I’m pleased to say that my short story, A Letter on a Train, has been published in The Quill Magazine. This is my first fiction published since the 1970’s when I won a creative writing contest sponsored by the Detroit News and Scholastic. Needless to say I hope this will lead to many more. Check out this fantastic on-line magazine at this LINK.

Words have power. The ability to transcribe stories and knowledge into words transformed our ancestors into the human beings we are today. Words educate, influence, enslave and heal. That’s why it is such a tragedy when words are misused. Lately the word ‘Great’ has been abused and rendered a mockery by the political operatives in our federal government. So, as a public service, I’m offering alternative words.

At the risk of sounding elitist, Roget’s International Thesaurus, a book you should have learned how to use in high school English class, has 278 synonyms for the word Great. Knocking the count down for a few overlaps, there are at least 270 other words besides Great to use to help your reader or listener understand meaning.  If books aren’t your thing, thesaurus.com has 136 alternatives.

Slang words like: dandy, marvy, crackerjack, stunning, and serious words like: important, consequential, momentous, significant, considerable and substantial, all do more to help us understand what you are trying to say. Using one word to describe everything is like using one crayon to color. The world is much richer when we use the whole of a language to communicate.

So, the next time some high minded big-wig throws out a corker of a word gaffe, you can snort at their colossal failure in using American English.

I’m thrilled to have won a case of Cinquain Cellars flagship wine, Cinquain, in the latest poetry contest.  For those not familiar with a cinquain, it is a five line poem with defined syllables in each line. The first is 2, then 4, 6, 8, and the last back to 2.  2-4-6-8-2

Here is the poem that will be on the back label of the bottles when they are released later this year.

Five grapes
Intermingle
Cinquain melody plays
Harmony crescendos inside
My glass

Cinquain Cellars is definitely worth checking out. I love their wine and they are great people.

My mirror reflects a woman,
five feet tall, grey hair,
age spots daubed with foundation,
dusted with powder,
yet still visible.

Ancestors from Britain, Ireland, and Alsace Lorraine
fill my gene pool
But they don’t tell you who I am.

Once the title on my business card
defined the square footage of my office,
the quality of my chair,
the level of respect I was afforded,
but it did not tell you who I am.

Height, age, titles,
allow you to lump me in groups,
bucket me in stereotypes,
but that’s your issue,
that’s not who I am.

I am my dreams.

The Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie Savage Carlson was published in 1958, my birth year. So, I am surprised to learn this is a Christmas classic and loved by millions. I’ve never heard of it. More shocking to a writer diving into the middle grade children’s literature area, is that this book won the Newbery Award, an esteemed children’s literature honor.

This surprises me because the story contradicts several “rules” of kid lit that I’ve picked up over the last three years in books and workshops: the main character must be a child slightly older than the age of the reader you are writing for, the main character must solve his or her own problems in the story and the adults, if any, in the story must not make everything happen for the child. This leads me to believe that the story was written more for the adults who are reading to children.

I’m bolstered in this thought, by the recognition that Despicable Me, an animated movie with evil villains who attempt to steal the moon, has the same plot; single curmudgeon takes on three small children, learns to love and ends up with a family.

I wonder if the Family Under the Bridge would be considered for publication in today’s environment.

Perched on a bench at water’s edge

surrounded by starbursts of chlorophyll

dark gray skaters glide on liquid green

sunlight flashes across white and orange scales

water melodies trickle down the rocky falls

rustle the surface with irrational waves

How radiant my world above the water must seem

to the koi

as they hover at the bottom

afraid I’m a bird or raccoon about to snatch them

Just as the glorious heavens above

dazzle me

as I await the inevitable hand from an unknown world

to lift me from my pond

and try not to be afraid