By Patricia A. McGoldrick

*Poem inspired by the 1997 painting Collectivity by Bill Downey, then Artist-in-Residence, Kitchener, ON, Canada

FICTION  |  Sheal Mullin Berube  » The smell in here is overpowering. It permeates everything around me. It’s the smell of fear that coats another smell I can’t identify right away, with a sweet yet sickening odor. My eyes dart back and forth and I pant uncontrollably.

I’m in a small cell, a cell not even fit for a dog, in all honesty. My other cell mates howl and scream with indignation, screaming for freedom and howling their protests of innocence. No one listens, not even the man that put us here.

My family is gone, abandoning me to this hell hole. I don’t know what I did wrong for them to leave me in this sick and dank place. The only thing I’ve ever been guilty of is loving them unconditionally and thinking that love was mutual. The darkness is overwhelming and the urine and feces around me attach their stink to my body, suffocating me with the stench.

One of my cell mates cringes as a guard walks by with restraints in his hands. The guard pauses, looking at a clip board then at my cell mate. I scurry to the back of the cell, unsure why I’m so afraid but knowing I should be afraid. My cell mate cries out as the guard steps closer to the door and stares down at him. 

This story placed second in a short story competition hosted by Wynterblue Publishing Canada.

FICTION  |  By Audrey Austin » “Well done, Carol!” her art teacher commented. “You are very creative.”

Carol slunk down in her seat. She could feel the evil eyes of her classmates but she didn’t allow the glares to penetrate. She could hear the smirks of the smart ass Brenda and figured she would probably have to deal with her again after school. The last time she felt compelled to do that she ended up with detention every day for a week. Carol stayed slunk down in her seat as she smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Banton,” she answered. 

Carol’s words were soft and polite but the other students, particularly Brenda, heard only the small, sinister sound; one with which they were all too familiar. All the other kids thought of Brenda as Miss Popular especially now that she was in her senior year at Hanover High. And what did the other kids think of Carol?

“She’s strange,” said one.

“Totally weird,” said another.

“Wouldn’t want to meet her alone on the way home.”

“No, do you see her ugly eyes? Always staring into space!”

“Psychotic!”

“Stay away from her.”

By Patricia Anne McGoldrick

By Cheryl Antao-Xavier

Benefits of journaling:

• Get your worries, problems, nagging negativity out of your head and onto paper. Externalize the negativity.
• Your journal can be your friend, your confidante.
• Your journal can be your outlet for emotions that you can’t express with anyone else.
• Your journal doesn’t talk back, it doesn’t judge you: say what you will.
• Experiment with different types of expression, illustrations, poems, stories, clippings of articles you liked, quotations, pin stars and movie ticket stubs, whatever. Get fancy—don’t get fancy. You decide.
• Use your imagination. Write as much or as little as you want. Don’t make it a chore.
• Use your powers of observation. Describe things as they are or how you would like them to be. Again, write as much or as little as you wish. One day you can read back your journaling and find stuff there that you can use in your poetry or novel. Or start a blog…

FICTION  |  By Lisa Duchesnay  »  “She’s not going to win this time! No way no how.“ Angie asserted, while her silent husband Gus swallowed his exasperation with his morning coffee. She meant Diane Swanson, the mayor’s wife who’d won the first prize for the last five years, with her beef stroganoff dish at the Potluck Competition. 

This year first prize was an all expense paid, 10 day escape for two to Costa Rica, plus a mention and a photograph in The Standard, Elliot Lake’s weekly newspaper.

Since there wasn’t much activity during the summer months, the mid-July festivities were appreciated by the local community and its seasonal residents. Marc Swanson had created the The Mid-Summer Festival his first year as mayor, with the financial support of Retirement Living Inc. and the Chamber Of Commerce.  Elliot Lake, a 1950s uranium mining town, remote in the midst of many lakes, trails and wildlife parks in Northern Ontario was well suited for outdoor competitions and games. The evening ended with a street dance, a live band with a cash bar in the old downtown area.

By Mary Schwaner | Originally published on Simone's Blog » Promotion is the part we writers are dragged into kicking and screaming. After all, we want to write, not spend our days promoting. But promoting is mandatory, whether you’re independently or traditionally published, so take a deep breath and make a plan.

It won’t cost you a cent to do some of the things which begin to get some name recognition for you. Sign up at www.kindleboards.com. This is a place where readers and authors mingle and talk about everything Kindle. When you sign on, spend a few minutes on your profile and then make a signature. There are several “discussion threads”  that will step you through how to add your book covers to your signature.

Once you’ve done that, visit some “threads” and start replying/commenting. Each time you do, your signature, proudly displaying your book covers, will fall before the eyes of avid readers.  Make sure that you link the book covers to the Amazon page where they can buy your book.

FICTION  |  By Gerhard Wetzel  »  Tonight my daughter killed my neighbour’s dog. It was an accident I’m told through tears which are forced rather than genuine. Marcia’s ability to dramatize is not beyond using such tricks to garner sympathy or deflect a lecture about her failure to meet curfew. She is a plump girl and when she cries she seems bigger, as though she needs to increase her mass to force out her liquid contrition.

In our dimly lit kitchen she explains to me, and Richard, her brother, how a shadow, a blur really, darted and then thumped beneath the rear tire of my minivan. Because she was nearly home and it was a half hour past her curfew, and afraid, she didn’t stop.

“Maybe it was already dead,” Richard suggests.

Like conspirators, we whisper to avoid waking my wife, Carol, who is asleep upstairs. We are perceptive enough to want to keep Carol out of this discussion. She would badger until the truth was beaten out of one of us.

FICTION  |  By Shirley Green » The voice of the spirit was clear and precise but the words began with a whisper: “Tell them I am here...”

Annie was annoyed.  After all these years here he was calling on her again.  She walked faster, hoping that this particular spirit would just go away and leave her be.  Leave her be as they all had since her husband died ten years ago.

How blessed had been these ten years when she hadn’t had to walk between the worlds of the living and the dead.  Ten years when she had been able to mourn and grieve the loss of her beloved Tom and then acknowledge that it would be years before they would be together again.  In what time frame or world she was not privy to, but of this she was sure: they would be together.  Their love was not finished yet.

“It’s that blasted Deathwalker spirit; the rest I can deal with.  But him!  He just won’t let me forget the commitment I made all those years ago when I took on the mantle of Shaman.  First there had been The Calling.  And I had not been young like most are when they hear the Call; fiftyish I believe.  True, I had been very ill and near deaths door but had been spared.  Spared to accept the call of the Spirits to use talents I had kept hidden when I was a youth.  I was to use them to benefit not just family and community, but any that were in need.”

FICTION   |   By Gloria Jean  » Winter had arrived in its entire splendor. Stately old pines drooped with last night’s snowfall, the canyon countryside now a soft white vista. My ski trail had become rocky and worn; this new cover would smooth it out nicely. 

I had skied this canyon trail for years, mostly alone. Few people I knew enjoyed the solitude the trail offered. They preferred the well-traveled ski trails of cross-country clubs. My tastes ran to peace and quiet of the back country, and the views from ridges I had known since childhood. Throughout my twice-weekly jaunts here, I could count on my right hand the number of people I had met on the trails. 

These were not the groomed trails of ski clubs. I plowed through knee-deep snow myself each winter to create an elaborate network of paths. My choice of path depended on whether I wanted to ski the lake, or up on the high canyon ridges. It boiled down to energy level. The lake was easier by far. 

Today was a Christmas card day, the spectacular scenery unfolding as I tackled the ridge above the tree line. An old trappers’ cabin was barely visible from the ridge. No one had been there for a decade or more, the last owner now in a nursing home where our bluegrass band volunteered.