My parents don’t want me to walk the dog after dark; I tell them I’ll be back in an hour. Slide rules rule; crushes nearly crush me. I discover the body electric—how to handle high voltage. Kissing in a cave: our lips disappear but I can still feel them. Lifting the needle on the Hi-Fi to hear Side One, Track 3 of the Bookends album: “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.” I can’t swallow the first day of schoo
creative writing
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Becoming a Ghost: Losing touch
Through the dimming haze of an autumn sun I see smoke pillar above idle students awaiting busses. The fortunate ones remain engrossed by iPhones and Droids, each distanced from nearby strangers despite physical proximity. I pass through unobserved and untouched, ephemeral as a shadow on a cloudy day, and enter the cavernous building. Immediate smells […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Becoming a ghost: Losing worlds
As she speaks, I shiver and sense a shift as the objects around me expose themselves, becoming reduced to a skeletal framework with a mere capacity to hold worlds. A moment earlier, my world had been filled with concrete certainties: tangible and thick like the gold dome of the Old Capital shining proudly in the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Johnny and Martha
When it was time for calving John Jr and Hank would always be at the ready 24/7. Sometimes it would be young Johnny sent by Jr to fetch Hank. And sometimes Martha would ride a pony over to Jr’s place even in the middle of the night. When it was time for calving, mother nature set the schedule. And calving was serious business because it meant a new animal to add to their small herds.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: Nonfiction, a love poem
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: The Englert Theatre, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: The Bed
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: The Englert Theatre, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: On forgetting names
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: The Englert Theatre, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: What happened to Violet Kubicek
I worked night shift at the donut shop in Court Hill a couple of summers ago. It’s pretty hard to get used to, and I was getting better at going to sleep at noon so I could be at work by ten, but it was way too hot, so I didn’t sleep for more than, like, four hours for a couple of days.
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: India House
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: The Englert Theatre, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine.
Posted inCommunity/News
Former Writers’ Workshop fellow is youngest to receive Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize is Britain’s most prestigious literary prize, and its latest winner is not only a former Iowa Writers’ Workshop fellow, but also the youngest writer to…
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Hot Tin Roof
Hot Tin Roof: The farmer in retirement
Hot Tin Roof is a program to showcase current literary work produced in Iowa City. The series is organized and juried by representatives of three Iowa City-based cultural advocacy organizations: The Englert Theatre, Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature and Little Village magazine.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
N.S.F.W: How to write a sex scene
From the Literary Review’s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, sex in literature—and the ways it can go terribly, terribly wrong—is being talked about a lot these days. But sex in fiction is hardly a new trend. Some writers, especially writers just starting out, tend to balk […]
