Poetry by Sasha Mabe

I have another excerpt from the Foxleaf Anthology, available HERE , this one by poet Sasha Mabe.

Here's how she introduces herself:


Sasha Mabe was born in Detroit, Michigan, and became a Cookeville transplant after her hubby retired. She has written thousands of poems over the span of thirty years. She says, “My writing is spontaneous –and I never know when it will hijack me. I am also an artist, pastry chef, seamstress, and I played the drums in a heavy metal band in the 90's. This is my first published book and I am pulling together three more. Stay tuned...”

 

Three of Sasha's poems appear in the anthology. This is one of them.

Earth

Billions upon billions of autumns, leaves

Over the ages laying down their lives,

Giving birth to soil, rich, black, and fertile

The dust of ages calling out to me in a whisper,

 begging, pleading for me to push tiny seeds

Beneath the sun warmed surface to grow

Earth, tending the garden of life

Pregnant with the seeds that would feed and nourish

Those who are hungry, and growing

Aching for my fragile fingers to caress and move it

Remove weeds that had taken up residency,

 Drench it with fresh cool rain water, from the heavens above

The earth will someday swallow me up

When I have finished all my tasks, and given up my life

Earth, the dust from which I came

Calling me home to rest

 

Fond Farewell to American Indian Scholar Michael Green

For years now, one of my favorite things about attending the Southern History, Ethnohistory, and NAISA conferences has been seeing my friend Michael Green. He and his wife Theda Perdue, both eminent American Indian scholars, took me under their wing and proved extremely helpful in my development as a scholar, and continued to be sources of encouragement. Mike, in particular, followed my fiction as well as my academic history, and always had kind words for me. One year, when something unexpected came up and I couldn't make it to the Ethnohistory conference to deliver a scheduled paper about Seminoles and race, he graciously read it in my place. His friendly smile, sharp wit, and incisive commentary were invaluable. His loss is keenly felt by everyone who knew him.

For those who have not seen it, here is Mike Green's obituary, which was brought to my attention by historian Kathryn Braund:.

Michael David Green, Professor Emeritus of American Studies and History at the University of North Carolina, died at Duke University Hospital on August 23, 2013, at the age of 72. He suffered from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and underwent a lung transplant on November 18, 2012. His impending death from complications did not diminis...h his gratitude to the lung donor’s family and to the Duke staff who gave him nine months of life that he did not expect to have.

Green was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Myrtle (Brownie) and Merton Green and grew up in Grundy Center, Mount Vernon, and Oelwein. He graduated from Cornell College in 1963, and earned his Ph. D. in history at the University of Iowa in 1973. He taught at West Texas State University, Monmouth College, the University of Iowa, Dartmouth College, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Kentucky, and the University of North Carolina. He was a superb lecturer and a devoted mentor. He retired from UNC in 2009.

Green was a distinguished scholar of American Indians. At Dartmouth College, he chaired Native American Studies for eight years, and at UNC he founded the American Indian Studies Program. He was author of seven books, including The Politics of Indian Removal (1982) and North American Indians (2010). He held fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Newberry Library’s D’Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, among others.

An avid traveler, Green trod on seven continents and waded in five oceans. He never saw a museum or an industrial ruin that he did not want to visit. But he also enjoyed experiencing the places he traveled--wandering through local markets, sitting in cafes, attending performances, and visiting old friends and new. His enthusiasm for travel often coincided with his interest in transportation, and he always found the journey as exciting as the destination. Trains were his favorite, especially the trains from Puno to Cuzco in Peru, Nairobi to Mombassa in Kenya, and Denver to Salt Lake City in the U.S. After his retirement in 2009, he and his wife embarked on a four-month trip around the world by land and sea that took him on the Queen Mary across the Atlantic, the Trans-Mongolian and Tibetan railways across Europe and Asia, and a container ship, the Hanjin Miami, across the Pacific.

Green’s favorite mode of transportation was the automobile. At the age of three he could name all the cars parked on the town square, and over his lifetime, he amassed a huge collection of toy cars, trucks, and buses—a graduate student once remarked that he had more toys than books in his study. He also liked the real thing, and he is survived by his 1954 Carolina blue Chevrolet, 1960 Cadillac, 1972 Suburban, and 1974 Airstream trailer, which he took to Key West every Christmas for a decade.

Green had a strong sense of social and economic justice,which led him to support the Peace and Freedom Party and the Citizens Party before he settled into the Democratic camp at middle age. His keen sense of humor, however, enabled even Republicans to enjoy his company.

His friends and family will remember him for his powerful intellect, his eclectic interests, the twinkle in his eye, and his appreciation of a good joke and a smooth whiskey.

Green is survived by his wife Theda Perdue and Welsh terrier Calamity Jane of Chapel Hill; first wife Andrea Ohl of Terlingua, Texas; daughter Julia Green of Alpine, Texas; son Daniel Green and his wife Neda Shashani-Green of Newark, Delaware; son Thomas Green and his wife Victoria Mountain of Boston; granddaughters Samin Green of Hampshire, Tennessee, Asudeh Green of New York City, and Penelope and Sofie Green of Boston; sister Diana Rasmussen and her husband Paul of Des Moines, Iowa; brother David Green and his wife Caron of Lanai City, Hawaii; a niece and four nephews; two great nieces and two great nephews.

Memorial gifts may be made to the American Indian Studies Fund 60110, Arts and Sciences Foundation, 134 East Franklin Street, CB 6115,Chapel Hill, NC 27514. The family also requests that friends consider becoming organ donors in his memory.

Koko Nervelli and "The Puzzle"

Today I'm spotlighting another author whose work appears in the new Foxleaf Anthology- Koko Nervelli.

Koko lives in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee, and is becoming well known to lovers of arts and literature there. Her introspective memoirs Suspended and The Lie have been getting a lot of attention, and of late she has been turning her hand to fiction. The story in this anthology, "The Puzzle" -a fantasy tale about a bitter elderly woman who realizes that the jigsaw puzzle she is working on is communicating with her, and offering answers to more than just a cardboard puzzle. Her newest, Beans and Greens, is a anthology of short stories that focus on the foods and traditions of small-town Southern life.

Here is an excerpt from "The Puzzle":

Martha Jane Hatley sat in her dimly lit parlor, waiting to die. She was old, sick and crabby. She wasn't really a bad person. She was just angry that Life didn't turn out the way she planned. Several of her children and grandchildren preceded her in death. Children were not supposed to die first. It wasn't right. Why couldn't she die now and escape all this earthly grief?

She pulled the ratty pink cardigan tighter around her frail shoulders. "This old drafty house is always too cold," she moaned.

She got out of her rocking chair, being careful to steady her wobbly legs, and toddled to the other side of the room where her biggest source of entertainment was spread out on a flimsy card table. Her vision was one of the first things to fail, so she squinted at the small pieces of the large puzzle. She bent over to the point where her nose was almost rubbing the tabletop, but rarely succeeded in finding any matching parts. She peered at the cover of the box in hopes of finding a corresponding shape. The box top displayed an antique picture of her own image. Well, at least it was what she looked like a long, long time ago. The puzzle was a gift from her youngest boy. He sent the old photograph to a company that made specialty gifts, thinking the puzzle would be a nice pastime for his mother.

"Humph! Confounded thing!" she grumped. "Thanks a lot, son! You cut me up into a thousand pieces and leave me here to die!"

It was true. Her remaining children rarely visited. Neighbors and members of the local church tried to offer a helping hand, but Martha Jane usually ran them off. She didn't want their pity. She just wanted to be left alone.

After a few minutes of perusing the card table she yelled, "BINGO! What do you know! I've got an eyeball! Big Whoop!"

Satisfied with her accomplishment, she turned off the light and went to bed.

The rest of the story is in The Foxleaf Anthology, available HERE

Patricia Gentry's "Hidden Things of Darkness"

It's time to highlight another story from the new Foxleaf Anthology. Today's spotlight is on Patricia Gentry. Since retiring, Patricia has worked as a substitute teacher in Jackson County, Tennessee, and pursuing her writing career.

Patricia has published two books about a young woman surviving in the North Carolina forest, Poppy's Child and Poppy's Child: A New Beginning. For the anthology, she decided to try something different from the young adult fiction she had previously done. Her contribution is a traditional mystery story, "The Hidden Things of Darkness."

The story opens with young forest ranger Willy Schaefer finding a dead body... and soon, all the secrets of Willy's small town begin to unravel...

Here is an excerpt!

Gordie had been mayor for over fourteen years. No one else wanted the job, as it paid very little. He was nearly fifty years old, bald, and overweight for his five- foot- ten stature. He had done well in keeping Hixom a clean town, with businesses eager to settle in the area. He had also been responsible in helping Willy obtain the scholarships needed to attain his dream career of becoming a forest ranger. Willy could not understand why Gordie lay there with his hands bound behind his back in plastic ties and the back of his head blown away. Carefully, Willy moved back away from the body, trying not to disturb its surroundings as he made the call to the sheriff on his cell phone. It was almost daybreak, and he knew Sheriff Halfacre was already about.

“Halfacre here,” came the response.

“Sheriff, it’s me, Willy. I’m down by Richman’s Swag. Can you come right away?  I’ve just found Gordie’s body.”

“Gordie’s body? He have a heart attack or something?”

“No, you’d better come and see for yourself.”

Read the rest, and a lot of other things, in the Foxleaf Anthology, edited by yours truly... check it out HERE!

 

Touching story of love and loss by Vicki J. Cypcar

This week I am highlighting individual stories -and authors -from the Foxleaf Anthology.

Vicki J. Cypcar, author of The Return of Rory Decker, offers us a short, but very  powerful, tale called "Home and the Ties That Bind." It's a story about love and loss, and the things that hold our memories to us... here is the opening:

Oh how I hate college, especially when an unwelcome ice storm decides to lacquer the tender buds of spring here in Lexington.  I’m sitting here glaring out the dorm window – ice crystals frozen – on the inside.  Part of me feels like I will never be warm again.

How far from home this feels - this drafty dorm room of chipped paint and creaky floors.  Looking down from my room I see happy parents retrieving their offspring so they can be home in time for Easter – but not me.

Oh how I miss my father…

Read the rest, and the whole anthology, HERE.

Cindie Miller's suspenseful story "The Oasis"

Today I'm highlighting the first story from the new FOXLEAF ANTHOLOGY...

"The Oasis" is a compelling story about a woman who begins to question whether anything she knows about her husband is true. It is a taut, well-written, and powerful tale.

Here are the first two paragraphs:

It would be so easy to lose a body out here, he says. He scans the horizon as he speaks, his golden-hued eyes nervous and cunning. Wolf’s eyes, I always called them. Opaque orbs that reflect the light so you can’t get past the surface. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then he has none, I think. 

We drive on, his eyes surveying the terrain, my eyes never leaving his right hand, which rests on the revolver lying at his side.

CINDIE MILLER is the author of Ask Me No Questions.

"The Oasis" is only one of the many stories, in various genres, you can find in the FOXLEAF ANTHOLOGY:

BUY IT HERE

The Foxleaf Anthology- Something for Everyone!

In late 2012, my friend Charion Stacy Slocum –owner of Foxleaf Bookstore, in Cookeville, Tennessee –asked Vicki Cypcar and me to run a writer’s workshop at her business. The last time I taught a creative writing class, a decade ago, I geared it toward researching the markets and submitting a piece to a magazine. We are living in a new world now, though –so Vicki and I decided to focus instead on discussions about how to break into the new digital publishing frontier.

It has been a very productive six months. The core attendees at our sessions varied greatly in their writing and publishing experience; some had seen their works already released in print, some had already tested the e-book waters, some had hardly turned on a computer. We have all come a long way. In that time, I have met some great people –and some very talented ones, as well –and developed some valuable friendships. And I have learned a lot, both from articulating my own thoughts and experiences and from insights provided by those who were ostensibly my students.

In this volume you will find short works by several of those who participated in our Foxleaf experiment. Most of the pieces are fiction, but there are also nonfiction and poetry contributions. Some of our authors have books available online –you will find them listed at the end of the book –and the others will have books soon.

You’re bound to find something in here you like (probably several somethings)… and you may just find some authors who will become your favorites. Check it out!

In future blogs I will highlight the various authors and tell you a little about their story in the anthology and their other works. These are some talented people.

GET THE BOOK HERE: