rush and – kind of – my ability to actually react well under pressure and cook very quickly as well as making something delicious, so that’s really the start.

Food was obviously a big part of your family, as you’ve said, and you mentioned growing it as well, which brings me to my next question: The concept of “slow foods” and buying local and eating local is very popular right now. What are your thoughts on that?

Long before it was considered a “carbon footprint massacre” to ship things around the world, I have always been a fan of local produce, and for one reason only – a very selfish reason: it’s easier to make food taste delicious if it hasn’t had to travel very far.

Understanding seasonality is something that is born into Italian people’s mentality, when they’re in Italy. Americans have been able to eat asparagus on Christmas Eve for as long as I’ve been alive, and that’s one of the tragedies of successful commercial farming is that in fact it removes seasonality from things. It also removes the kind of high points that you can get when you eat something that is in season, so I’m all about eating seasonally, eating and buying locally, and supporting farmers whose names you actually know.

And what you’ll capture is: when you’re tasting something in Parma, on a Thursday afternoon in October, and it’s either right in the middle of, or right before or right after the grape harvest and you taste a plate of prosciutto – nothing more, just a simple plate of prosciutto, maybe with some bread on the side – you can smell in the food everything that’s going on around you in the atmosphere. You can smell the way the – kind of – wind smells, and the flavor of the localness, and if you can capture that in whatever part of the country that you’re at, then you have done a great job as a cook, and understanding and working with that kind of local flavor is something that is so unique.

What happened a lot of times in the fancy restaurant world of the last twenty years is that a luxury item became the item that everyone wanted to have, so they had caviar and they had fois gras and they had all this stuff that had really nothing to do with the place that you’re at. What I’m looking for – when I go somewhere traveling, what I’m looking for is something that is geo-specific, something that tastes like it could only be had here, and that – in Texas – could be any kind of barbecue; it could be any kind of crazy onion; it could be any kind of good chili. It could be made by anybody and it doesn’t have to be fancy, but what it has to do is represent that local flavor.

You’ve mentioned living in Spain as a teenager. Did that experience have anything to do with the decision to make your show On the Road Again: Spain [PBS, Fall 2008]?
Yes, well. When I started to talk about the producer – about us doing TV – and he said, “Well how about doing something on Spain which is an undiscovered jewel?”

And I said, “Well, that’s a great idea. I would love to go back to all my old stomping grounds,” and as it turns out, I was at a dinner party and Gwyneth [Paltrow] was at it and we’ve been friends for about ten years and I was talking to everyone at the table about this kind of new show idea that we were working on, and she demanded to be let in, and it was – I thought she was just being polite.

About two months later, when she heard it being talked about again by somebody else, and I wasn’t there, she called me and said – to make sure that I didn’t cut her out – and that kind of worked. So she also spent some time in high school as an exchange student in Talavera de la Reina, I think it was, outside of Madrid.

And so, the whole Spanish thing is to go back and see how it’s changed – I lived there when [Generalissimo] Franco just had died – and to see how it has come a thousand miles and become the forefront of molecular gastronomy, in addition to being still very much its traditional –kind of – old world self was an easy layup for me, and traveling around, I think it looks like we’re having fun, because in fact we are having fun.

Let’s talk more about Spain. What typifies the cuisine of Spain, as opposed to other Latin countries? We in America tend to think of Latin food as primarily Mexican.
I would say that when you talk about European food, it isn’t really Latin. I would say it’s Mediterranean at that point, and that kind of adds a component to it. Clearly like a lot of southern French cooking, like a lot of northern African cooking, and like all Italian cooking, it’s really based on the lipid of choice and olive oil, of course: number one.

So you have that kind of olive culture to it, which is, for a lot of people, something that tastes exotic, but for most people that I know, that’s something that almost says “home.” It says you’re where you should be, and the olive oil being kind of pervasive in all of the dishes, if there’s another flavor that I could put my palate on, there’s almost a smoky component to a lot of the things that they cook, and even some of the things that are raw. And they are not afraid to bring things to the edge of nearly burnt or very dark brown and letting that be kind of the extension of its ultimate caramelization.

And when you taste these things, and even – sometimes the ham and sometimes even the wine, or like a soup, a bean soup – it will have just lightly scorched on the bottom and on purpose. I’d say that there’s something almost smoky to it and whenever anything gets in touch with that magnificent paprika they call pimento, then that also becomes a real kind of intensive part of the flavor – kind of – portfolio.

You mentioned the term molecular gastronomy. Can you explain that a little bit?
Ah, well that is where food preparers, cooks, guys like Ferran Adria (perhaps the most famous member of the molecular gastronomist club) – they choose to provoke people by changing the texture or the appearance of food into something that it never was before while still trying to retain its essential flavor.

So you’ll have caviar that’s made of green apples, and it’ll have that same kind of pop-y texture, and what they’ll use to do that is some form of sea algae that they mix into a liquid and then they add a different kind of algae to the original substance – say, you took a puree of beans and you mix it with this one product and then you drop it into a water solution that has another product and it will sphere-ify the actual item – the whatever-you-dropped-in-there and then it will allow it to be stable for twenty-four to thirty-six hours. So then you’ll make like a little – some kind of a soup, and then you’ll put something that looks like a little glass ball in it, and in fact it tastes like another kind of soup. Or it tastes like salmon. Or it tastes like… whatever.

So they mess around with the basic tenet of very simple products, and yet they don’t – they do it in a way that will make you feel more intellectually stimulated by something that was already very physically stimulating.

And if they get lost it’s – sometimes it’s just like it’s too abstract. You know, there’s something that doesn’t have any connection, and because the food wasn’t very well prepared, or wasn’t very good when they got it raw, it’s wrong, but that doesn’t happen in all of these restaurants. Generally they’re pretty smart about it and it’s very…provocative…to eat in some of these restaurants. And it’s very much fun. But that said, sometimes it loses its way.

Fun seems to be an important element for all really successful chefs. Do you think fun is important?
Above all, fun should be important. And childishness is superior to adult-ness. And there’s a certain whimsical-ness that is what makes really good meals taste really good.

Sometimes you’ll sit down in the fanciest of restaurants and they have removed any of the fun from the experience in the name of creating high art, and that is when, suddenly, it’s no longer interesting to eat.

I like things to be fun. I like them to be unexpected if possible, but most importantly if the cooks are having fun and making things with really good natural products, odds are possibly with you that it will be delicious and fun to eat as well.

Do you think that a chef’s joy in what they’re making transfers to the end product, when a stranger is tasting it?
Absolutely. As in all art.

I mean, there are the members of the “tortured artist” school, and they work their world, and they do it, and they can still come up with great things, but certainly if something is loved and enjoyed by the person who is making it – you know – I mean, when you see a great rock ‘n’ roll band play, they are having fun on stage because they’re doing what they’re supposed to do and they really dig it. Like, REM on tour is one of the greatest bands you’ll ever see ’cause they’re great at it, and they know what they’re doing, and they have a blast and it’s that same way in food.

Comedians are often expected to be “funny” on command. Do you find yourself being “volunteered” to cook? Do you mind?
No, I’ll happily – at the drop of a hat, I’ll cook any time, all the time. Being funny’s a little different because you have to have an intellectual component to it. You could cook silently, and still make delicious food, even if you were not necessarily in the mood. The techniques of the purchase, and then the actual heat transfer is something I enjoy all the time.

That said, being funny’s a little harder.

True confessions time: Do you ever resort to having Chinese food delivered in a plain brown bag, after midnight?
Of course I do. My kids love delivery Chinese food. I wouldn’t want to cut them out of an essential part of New York Culture. I believe they had Chinese food here last night. (I wasn’t here, but I think they did, last night). It’s from the local Grand Szechuan. They make these soup dumplings that are to die for.

You have a wonderful television presence, but you don’t fit the conventional “handsome actor” television host model. How did someone like you become one of the coolest chefs on TV?
You know what? Being in front of a camera for a long time only makes you more like what you are naturally. You can’t really practice to become relaxed, it just eventually happens to you, but I think that my reliance on the traditions of the Italian table and the obviousness of it being merely my interpretation gave me a certain platform or a soapbox to talk from, and in the end, I didn’t really have to invent a character. I really just interpreted the great things about the food that I love. And that, I believe, is what makes it evident.

It doesn’t look like I’m trying to be a performer. I’m just doing what I do. And in that way, there’s no kind of strange colored glass that everyone looks at you through because you’re trying to do something that maybe is like trying to memorize someone else’s play, which is what actors do all the time.

I could never do that. I could never remember lines. But if you can give me the idea, I can kind of espouse what that is, and that’s really what I’ve done. I’ve taken really good Italian cooking and just kind of shown people where and how it came from. And my reliance during a show, if I ran out of things to kind of show you, I just talked about the history, which I already knew because I pay attention. I’m a student of that game.

In your career, you’ve been involved with the design of a specific kind of rolling pin. Is there any kitchen gadget that you’d love to re-engineer, or any that you think should be eliminated?
You know, tools are something that are very personal. There’s things in each one that I find I’m very excited about but there’s nothing I would say should be absolutely removed except for the syringe. I don’t think anyone needs a syringe. But that’s – you know – if you need to marinate your turkey and you want to do it that way then you’re going to put it in there, but other than that, I think that all tools are very personal, and once you discover a way to do it, everyone should use whatever they’re comfortable with. There should be no dogma.

Do you have a favorite tool that you use? Are you a knife guy or is it the wooden spoon for you?
I like… you know my favorite tool is, I have this – in my kitchen there’s a giant (well, not giant, it’s probably ten feet by four feet). It is a marble slab. We do our – we live our entire lives on top of this piece of marble. We do homework there, we make pasta there, we roll out dough, we – tonight, for example, there’s a bake sale. My kids are doing a bake sale tomorrow for something called the Imagination Campaign, and everything we’re gonna do from now – they’re just walking in right now, from school – until everyone goes to bed, we will live our lives on our marble counter.

Connect with Mario

Follow Mario Batali on Twitter (@MarioBatali) and check him out on Eataly NYC‘s #TakingRequests.

About the author: Melissa A. Bartell

Melissa A. BartellMelissa is a writer, voice actor, podcaster, itinerant musician, voracious reader, and collector of hats and rescue dogs. She is the author of The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Holiday Tub. You can learn more about her on her blog, or connect with her on on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

The Bone Gatherer by Imelda Maguire

The Bone Gatherer (photo of woman in field)

(in memory of Seena Frost)

She set me to gathering bones,

the ones I’d lost;
set me to travelling
old roads,
and off the roads,
into wild spaces,
long-forgotten.

My basket began to fill,
and she set me to naming the bones,
feeling the places from which
they’d fallen,
marking the spot where they landed.

She set me to minding the bones,
sitting with them,
rubbing their ridges and spurs,
looking and watching and noticing…
This is the shape of that bone,
there is the mark of its pain.

She set me to seeing the whole,
to piecing the bones together,
the slow and gentle work.

As I sit now with the bones,
look at this strange harvest
of mine, I hear a humming,
a chant, low and gentle,
and know, she is with me now,
watching over the bones.

 

About the Author: Imelda Maguire

Imelda Maguire bioImelda Maguire has lived in all four provinces of Ireland, and now resides in Donegal, the far north-west of the country. Her poetry has been published widely in journals in Ireland, and she has read at many literary festivals and events throughout the country. A practicing counsellor, she facilitates creative and personal development activities with individuals and groups. Her first collection, Shout If You Want Me To Sing, was published in 2004 by Summer Palace Press. Her second, Serendipity, was published by Revival Press in 2015. They are both available by contacting her on Facebook or by email at imeldacmaguire@gmail.com.

Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan, says “There are many ways Imelda Maguire will lure us into her world…”, and poet Denise Blake recommends Serendipity as a “collection to cherish, (to) keep close at hand.”

Waspish by Melissa A. Bartell

Waspish

The door was open, and his bags were waiting beside it. “Sweetie,” he said, “I’m sorry. I hate traveling this much. This is the last trip this quarter, and I’ll be home in a week.” He tried to kiss her, but she stiffened, and pulled away.

“Go,” she said, in a flat tone. “Just go.” Something flew past her face–a wasp–and she reached a hand up to brush the feeling aside. Waspish

They had been fighting ever since he arrived home from his most recent trip. Hong Kong, she thought, or Tokyo. She really couldn’t be bothered to remember any more, where he was at any given moment, and she was also tired of fighting, tired of trying to make him hear her. All weekend, when they could have been in bed making up for all the days he had been gone, she had been in a mood, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming.

“It’s my job,” he threw back at her. “You knew I’d have to travel when I accepted the promotion.”

The wasp followed a scent trail to the kitchen window, and alighted on the screen, but neither noticed.

“I thought I’d get to go with you. Working from home was supposed to give me that option.”

“None of the wives get to go,” he said. “It just isn’t done.”

“I’m not ‘one of the wives.’ I’m your wife. You wouldn’t even have this job if I hadn’t written your resume.”

He walked to the kitchen window and slammed it shut, trapping the wasp against the screen. It buzzed angrily and tried unsuccessfully to escape. The buzzing didn’t cease, but neither of them noticed. “Is there someone else?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said, and then. “I just don’t like the person I’ve become. I don’t like that I’m always at home, waiting for you to come back. I don’t like that you have an entire life separate from mine, and when I ask how work was, all you say is ‘busy’. What kind of an answer is that?”

“Work is busy,” he said. “It’s always busy. I don’t even take lunch most days. And when I go away, all I do is work. There’s no time for sight-seeing. You’d be bored.”

“I could sight-see without you, you know.” She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it, and stared at him mutely. He was silent as well, staring back.

The blast of the horn from the taxi waiting at the curb jolted them out of their silence, and masked the soft thud of the tiring wasp falling to the bottom of the casement as it struggled to break free. Wordlessly, he picked up his bags and left.

She watched the taxi drive away then sank down onto a chair. She hated these chairs. They were too large for her short frame, and the table was too tall, and it made her feel small and helpless. He hadn’t closed the door behind him; she hadn’t bothered to do it after he was gone.

Her cell phone was just in front of her. She should pick it up. Apologize for being a basket case. Apologize for not kissing him goodbye or wishing him a safe trip. But she didn’t. She made coffee, instead, and fetched a magazine from the living room.

Behind her back, the wasp kept up a relentless exploration of every corner of its prison, looking for a way out.

When it grew too dark to read she looked up, and realized she’d never turned a light on. Her coffee, poured and forgotten, had grown cold. She didn’t remember a single thing she’d read in the magazine.

Her cell phone rang at three in the morning, and she groggily answered it. “Hello?”

“Hi, Sweetie. My plane was late, and I just got in.” A pause. “I wasn’t going to wake you, but…”

“No–” she interrupted, sleep leaving her, “–I’m glad you did. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“I know.” He took a beat, and she could hear the faint static that represented the thousands of miles between them. “I’m sorry I had to go.”

“I hate when you’re away.” She sounded pathetic, even to herself.

“I know. I hate being away.” His voice was soft.

“Forgive me for being so bitchy?”

“Always. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

She hung up the phone, and went back to sleep, her arms holding his pillow close to her body.

Downstairs, trapped between the screen and glass of the kitchen window, the wasp died.

Image Credit: victorass88 / 123RF Stock Photo

About the author: Melissa A. Bartell

Melissa A. BartellMelissa is a writer, voice actor, podcaster, itinerant musician, voracious reader, and collector of hats and rescue dogs. She is the author of The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Holiday Tub. You can learn more about her on her blog, or connect with her on on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Sunday Sanctuary

SundaySancturary_WithDebraSmouse

“The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.”
–Thomas Moore

If you were to travel back to 1976 and tell a little Debra she would one day choose to write a series of esssays about her love of Keeping House, she would think you’d lost your marbles. And the 1996 version of Debra – a harried young mother with two children under five – would appreciate a new dishwasher, but she could never have fathomed the best purchase of the fall of 2015 would have been a new vacuum cleaner.

Yet, here I am in 2016 writing a monthly love note  around the concept that caring for my home nourishes my daily life, feeds my soul, and yes, fuels creative life.

During the process of planning and plotting here at Modern Creative Life, we envisioned a series of intimate letters and essays on Sundays. There is Sunday Brunch from Melissa and Becca will chime in with her  Sunday Salon. And at first, I thought the idea of writing about the love of my vacuum cleaner or lamenting my nemesis dust would be silly.

Yet, to pretend that the status of my home environment doesn’t greatly impact my ability to create would be dishonest. Some people do their best work when times are tough and stressful; I do my best work when I feel safe. And, a clean home makes me feel both safe and loved.

My contribution to our Sunday conversations – Sunday Sanctuary – was born.

The concept of Keeping House isn’t new to me, yet it’s something I’ve always struggled with.  I’ve never been a naturally organized person, yet I am at my happiest and most productive when my surroundings are neat and tidy.

That is the conundrum for not just me, but many creative people I talk with. Creative genius leads to a messy environment and the messiness distracts us from creating.

To be honest, though, when I first read the Trixie Belden books as a child, I envied Trixie her chores.  Trixie was paid trixiebelden_secretofthemansion_deluxeedition$5 a week to help her Moms around the house. Of course, I also envied Trixie her adventures and her friends, but I also envied her having Helen Belden (aka Moms) living an example of how caring for home and hearth equaled love.

Deep down, my intuition was on to something.  Moms understood that the efficient running of a home meant that everyone was in a better position to pursue their dreams.

My mother never got on board with an allowance for chores.  She suggested I just keep my room clean, and I never could. My solution to a messy bedroom in my childhood was shoving stuff under the bed.  Frustrated with my lack of tidiness, she Did It Herself. When I had a house of my own at the tender age of 19, every aspect of caring for a home felt foreign: I didn’t know how to clean, cook, or do laundry.

As I approach my 48th birthday, I can tell you that my skills have come a long way. I get laundry, though I still don’t iron. I love spending time in the kitchen. I strive for a tidy home because it leads to productive days.

Maybe I connected to Trixie and Moms because deep down my soul understood that in order to be my best creative self, I needed to live in a clean and organized home so that I felt free, safe, and loved. It doesn’t come easy to me, but keeping my home neat and tidy means I have a sanctuary where I can create.

About the Author: Debra Smouse

debra_Smouse_mclDebra Smouse is a self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle, life coach, and author of Create a Life You Love: Straightforward Wisdom for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She resides in Dayton, Ohio where she practices the art of living with the Man of Her Dreams. When she’s not vacuuming her couch, you’ll find her reading or plotting when she can play her next round of golf.  She’s the Editor in Chief here at Modern Creative Life. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Plotting and Planning by Æverett

old farmhouse window

Great, empty house with old, wood floors, and open rooms. Unclaustrophobic. The realtor would not shut up about the damn kitchen – how it’d been upgraded not so long ago, or how beautifully painted the cabinets were. She’d grimaced and immediately decided to strip them to the wood. The powder blue had to go. It was too… bright. Brushed steel would be less garish.

If the realtor’d been male, she’d have offed the awful woman already. She’d insold farmhouse windowulted the old windows. Truth was, the old farmhouse windows were a draw. She’d keep them, but refurbish and weather seal them herself. Couldn’t have the neighbors hearing screams.

But it was the yard that sold her. A wide swath of lawn and room for a shed. Room for a Garden. A place to plant her flowers.

She’d been searching for that for ages.

That’s *exactly* what she’d been searching for.

“I know, the rest is a bit rough, but…”

“Sixty-thousand, right?”

The realtor’s face went blank with shock – then lit with glee. “Yes. I’m afraid the bank won’t go any lower than that.”

“I’ll write you a check whenever we get the paperwork handled.”

“Oh! Wonderful! Let me just make some calls!”

She gestured the other woman out the door as she pulled out her phone and started dialing. *Yes, dear god, woman! *Get Out!** She closed the door and was alone.

Yes… Living room, spacious and dark, neat bathroom, modern kitchen, two bedrooms upstairs… and down, space for the Guest Room. Planning would be key. Soundproofing and insulating. Resealing the floors. Carefully furnishing. And the Garden.

She smiled at the thought: A sprawling herb garden… chamomile and bee balm blooming… feverfew in one corner… monkshood in another. Foxglove and anise. She would enjoy plotting the layout, constructing the beds, cultivating the plants. She looked forward to those long afternoons in the dirt.

But first, those fucking blue cabinets had to go.

And first the Guest Room had to be ready.

* * *

The neighbors were impressed with the new resident’s work. She’d cleaned the exterior, sorted and trimmed the yard. And she was making steady progress at refurbishing the old windows – one at a time, by hand, and by herself.

Mr. Tammond said she was an example of female ingenuity and resourcefulness. He said she’d be a good role model for young girls.

Alone, she laughed about that – as she considered welding the bed frame together. She didn’t *like* any man, but she thought it was okay for him to keep breathing.

The neighbors were impressed with her work. With the clean front walk and fresh windows. With the newly green trim and sealed wood door.

To them, she was just a quiet do-it-yourselfer, who worked odd hours and loved to garden. They were shocked when the FBI started digging up bodies.

Aren’t they always?

In hindsight, they realized why she never had any of them over for dinner.

Image Copyright: pavelk / 123RF Stock Photo

About the Author: Æverett

ÆverettÆverett lives in the northern hemisphere and enjoys Rammstein and Star Trek. He writes both poetry and fiction and dabbles in gardening and soap making. She has two wonderfully old cats, and a dearly beloved dog. He also plays in linguistics, studying German, Norwegian, Russian, Arabic, a bit of Elvish, and developing Cardassian. Language is fascinating, enlightening, and inspirational. She’s happily married to her work with which she shares delusions of demon hunters, detectives, starships, androids, and a home on the outskirts of a small northern town. He’s enjoyed writing since childhood and the process can be downright therapeutic when it’s not making him pull his hair out. It’s really about the work and words and seeing without preconceptions.

A Night with Hathor by Pat West

Full_Moon

Sky goddess whose long curved body
touches the earth only with the tips of toes
and fingers. Queen of the sun, sky,
music and inspiration, it was her starry belly,

men saw shining in the night
above them over Alexandria or Cairo.
Here in Portland, I lie on the wet grass,
the bright beam of a waxing

full moon illuminates the inky night
like a silk lantern held high. I ask
for some mystical mojo.
These days I can’t get over being old.

It’s new to me, that my life like a book
has to end. Is tonight any different
from all the others? I know an answer
is as likely as hearing the famous gap

in Nixon’s tapes, still I ask.
Why do I hesitate to leave this place,
even though certain
this is not where I’m meant to die.

My tribe. My people: all dead,
gone decades ago to heaven or hell
or just plain done with me,
barely in my dreams any more.

Tell me Hathor, if I give a few falsetto yips,
switch into maniacal laughter, string together
a chattering howl, can I call the pack—
my family group—back together again?

Where is my final home?
What about Seattle, Atascadero
or Philly?

In the clearing, I lay stones
so they point at each of the four directions.
Jade to the west, smoky quartz north,
hematite south, and to the east tiger’s eye.

About the Author: Pat West

PatWestBioPat Phillips West lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Haunted Waters Press, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, and Slipstream, and some have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.