Sam Silvas reads from his short story collection, STANTON, CALIFORNIA (March 2017)

Author Sam Silvas will read from his short story collection Stanton, California (Silver Birch Press, 2016) in a series of California appearances — date, times, and locations below.

Thursday, March 2, 7 p.m. — Orinda Books, 276 Village Square, Orinda, CA, 94563

Friday, March 3, 6:30 p.m. — Face in a Book, 4359 Town Center Blvd, Suite. 113, El Dorado Hills, CA, 95762

Saturday, March 4, 7:30 p.m. — The Avid Reader, 617 2nd St., Davis, CA, 95616

PRAISE FOR STANTON, CALIFORNIA: 
“Stanton, California is the best collection of short stories I’ve read in a very long time. Sam Silvas writes with enormous skill, deep empathy, and a ferocious commitment to the truth.” LOU BERNEY, Edgar Award winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.

“Stanton, California, Sam Silvas’ short story collection about working-class families in the Sacramento area, evokes the feel of Hemingway’s short stories in that they are poetic and vital in their representation of hope and brutality.”
JERVEY TERVALON, best-selling author of Dead Above Ground andMonster’s Chef.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
In this inspired debut 174-page collection, Sam Silvas examines the claustrophobia that comes from growing up in a small town and the enigmatic search for happiness inside and outside of it. Whether a man settles for life in Stanton or attempts to escape it, the choice is fraught with unforeseen consequences as the outside world butts up against the ways of his hometown.

In “Buck Stew,” a raffle prize of a Glock handgun suddenly offers heartbroken, long-time Stanton resident Jack Dixon new means to solve old problems. In “The Pottery,” the town’s clay pipe and tile plant physically towers over the town and looms large emotionally for the main character Danny Padilla, who has come to believe his significance can be measured in inches, be it a bullet from his beloved Weatherby .270 or the placement of a tile. In “Eat the Worm,” Todd Randle has been gone from Stanton for ten years when he returns home with his outsider bride. Within days of moving back, Todd finds his past glories may very well threaten his future happiness. He sets out to find answers in a sad and bizarrely touching encounter with his father over a Monday Night Football game. The signature piece of the collection is the novella, The Unluckiest Man in the World. Set near Stanton on the Sacramento Delta, it is inhabited by a family of glaziers, as fragile as the glass they install. The unnamed narrator has aspirations to move beyond the history that every male in his family appears destined to repeat. When he meets and falls in love with Katie McPherson, a fellow denizen of the Delta, all his bad luck seems to be behind him, but the past is as dangerous and powerful as the current of the river that he lives on, threatening to pull him under.

The town of Stanton is a character in all these stories, one that proves to be both a sanctuary and a prison to its inhabitants. This distinctive collection rightfully takes its place among great regional fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sam Silvas received his MFA from St. Mary’s College, and lives in Claremont, California, with his family. In life and in writing, he strives to be deceptively honest. This is his first book.

My Busy 17th Year, poem by Marion Deutsche Cohen (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

My Busy 17th Year
by Marion Deutsche Cohen

(1)

I didn’t want to kiss Conrad.
I didn’t like those cold slippery lips.
I didn’t know I wasn’t in love.
He should not have been my first kiss.
Once he took me to a concert and then while he was kissing me goodnight I
began humming that Beethoven.
“Hey, you’re singing again,” he said.
Like, you’re crying again.
The trees were swaying and the porch steps were still.
The moon was somewhere in between.

(2)

He was shorter than me and I didn’t want that to be the reason. I wanted him to be not so nice or not so considerate or believe in capital punishment.

I didn’t want to not want to talk about him to the girls at school and they’d ask What does he look like?

I didn’t want to be worried when he asked me out dancing.

My mother said this was a mature affair, based on common interests. I didn’t want it to be a mature affair based on common interests. I wanted it to be an immature affair based on no common interests, no music, no art, no deep thoughts, just soft, soft feeling, nothing but relief from the past two years.

I didn’t want his love letter to me to cross in the mail with my un-love letter to him.

“I have been saving certain words to say to the one and only woman in my life. They
are new, untarnished, and thus far unused. I hope to be able to say them to you.”

I still wonder what those certain words would have been.

(3)

I wasn’t as concerned as I wanted to be about Caryl Chessman‘s scheduled execution at 3:00 PM. And I wasn’t as unconcerned as I wanted to be about whether Jeff Cohen would phone and ask me on another date.

Would Chessman be pardoned again at the last minute? Would he be allowed to go back to his cell and write more books and prove his innocence? I tried so hard to spend the whole day asking Chessman-type rather than Jeff-type questions.

When you’re waiting for something bad, like a medical procedure, you don’t know whether to urge time forward. If you do, that bad thing is essentially already happening. If you doh’t, that bad thing won’t ever be over. But waiting to be executed is different. You hold on tight to every second because you know you won’t be feeling relieved when it’s over. Or maybe you’d rather start not feeling right away. I tried to spend the day thinking thoughts like that.

Oh yes I tried. I try did try. But it was no use. I was doomed from the start. Every person is herself. Her very own self. every person is in that self. And she can’t get out.

IMAGE: “Young Woman on the Shore” by Edvard Munch (1896).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Some of this poem comes from my diary, which I’ve been keeping since age 11, while other parts are purely from the way I remember it. I was a writer then but I think I’m more of a writer now. For the record, Jeff Cohen did in fact phone, and in fact he became my first husband.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marion Deutsche Cohen’s latest poetry collections are Closer to Dying (WordTech Editions) and What I’m Wearing Today (dancing girl press – about thrift-shopping!). Her books total 27, including two memoirs about spousal chronic illness and including Crossing the Equal Sign (Plain View Press – about the experience of mathematics). She teaches math and writing at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where she has developed the course Mathematics in Literature. A poetry chapbook about the interaction among students and teacher in that course is currently in press (WordTech Editions). Her website is marioncohen.net.

Troutdale, 1990, poem by Shane Moritz (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Troutdale, 1990
by Shane Moritz

I’d cook up breakfast before practice.
Always woke up dog-tired.
Sleepwalking was becoming a problem.
I hated basketball practice and did most of my running to the toilet.
Bit of a leaky gut to boot.

My roommates had waterbeds.
I napped roughly three hours a day on a twin bed.
The upstairs neighbor loved White Zombie.
He had a deformed hand and a glamorous girlfriend.
The relation of these facts plagued me.

He had a homely roommate named Cinema.
She had a ghostly pallor, and seemed suited for hallways.
Her voice was like a bird bursting from a shrub.
“Get out,” she said one night
after I had tiptoed into her great room and got into bed with her.

I played basketball for one year.
My knees had gone derelict.
I moved back to Hillsboro crestfallen.
One day my dad slinked into my room
choked up and I can’t remember why.

PHOTO: The author at 17.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: “Troutdale, 1990” documents my freshman year at Mt Hood Community College in Troutdale, Oregon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shane Moritz is an Australian/American made of good, honest maple. He has an MFA from Georgia College & State University. Visit his blog at Total Moritz of the Heart. He is presently a Baltimoritzean. Troutdale, 1990 documents his freshman year at Mt Hood Community College in Troutdale, Oregon.

Ekphrasis, poem by Katelyn Roth (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Ekphrasis
by Katelyn Roth

Maybe you wrote a poem, but I couldn’t
work a pen on that bench we shared, our sides just
breathing against each other, tips of sleeves meeting
and quivering back into place unwillingly.
This was a hard bench, and you were solid next to me,
all rigid angles encasing a whirr and a buzz.

Maybe you wrote a poem; I wanted to see something
in the painting on the wall, but the strong blue square
was you, down to the sloping edges, and the bright green
streak across the middle of the piece was all nerves
and laughter and there was a pink sheen to the thing
so it glowed and hummed right off the wall.

Maybe you wrote a poem, but this was a poem,
and you are the poem and who could write
a poem with that glowing pink sheen
in her head?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Katelyn Roth graduated from Pittsburg State University with degrees in Creative Writing and Psychology. She has been previously published in the campus literary magazine Cow Creek Review. Currently, she resides in Pittsburg, Kansas, with her husband and dog, working at an insurance office while on hiatus from her Masters in Creative Writing.

Seventeen, poem by Sunil Sharma (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Seventeen
by Sunil Sharma

voice breaking
facial hair
a thin line blackening the upper lip
few pimples on that pale face
eyes gazing into future  — like some gypsy fortuneteller
in an exotic tent in some European location!

casting off that angelic smile and kid-innocence
entering slowly — a forbidden realm
naughty adults teaching secrets of a wide wicked world
full of doubts, yet overconfident of winning the universe!
getting rejected/finding balance
going out/acting tough

floating in a dream world
yet —
cramming for chemistry, physics, biology
aiming to become wealthy and super successful
in a highly competitive world.

IMAGE: “Self-portrait as a young man” by George Frederick Watts (1834).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Moving to the second decade of a short life is like a roller coaster ride. Years getting blurred. Flying away on a fast wind. Bewildering changes –biological, emotional, psychological. World — an open university. Rough and tumble of life ordinary, yet certain dreams and energies! Well, 17 is a magical year — transition stage into early adulthood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mumbai-based, Sunil Sharma writes prose and poetry, apart from doing literary journalism and freelancing. A senior academic, he has been published in some of the leading international journals and anthologies. Sunil has got three collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction, one novel and co-edited five books of poetry, short fiction and literary criticism.Recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012.  Another notable achievement is his select poems were published in the prestigious UN project  Happiness: The Delight-Tree-2015. He edits English section of the monthly Setu, a bilingual journal from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In the World at 17, story by Rowan Johnson (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

In the World at 17
by Rowan Johnson

At seventeen, he stayed at the Polana Hotel in Mozambique, with swinging palms and the biggest and bluest swimming pool he had ever seen; and then the desperation of the streets outside—rusty old vehicles covered with all kinds of garbage, strewn all over and stinking. Old and weathered women who could barely walk, carrying barrels of water for twenty kilometers every day, just so their children could have a drink.

The next day it was Austria, simply trying to find a toilet. The helplessness of not knowing German; the exhilaration of being a foreigner, a stranger asking directions—a child, knowing nobody, with an intense fear of peering over the edge of that mountain outside. The simple peasant girl who led him back to her room in the dead of the Austrian night, after more than a few too many Jagermeisters; a potent combination for a young boy. Her hair was fantastically black, longer than his arms.

And so he had his memories: the discovery of new, untouched lands, new faces and places, the feeling of real snow, the taste of Alpine water from fresh streams. This was his world—this was the life that he had always known.

PHOTO: Polana Serena Hotel, Mozambique.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rowan Johnson holds a doctorate from the University of Tennessee as well as an MA from the University of Nottingham, England. His work has been published in Two Thirds North, 4ink7, Passing Through Journal, Wordriver Literary Review, GFT Press, and the Writers’ Abroad Foreign Encounters Anthology. He has also written numerous travel articles for SEOUL Magazine.

Mis-Taken, story by Shoshauna Shy (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Mis-Taken
by Shoshauna Shy

It wasn’t like sleeping with the friend of a friend’s friend (which translated means sleeping with a stranger), because we knew each other, occupied the same circles, half-flirted now and then. But not enough spark on either of our parts to get a flame going, let alone a blaze. Then we found ourselves in sleeping bags away from the others, and in our chill half-sleep, moved closer together. We went skin-on-skin, and soon hit our heads against that cellar ceiling called No Chemistry, No Appetite, No Combustible Lust. I wouldn’t say I was offering myself, but more that I was borrowing from his better future. Borrowing him from the throes of some sweet lady. One day, she would want him very much.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Me, at 17.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This piece of flash fiction is 122 words. I was 17 during the Sexual Revolution of the late 60s-early 70s when you did not wear a boy’s ID bracelet while going steady, or even go on dates.

ABOUT THE THE AUTHOR: Shoshauna Shy is the author of four collections, the most recent having won an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association. Her poetry has recently been published by RHINO, Main Street Rag, Carbon Culture Review, and First Class Lit. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she was a finalist for the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid poetry prize sponsored by Winning Writers in 2015. Her flash fiction has been published by 100 Word Story, Fiction Southeast, Literary Orphans, A Quiet Courage, Sou’wester, Thrice Fiction, Crack the Spine, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Every Writer, Red Cedar, and Prairie Wolf Press Review. Read more at PoetryJumpsOfftheShelf.com.

The Dressing Room at Neiman Marcus, poem by Tiffany Buck (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

The Dressing Room at Neiman Marcus
by Tiffany Buck

I am a size 2 and I look good in clothes.
The dressing rooms at Neiman Marcus; on the tiered stage in front of the three-way mirror I declare my plans.
I will live in London after college and be an artist of some sort.
The man I marry will be noble, he may be the lowest form of nobility, but by God he will be noble.
After two years in London, and every other weekend in Paris, I will become fluent in French.
Children? Depends on what kind of nanny I can get.

The world is full of promise and possibility at 17.
My wish today is to go back to that Neiman Marcus dressing room, try on a $5000.00 dress and believe that the world is my oyster.
What a beauty 17 is.

PHOTO: Resident Magazine (December 2016). — Katrina in Elie Youssef blush dress and Oscar de la Renta earrings @ Neiman Marcus (Room by Sasha Bikoff).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Creatively, I go with what grabs my attention first. It has to be organic. If I manically search for inspiration, I will usually not find it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tiffany Buck is married with a spirited daughter who will be 17 in just 14 short years. She is a former librarian and lives in the foothills of Appalachia. Currently she is a stay-at-home mom who enjoys writing and making cosmetics. She hopes you will enjoy her reminiscence of her seventeenth year. Tiffany is active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Myself and my daughter Carter Frances on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia (May 2014).

Souldier, poem by Ryan Stone (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Souldier
by Ryan Stone

The Harley was midnight polished chrome,
three years of saving — a gift to myself
in the spring of seventeen.

I donned leathers as my birthday broke,
left the house that was not home
and rode out into morning. Rode

until I landed, beneath the steely gaze
of a drill sergeant who forged men
from boys of seventeen.

He shaved away my dreadlocks,
found a fractured soul beneath,
broke it down
then built it up,
stronger,
more complete.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: This photo was taken on my first training exercise in the Northern Territory during my initial posting to the 1st Armoured Regiment.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I bought my first motorcycle from money I’d earned over a few years of paper-rounds and other after-school employment and devotedly saved for that singular purpose. Shortly after I turned 17  I joined the Australian Army and took off around Australia. I learned many valuable lessons about myself that year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ryan Stone is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. He has worn many different hats — barman, soldier, cop, firefighter —  but poet is the one he enjoys most of all. His poetry has been widely published online and in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. Most days you can find him running through his forest surrounds with a loyal German Shepherd at his side.

Of Death and Flies and Summer, poem d.r. sanchez (ME, AT 17 Poetry and Prose Series)

Of Death and Flies and Summer
by d.r. sanchez

The buzzing is back
Fruit flies invade the kitchen
Honey on a little plate
Wine vinegar in a small cup
My desire to kill is strong

Damned little flies make my head spin
Make me gag

Like the summer of flies
The summer the fire-red sunset
Laced its way through the curtain of flies on my bedroom window

The summer I cried myself to sleep most nights
The summer before senior year of high school
The summer my Irish Setter exploded internally after a botched procedure
The summer of divorce
The summer of death

Of my dog
Of the two hundred and seventy-seven flies I smashed on my window
Of my parent’s marriage
Of childhood

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: With Grandma and Mom, at Grandma’s (1978).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Sometimes a thought or memory refuses to let me sleep until I coerce it to page. Other times I must delve deep to find it. All too often the fleeting flickers of the ones I most cherish vanish. This particular piece haunted me off and on for decades. It began as an essay to purge a lingering ache. A friend from my writing group insisted that it was something more. After some sleepless nights I was able to face the flies again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Debra Sanchez has moved over 30 times and has lived in five states in two countries…so far. She leads and attends various writing groups in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area and also hosts writing retreats. Her writing has won awards at writers conferences in various genres, including children’s stories, poetry, fantasy, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Several of her plays and monologues have been produced and published. Other works have been published in literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Visit her blog, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.