FOCUS. And no, its selection has nothing to do with the visual connotation of 2020, though I do appreciate the symmetry. Rather, its selection logically follows my 2019 word, SPEAK. A little context… I’ve been a writer almost as long as I’ve been a reader, but writing–and finding the time to do it well–has almost …
Writers are nosy creatures. We eavesdrop. We people watch. We collect other people’s stories like sea glass, shiny bits of treasure we hoard then barter with the muses. The inspiration for The Nail Club is one such gem. Years ago, my nail tech B. shared that one of her most difficult clients at her former …
Richard Norris Brooke’s 1881 painting “A Pastoral Visit” depicts an African American family at table with their pastor and is, according to the National Gallery of Art website, his “most celebrated [rendering of] everyday life.” It was also the subject of a Story A Day May prompt and the inspiration for my short story, “Ask …
To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it—well, that’s a way of bringing the said thing into being. — Iff to Haroun in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories This is the …
My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann 