May 31, 2020 Deadline: WEARING A MASK Poetry & Prose Series

For the time being, many of us are required to wear a mask in public — or we choose to wear one for safety. Over the years, most of us have worn a variety of masks, in the literal or figurative sense. Let’s write about our experiences in the WEARING A MASK Poetry & Prose Series.

PROMPT: Tell us about wearing a mask (in the literal or figurative sense) in a poem (any reasonable length) or prose piece (300 words or fewer — this word limit also applies to prose poems).

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems or prose. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media. We are a nonprofit blog and offer no monetary compensation to contributors. If your piece was previously published, please tell us where/when so we can credit the original publisher.

WHEN: We’ve already received a range of contributions, and on Thursday, May 21, 2020, will begin to feature the poems and prose in the Silver Birch Press WEARING A MASK Poetry and Prose Series on our blog.

HOW TO SUBMIT: Email one poem or prose piece to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com as an MSWord attachment — and in the same file include your name, email address, one-paragraph author’s bio (written in third person), and any notes about your creative process or thoughts about your piece. Please put all this information in one MSWord document and title the file with your last name. Write “MASK” in the subject line of the email. Please send a photo of yourself in a mask of any variety — or a photo of a mask you’ve worn. Send the photos as separate jpg attachments.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send ONE MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, email address).

3. In the same MS Word document, include a one-paragraph author’s bio, written in the third person. You are encouraged to include links to your books, websites, and social media accounts — we want to help promote you!

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem/prose or creative process written in the first person (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. If available, send a photo of yourself in a mask, or a photo of a mask you’ve worn, as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). If possible, also send an additional author’s photo (without a mask). Title the photos with your last name (e.g., Jones1.jpg, Jones2.jpg).

7. Email to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com — and put  “MASK” in the subject line.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 31, 2020

Photo by Dan Formsma on Unsplash.

Our Red Front Door by Linda McKenney (MY FRONT DOOR Series)

Our Red Front Door
by Linda McKenney

My mother’s choice, our red front door was unique on our block. This solid, wood sentinel served as our blockade for any strangers wishing to gain entry into our home. We’d surreptitiously raise one of the Venetian blind slats to see who was ringing the doorbell. If it was an unwanted caller, we’d pretend we weren’t home.

These types of visitors were an anomaly in our quiet town, where everyone was a trusted neighbor, watching out for one another. We felt safe. Until . . .

It was late afternoon, when my mother would be home preparing dinner. But, not feeling well, my father had taken her to the doctor.

The intruders kicked in our crimson bulwark and lay siege to our home. Upstairs, they found my father’s antique handguns. Shots were fired into one of the pillows in my parents’ bed. In each of the bedrooms, a fire trap was set. A book of matches on the bed, one bent up and lit. It burned down to ignite its fellow matches and all of the bedding. Flames then hungrily consumed the rest of the room. We knew this, because for some reason, this technique failed in one of the bedrooms.

The first thing my brother noticed, when he returned from delivering newspapers, was the large boot print on the destroyed front door. Heading to the back door, the upstairs window exploded with glass shrapnel, barely missing him. He saw flames shooting out and licking the roof. He ran inside, calling our mother’s name. When he verified she wasn’t there, he grabbed the small amount of cash downstairs and his sister’s parakeet.

We lost personal, irreplaceable possessions. But even more, we lost trust, that feeling of safety and my mother’s red front door.

Photo found on Pinterest.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This fire happened in 1973. The photo of the house is our house today. It has new owners. You can see how close it is to the one next door. That is the alley my brother started down when the window exploded. The red door photo is not our original door.  We don’t have one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda McKenney is a storyteller, writer and actor, bringing historical women to life. Her most recent work is published in Silver Birch Press, 101 Word Short Stories, The Survivor’s Review, The Rush, and Helen: A Literary Magazine. She has an alter ego at  Susanbanthony.live.

Call for Submissions: WEARING A MASK Poetry & Prose Series

For the time being, many of us are required to wear a mask in public — or we choose to wear one for safety. Over the years, most of us have worn a variety of masks, in the literal or figurative sense. Let’s write about our experiences in the WEARING A MASK Poetry & Prose Series.

PROMPT: Tell us about wearing a mask (in the literal or figurative sense) in a poem (any reasonable length) or prose piece (300 words or fewer — this word limit also applies to prose poems).

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems or prose. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media. We are a nonprofit blog and offer no monetary compensation to contributors. If your piece was previously published, please tell us where/when so we can credit the original publisher.

WHEN: We’ll feature the poems and prose in the Silver Birch Press WEARING A MASK Poetry and Prose Series on our blog starting in May 2020. We’ll also feature the work on Twitter and Facebook.

HOW TO SUBMIT: Email one poem or prose piece to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com as an MSWord attachment — and in the same file include your name, email address, one-paragraph author’s bio (written in third person), and any notes about your creative process or thoughts about your piece. Please put all this information in one MSWord document and title the file with your last name. Write “MASK” in the subject line of the email. Please send a photo of yourself in a mask of any variety — or a photo of a mask you’ve worn. Send the photos as separate jpg attachments.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send ONE MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, email address).

3. In the same MS Word document, include a one-paragraph author’s bio, written in the third person. You are encouraged to include links to your books, websites, and social media accounts — we want to help promote you!

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem/prose or creative process written in the first person (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. If available, send a photo of yourself in a mask, or a photo of a mask you’ve worn, as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). If possible, also send an additional author’s photo (without a mask). Title the photos with your last name (e.g., Jones1.jpg, Jones2.jpg).

7. Email to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com — and put  “MASK” in the subject line.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 31, 2020

Photo by Dan Formsma on Unsplash.

Scuffed but Shining by A.S. Coomer (MY FRONT DOOR Poetry & Prose Series)

Scuffed but Shining
by A.S. Coomer

     The front door’s red with an old-fashioned twist doorbell that chimes like a music box. Twist it and watch every head inside turn towards the sound. It’s the first thing people visiting comment on when they arrive.
     We’ve talked about painting it, red’s never been one of our favorite colors, but haven’t found the time or the right replacement color. Plus, the red matches the brick and the rocks in the flowerbed. Red can mean any number of things: love, anger, jealousy, lust. This coat, fading and getting fainter, a pale puckered cherry sitting in the sopping remains of a sundae, is easy on the eyes and has come to stand for something akin to relief. Seeing the door, weary from the world outside, brings a comfort. It’s means the end of a journey, or the beginning of another.
     It’s a barrier, sure, but it also calls to be used.
     “Come in,” it says in its silent way.
     Or, “Go on out.”
     The golden doorknob glints in the spring sunshine, worn with use, scuffed but shining. The stained glass, which takes up the top-half of the door, tints the light passing through into blue and green and more red, casting the colors down onto the white tiled floor. I let my bare feet pass through the refracted light and strain to feel the difference in shade. Sometimes, I believe I can.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.S. Coomer is a writer and musician. Books include Memorabilia, The Fetishists, Shining the Light, The Devil’s Gospel, The Flock Unseen, and others. Find him at www.ascoomer.com and @ascoomer. 

(Author portrait by Adrian Lime.)

 

In Bruges, story by Michelle Walshe (LOST AND FOUND Poetry and Prose Series)

In Bruges
by Michelle Walshe

An early morning in January, Charleroi train station, Belgium, in a brain fog induced by budget airline scheduling, bleary eyed, headachy, vaguely nauseous and freezing cold I paid for a train ticket and shoved my wallet back into the top of my handbag. I remember him bumping into me as I boarded the train. Then I noticed the open zip on the bag. My heart sank. I wasn’t carrying much cash. I know better. Despite my lapse of concentration, I am an experienced traveler. It was the wallet. It was red leather, from Paris. I had photos of my deceased father in it, of my nieces and nephews, my credit cards, loyalty cards, membership cards, all the cards it takes to live a modern life! It was soft, elegant and well…French! And it was gone.

I walked up and down the train hoping he had discarded it. I reported it, in halting French, to the conductor. And then I sat in disbelief as the Belgian countryside rolled by. My first stop in beautiful Bruges, the Venice of the North, was not the Clock Tower or the canals or the Chocolate Factory, but the police station. Paperwork, telephone calls, signatures. No sign of the wallet.

My mother, who has an instinct that fortune tellers would die for, reckoned the wallet would turn up. I scoffed the idea, it was gone. But, she was right. About a week after returning home I received an email from Frederique in Belgium who had found my wallet on the train, looked through it, found my business card and emailed me to get my postal address. One week later, my red wallet, photos, cards, everything – except the cash – arrived in the post! I sent her Irish chocolates, whiskey, and a big card to say thank you.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: The wallet featured in the story. I bought it in Paris in 2010.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michelle Walshe is a teacher in Dublin, on career break, traveling, reading, writing, playing tennis and eating! Basically, doing what she does on the weekends, only full time, for the moment! Find a recent article at irishtimes.com.

AUTHOR PROFILE: Tricia Knoll, writer featured in the NANCY DREW ANTHOLOGY

The 97 contributors to the Nancy Drew Anthology (Silver Birch Press, October 2016) are sending photos featuring the book in their home environments for a series we’re calling “Nancy Drew Around the World.” Author Tricia Knoll provided this photo taken at the poetry box outside her house in rainy Portland, Oregon, with the remnants of holiday decorations. Tricia contributed the poem “The Secret at Shadow Ranch,” featured below, to the collection.

The Secret at Shadow Ranch
     —the fifth Nancy Drew volume

Oh give me a home

where shadows share
mirror limbs and leanings

whisper, weighing
nothing, casting backwards.

In slipshod light, gallop me
somewhere new.

When shadows evaporate
at corners, play hide and seek.

When they beg to race,
saddle up. Stow your secret

watch, find the red-rock cave,
listen to the old woman’s wisdom.

Stretch me longer
than before.

Find the Nancy Drew Anthology at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet whose work appears in many journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Urban Wild focuses on human interactions with wildlife in urban habitat. Ocean’s Laughter (2016) combines lyric and eco-poetry to look at change over time in a small Oregon North Coast town. Her website is triciaknoll.com.

Thank you to the 51 authors who participated in our MY IMAGINARY SKILL Poetry and Prose Series

We extend our appreciation to the 51 writers — from 17 states and 15 countries — who participated in our  MY IMAGINARY SKILL Poetry & Prose Series, which ran from June  5 – June 25, 2016. Many thanks to the following authors for a wonderful series! We started with a poem about imaginary juggling by Steve Klepetar and ended with a poem about juggling by Sunil Sharma. How’s that for symmetry!

Jan Alexander (New York)
Tobi Alfier (California)
Elizabeth Alford (California)
Magdalena Ball (Australia)
Shelly Blankman (Maryland)
Mark Blickley (New York)
Rose Mary Boehm (Peru)
Jane Burn (England)
Jacalyn Carley (Germany)
Sylvia Cavanaugh (Wisconsin)
Tricia Marcella Cimera (Illinois)
Lew Colgan (Colorado)
Mike Dailey (North Carolina)
Steven Deutsch (Pennsylvania)
Emma Filtness (England)
Vijaya Gowrisankar (India)
torrin a. greathouse (California)
Mavis Gulliver (Scotland)
Geosi Gyasi (Ghana)
G. Louis Heath (Iowa)
Ryn Holmes (Florida)
Derek Kannemeyer (Virginia)
S.I. Kerns (Japan)
Sofia Kioroglou (Greece)
Steve Klepetar (Minnesota)
Jennifer Lagier (California)
Joan Leotta (North Carolina)
Ellaraine Lockie (California)
Maggie Mackay (Scotland)
Betsy Mars (California)
Erica Gerald Mason (Georgia)
Mary McCarthy (Pennsylvania)
Catfish McDaris (Wisconsin)
Linda McKenney (New York)
Scott-Patrick Mitchell (Australia)
Alice Morris (Delaware)
Leara Morris-Clark (Massachusetts)
Robbi Nester (California)
Lee Parpart (Canada)
James Penha (Indonesia)
Patrick T. Reardon (Illinois)
Jeannie E. Roberts (Wisconsin)
Sunil Sharma (India)
Sheikha A. (Pakistan)
Leslie Sittner (New York)
Neha Srivastava (India)
Maureen Sudlow (New Zealand)
Virginia Chase Sutton (Arizona)
Dorothy Swoope (Australia)
Vincent Van Ross (India)
Lynn White (Wales)

 

Call for submissions: WHEN I MOVED Poetry & Prose Series

OVERVIEW: Moving from one location to another can bring about a range of emotions and experiences — and we want to hear all about it in the Silver Birch Press WHEN I MOVED Poetry and Prose Series.

PROMPT: Tell us about a memorable move in a poem (any reasonable length) or prose piece (300 words or fewer — this word limit also applies to prose poems).

WHAT: Submissions can be original or previously published poems or prose. You retain all rights to your work and give Silver Birch Press permission to publish the piece on social media and in a potential print edition.

WHEN: We’ll feature the poems and prose in the Silver Birch Press WHEN I MOVED Poetry and Prose Series on our blog starting in August 2016 . We’ll also feature the work on Twitter and Facebook.

HOW TO SUBMIT: Email one poem or prose piece to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com as an MSWord attachment — and in the same file include your name, contact info (including email address), one-paragraph author’s bio (written in third person), and any notes about your creative process or thoughts about your piece. Please put all this information in one MSWord document and title the file with your last name (and only your last name). Write “Move” in subject line of email. If available, please send a photo of yourself at any age — and provide a caption for the photo (when, where). (Photos taken during a move-in or move-out would be ideal!)

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

To help everyone understand our submission requirements, we’ve prepared the following checklist.

1. Send ONE MS Word document TITLED WITH YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Smith.doc or Jones.docx).

2. In the same MS Word document, include your contact information (name, mailing address, email address).

3. In the same MS Word document, include an author’s bio, written in the third person.

4. In the same MS Word document, include a note about your poem/prose or creative process (this is optional — but encouraged).

5. In the same MS Word document, include a caption for your photo (including where, when and/or date taken).

6. If available, send a photo of yourself at any age — as a SEPARATE jpg attachment (not in the MS Word document). Title the photo with your last name (e.g., Jones.jpg). Also send a current photo to accompany your bio.

7. Email to SBPSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com — and put MOVE in the subject line.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, August 15, 2016.

IMAGE: Ad for U-Haul‘s 70th anniversary in 2015 (with our series title added).

I Survived…story by Kate Hodges (STARTING TO RIDE Poetry and Prose Series)

I Survived…(A head on collision with a stop sign)
by Kate Hodges

There was a lot of blood. I had just mastered riding without training wheels. My sister and her friend were riding their bikes. I tagged along. She was thrilled to be saddled with me, so she adjusted the speed on her 10-speed and took off. She ended up about a block-length ahead of me.

My bike was purple and turquoise and had teddy bears. It wasn’t a hand-me-down! Around the block from our house, there was a bar on the corner with a stop sign right in front. The curb had a deep slope downward. If you built up enough speed and turned your bike at just the right angle, you would fly off the pavement for a few seconds. We spent hours doing that. If you missed…well you didn’t miss.

I pedaled, furiously pumping my legs. My sister was already so far ahead, and I didn’t know which way she would turn next. My bike couldn’t go any faster. The wheel wobbled as I took the curb. Crash-Smash. A head-on collision with a Stop Sign. My mouth was bleeding. I was missing a tooth. My sister heard me crying and slowed down. When she turned to look at me, her mouth formed an “O.” A man came out of the bar and searched the ground for my tooth. He was a stranger, though. I was sure I’d be in trouble.

I don’t remember how my bike made it back to the house. I do remember the dentist giving me extra stickers from the prize box. All of my meals were made in a blender for a week. I still remember the look of veal scaloppini liquefied. What I remember most: my dad fixed my bike, and I knew then that he could fix anything.

IMAGE: “Bike stop sign” by Image Vector, used by permission.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kate Hodges is a teacher turned writer. She has traded the Middle School Science Lab for the Uni Library while studying in Scotland. Growing up, she dreamed of being Ramona Quimby, Dawn Schafer, and Sarah, Plain and Tall. She still believes that you can tell a lot about someone based on the a person’s favourite Wakefield Twin. She has fallen in deep like with Heathcliff, Laurie, and Moriarty. She has fallen in deep love with Gilbert Blythe. You can find her on twitter @kateyfacewrites.

Learning to Ride, story by Tobi Alfier (STARTING TO RIDE Poetry and Prose Series)

Learning to Ride
by Tobi Alfier

I don’t remember my first “big girl bike” but I’m sure it was pink, and I’m sure it had streamers coming out of the handlebars. Training wheels? Piece of cake, but once they were off I needed some serious help.

We lived in Dallas. At the end of our very long block lived my best friend Betsy. Next door, on the other side of the wash, lived our dentist Barney. This was useful to know in case I fell off my bike on the swoop down and up of the wash, causing me to fall and break more teeth (I had already chipped one front tooth bouncing on the steering wheel of my mom’s car. Even though Barney used cinnamon-flavored x-rays I did not want to break anything more).

My mom and Betsy’s mom would coordinate. They would push us off toward the other, cigarettes dangling from their lips as they yelled encouragement. Once I made it past the wash I headed straight for Betsy’s mom, and Betsy headed straight for mine. We never crashed on the way past each other. We never took our hands off the handlebars to high five.

Our moms would catch each of us between their chino-clad knees, sometimes unselfconsciously with their hair curled around orange-juice cans and wrapped in toilet paper to look pretty when our dads got home. They would turn us around and push us back home, over and over. That is how my best friend Betsy and I learned to ride our bikes.

IMAGE: “Bike pattern” by Natality, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My mom is going to be eighty this year. This was a long time ago. I remember it like it was yesterday — this was my first taste of freedom.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. Her most current chapbooks are The Coincidence of Castles from Glass Lyre Press, and Romance and Rust from Blue Horse Press. Down Anstruther Way is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. She is the co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).