“Featuring the work of Karen Fayeth” — a girl could get used to that!
Take a look at issue 32 of Lowestoft Chronicle, where my story Holy Water” has found a home.
Here is a direct link: Holy Water
You can also find a link on the right side of this page.
With much gratitude to editor Nicholas Litchfield and everyone at Lowestoft Chronicle.
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while as I wasn’t sure when I could go public with the news but…..
I am happy to announce my story “Human Sounds” was recently published in Existere, Journal of Arts and Literature, which is affiliated with York University in Toronto, Canada.
That’s right! I’m taking this thing, whatever this thing is that I am doing, over the borders and out to the world!
Since the magazine is published on good old fashioned paper and sold in stores, I don’t have an online link to provide, so I’ve scanned my story so you can read it here.
Here is a direct link: Human Sounds
There is also a link in the right column of this page.
If you like what you read, I encourage you to check out the rest of the issue. There is some amazing writing to be found in Existere.
Thanks for giving me a read and stay tuned, I have another story that is tentatively scheduled to be published in December.
Yay!
Volume 36, Issue 2
Hey, hey, excited to announce that my mildly creepy little story called “Bugging Out” was published this week in a wonderful literary journal called The Penmen Review.
Affiliated with Southern New Hampshire University, Penmen is a home for some incredible creative writing. Take a look at my story and then stick around and read the other stories too. It’s top notch!
Here’s the direct link: Bugging Out
There is also a link in the right column of this page.
And stay tuned, I have another story due to be published soon. 2017 has been a nice year for my work, and I’m very humble and super excited.
Image that accompanies my story in The Penmen Review
Blame it on Facebook and its algorithms that like to remind me of things from the past. For the better and for the worse.
I re-read this one over the weekend and thought “yeah, that one needs a re-post.”
So here we are, when Monday, January 30, 2017 feels a lot like Monday, January 28, 2013
A Treatise On Monday
Originally published January 28, 2013
Written this morning at something like 5:45am
And so we find ourselves back at Monday. Ah Monday, both the beginning and the end.
I have sad, tired, squinting, groundhog eyes as the alarm goes off. I’m begging the world not to pull me from my burrow. Please don’t shine that bright light in my face.
But I’m pulled from my burrow anyway and instead of a prediction, the world anticipates my arrival at the train station and my seat on the next ride into the city.
The bright light turns out to be a beautiful ray of light, glimmering off the slowly rising sun.
All possibility is in Monday. Will this be a good week? Will this be a bad week? Will it rain?
Monday is everything and nothing. A blank canvas ready to take the paint.
What will I make of my Monday? What will I achieve? How will I stumble and will I recover gracefully?
It all exists here in these quiet pre-dawn hours. The sun hasn’t even said hello yet and here I am, writing. Scribbling the words that want to exit my head.
There is already acrylic paint on my hands from a project that is due Thursday morning. I had to get some early painting done so I can hit that deadline.
In this Monday, all things are possible including finishing a painting that is due in just three days.
Oh my.
I feel strangely happy today. What the hell is this? How unusual for a Monday morning.
The weekend was weird. I was cranky and then he was cranky and then it was Sunday night and another two days of not working were jettisoned to the ether. Monday turned the corner and sat down for a visit.
So here I am again loading a backpack for work, stumbling around to find my badge and my phone and my sense of self-worth.
I look again at my canvas and already I fear I have screwed it up. Don’t they say in art there are no mistakes? Just roll with it and incorporate the error. OCD and art are not friends. This major but fixable error must wait until later tonight to find its cloak.
There is a train to catch and a Monday to face. I’d rather stay home in my studio and put gorgeous turquoise paint on a willing canvas. Can I do that for a living?
You know, a girl can dream, and so I will dream as BART gently sways. When I disembark dreams stop so reality can start.
But no matter, I can dream again, later. Dreams don’t die easy.
And dreams don’t wait for the weekend.
Image from The Miracle Journal.
This has been a weird year, right? I don’t think anyone will disagree. As I came sliding butt first into December, I was already disorganized and suddenly bowled over by work. By all measures, we did triple the volume of work we usually do and it was no small bit of effort to simply make it through December. But make it through we did.
In the smoldering ashes of 2016, I am working hard to get some order back to the chaos of my life. I firmly believe that being a little bit stronger, quite a bit more disciplined (and organized) and filled with more optimism will carry me through the slings and arrows of 2017.
To that end, I have returned to Morning Pages. If you have read The Artist’s Way, you are familiar with Morning Pages. The idea, according to Julia Cameron, is to prime the pump. Write three pages of stream of consciousness words every morning to get into the creative flow.
Instead of handwriting pages as suggested by Cameron, I use an online tool called 750words. That tool works a bit differently than the Artist’s Way describes, but that is okay too.
So as I sit here now on my fourth day of vacation, hallelujah, I am working on today’s words. I have fallen out of my writing discipline and I can tell I am rusty. Lots on my mind. It’s good to get back into the habit.
The best part of the 750words is that every once in a while, while priming the pump and working through the silt to get back into the flow, some solid words, some bon mots, some worthy thoughts come through.
Wanted to share these, because they may become my motto for the new year (Warning: there is some salty language, it that offends, look away):
…doubt is a persistent little bitch. Hope slides off like you are made of teflon, but doubt sticks like tar, or used up chewing gum or one of those gluey mocos you can’t quite get off your finger no matter how hard you shake. Patience and discipline, that is the kleenex to your glue moco and allows you to fly once more. The sturdy facial tissue that brings back hope.
Yeah, I have no idea what any of that means, but it made me feel good to write it. Like I was really tapping into something, so I decided to share it.
Hope your end of 2016 and planning for 2017 has better metaphors. I’ll keep working on mine.
Inspiring flowers made of kleenex. Is that hope I’m feelin’? Image found here.