The Workshop: Matt Green

Kristine made rubbings on gravestones she was strangers with. She took their pictures and laughed and had picnics with them. Then she would go home and post all the pictures and rubbings on her wall. Then she disappeared, and the police went and dug up all the graves.

In each grave was a coffin. And each coffin just had a picture of a person in it, and a rubbing of their face.



creation note: The original idea for this came from the fact that in 19th century America, going out and picnicking in graveyards was a cool thing that everyday people would just do. Also, having frequented graveyards and taken pictures, I sometimes wonder what the hell I should do with them other than keep them because they’re pretty. Take that, reverse it, and look, it’s creepy. Lots of things look horrible in the mirror.

Bio: Matt Green writes about how his (and other people’s) mad little babies are born on his blog. He has previously had poetry published in Calliope, but hasn’t done anything for you lately

The Workshop: Tara Dwyer

Pass or Fail

Outside the window of my empty classroom, dry leaves skitter into the lunch trash left behind in the muddy courtyard: accordianed soda cans, checkerboard french fry trays smeared with ketchup, chocolate chip muffin wrappers and vending machine mess. A janitor drags an institutional trash bin behind her to sweep the garbage from the picnic tables.

It’s almost 5 pm and the sun wanes above the weather vane perched atop the crackling painted cupola. 5 pm is high school witching hour, creepy like an off season fun park. In the halls, another janitor passes my door, on the industrial floor waxer zamboni. He nods at me. I sit with a stack of essays about what teenagers can understand of realism in The Red Badge of Courage.

My desk is coffee rings, pencil shavings, chalk dust and greasy student work. I notice the I Can’t Believe It’s Not margarine tub. It’s out of place and placed out of the way, almost enough to miss beside the dying spider plant. I note the lightness of the tub in my hands. It feels empty. I open it. Tucked inside, the tarantula’s molted form rests belly side up on an autumn leaf patterned folded paper towel. A rose body cavity with eight holes like a rotary telephone dial show where the new slid free from the old, leaving behind hollow legs covered with fine hairs.

Later, an email from him: “I left my thing about courage on your desk.”


creation note: When I was in 10th grade, a kid I hardly knew came up to me in the hallway at school with a margarine tub. He opened the lid to reveal a molted tarantula's skin. I asked him what it was for and he said, "English Class". I haven't forgotten that encounter and how bizarre a thing it was bring into English class-- what could the connection be? What were they doing in class? I wrote this short piece after encountering a current student much like the tarantula tub kid from my memories. After several years in the public school system, it's been quite a sociological eye opener to see all of the different archetypes of people out there when they're 14 years old, and also to see how history repeats itself with different clothes and music.


Bio: Tara Dwyer has an MFA in Fiction from George Mason University and currently works as a high school English teacher.

The Workshop: Samel X. Brase

An Element of Discovery

The two of us, we’re standing, staring at the slippery object on the bathroom floor.

“It’s not mine,” I avow. It takes all of my effort not to fly off the handle. “Is it yours?”

My roommate looks up at me. “No. But if it’s... not either of ours, where did it come from?”

I bite my lip. What a terrible question.



creation note: Tension is one of those things that is essential to the story. Without tension, the work is pointless, like the movie Wimbledon. I’m not superb at tension; dialogue comes naturally, tension does not. I often have to make sure there is an appropriate amount of tension in a story, going so far as to think about it like a movie (action beat, drama beat, sex scene, twist!). A passing thought in my head, this scene represents one of many attempts on my part to foster a friendship with tension.

Bio: Samuel X. Brase writes about writing on his blog, ktvo.wordpress.com, and has been published in The Foundling Review and Prima Storia. In his free time, he sits and hopes that one day, Steven Spielberg will option the movie rights for his unpublished novel.

The Workshop: Heidi Foster

Brine

What caused her phobia of pickles? Maybe she had a great-uncle, not a large man, he was actually a rather tiny man, but with a roaring voice. And maybe this man, his spine curved bow-like with age, always bellowed “I guess it’s better than ending up drownt at the bottom of a pickle barrel” whenever things went wrong. And maybe they were a family where things always went wrong. And maybe once she went to a dirty old deli with Great-Uncle Abram and while he was ordering a Leberkäse on a Kaiser roll, this small child hooked her fingers over the pickle barrel sitting forgotten in the corner of the dirty deli and pulled herself to her tippy-toes and looked in. And maybe she saw a reflection of her face floating amongst the bloated, briny pickles and she knew, oh yeah, she knew then exactly what she would look like drownt at the bottom of a pickle barrel.

creation note: Brine is the first story I’ve written for a series of pieces I’ve been thinking of writing about phobias. I want them to be funny in my kind of a way

Bio (which I so do not know what to write): On good days, I say I’m a Word Engineer, on bad days, a Word Recycler, but good days or bad, it all comes back to words. My words, in poetry form, have appeared in Baltimore literary magazine called Lite, and in several Internet Zines. When I’m not writing, I’m photographing robots and my photos have been used by NASA in their year end report. My websites are: DarkStory and Fact Or Fantasy I used to post my poetry and prose here but I do not post any new writing since my poems began appearing as other people’s work on various Internet blogs.

The Workshop: Liz Hambrick

The Hunt

I bought the goldfish at different pet shops out of town, a few at a time, until I had two hundred or more in the freezer.

Jade gave me her key before I told her to shut up her phony laughter. When we were friends.

I hid the fish in her house like Easter eggs. In the hem of the curtains. On top of the fridge. Under the rugs, the mattresses, the sofa cushions. In the back of the kitchen junk drawer. Behind books on shelves. In the vents. Above the door jambs. Inside the flue.

I left through the garage side door. With the butt of a flashlight I punched out a pane of glass next to the door handle from the outside and left the door open. I’m clever.

creation note: I love my neighbors. They are my friends. But I hate their lawn machinery. One particularly noisy construction episode in the cul-de-sac involved getting woken up by a jackhammer. I did not think friendly things. This little story came of that.

Bio: I am an undergrad student at George Mason University. Born and raised in London, England, I have lived in the Washington, D.C. area since the mid-1970’s.

The Workshop: G. Walker

Heart's Desire

Dead birds washed up on deck, caught in storms, doomed. The ornithologist touched a salt water-sodden dead bird with the toe of her boot. Spider watched her write GREEN THROAT in her notebook and kick the dead bird across the slippery deck.

The ship had recently taken on a staff of performers. Spider pulled her cart aside to let them pass in the corridors. One evening Spider was followed into the hot cave of the laundry by a boyish little acrobat.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” the acrobat demanded, hands on her hips. Her smooth gold hair slid like a curtain across her heart-shaped face. Spider said nothing.

“You don’t speak English?” the acrobat scowled. The machines rumbled in the bright-white room.

“There’s something wrong with you,” the acrobat said. “Let me reach in and undo it.”

The acrobat pressed Spider down in a cart of sheets. The odor of bleach engulfed Spider, filling her throat and skull. She closed her eyes and saw in her foggy mind her heart’s desire: her favorite dead bird, ATLANTIC PUFFIN, its parrot bill and webbed feet bright as clotting blood, in the ornithologist’s hands, cradled in those hands forever.


creation note: This story was inspired by the phenomenon of exhausted migrating songbirds collapsing on boats at sea.

Bio: G. Walker is a birdwatcher, teacher, and writer living in Richmond, Virginia.

The Workshop: Adam Marston

These People

These people have tried talking. They think it is an effective way to communicate. For personal reasons, they do not talk anymore. If one of them wants something, they bang their skulls together. The theory is if their brains are closer together, a thought will transfer. If one of them needs something, they cry while doing this.

creation note: This is one piece from a serial. In this form, I think it can be difficult to distinguish between poem and story, and that they can be one and the same.

Bio: I’m enamored with the idea of poetry and fiction being friends, if not symbiotes, and my influences include Danielle Dutton, Sara Veglahn, Lydia Davis and Zachary Schomburg. My work appears in Dogzplot and is forthcoming in The Northville Review. My new blog is Big Strong Words.