I wish you, your cherished families, and your wonderful friends—
a beautiful, warm, and peaceful Thanksgiving.
May You Have a Peaceful Day
Tag Archives: creative
New CNF in “Hippocampus Magazine”!
Honored and thrilled to have my creative nonfiction piece, “Inside My Mother’s Mouth,” published in the elegant and smart, Hippocampus Magazine.
Always honored to share a glimpse into my beautiful mother’s world. I dearly miss the person she was for all those amazing decades.
Click the image (or highlighted text) to read onward. Visit, Hippocampus, and take in all the fantastic stories there…
This piece was written before the Covid-19 axe cut deep. It seems so long ago now that I visited Millie daily and helped her with the morning routine.
I hope you’re all continuing to manage during these difficult days. Stay safe.❤️
Thank you for stopping by.
My Talented Nephew’s Work
I should have done this sooner—
that is, to share my nephew Daniel Kennedy’s brilliant work. Daniel’s heart, down to the raw insides, is exponentially compassionate. He is not only a thoughtful and decent young man, his writing talent is boundless. The dedication he pours into his craft is humbling to behold. It is my privilege and honor to highlight some of Daniel’s work here.
Start reading him now—before you have to wait on a bookstore line for his autograph!
Leftover Sensations, new flash piece published in Free Lit Magazine!
LEFTOVER SENSATIONS
LEFTOVER SENSATIONS
When Luthien woke his skin was the color of flat sand on a starless evening. What the hell happened last night? He sees a sky not quite black. The moon, a shredded toenail hanging on a milky weave. Leftover sensations of tepid glass–thick tumbler, lazy ice.
Last evening he stopped on his way home. Between shots of Jack Daniels, Luthien remembers a powerful mouth. In the small bar–a big woman whose billowing lips could suck the enamel off teeth. What did he do? Did that insane mouth hoover the color from his body? Luthien’s fair skin that goes lobster belly pink on the beach is now dull grey. Was he vacuumed dry? Luthien hopes he’ll wake and find his skin its proper shade. But Luthien you are grey. Too bad.
Nervously he squeezes his eyelids shut. Shelby and her tears. She’d found him and Cassandra porn-style in ‘their’ bed. So what if he and Shelby picked out the duvet with coordinating sheets. The woman in the bar had lips like clamps–tight and hot. Big, deep red wet lips. Did he hear a name from that strange sucking mouth? Martianna, Maliana, Marvianna? A sentence slithers into his ear. A velvet tongue like he’s never tasted in thirty-eight years. Translucent hands pulling his hair so hard his head whacks the bar wall and he doesn’t give a shit. Her surreal mouth, a serpentine force plundering his desperate throat. Did that burgundy wet nurse utter something to his bourboned-out body?
Think Luthien. You almost talked Shelby out of leaving post-Cassandra fuck. The name. It will be important. Take a moment. Go through the minutes after her lips sucked your dick through your throat. Those red lips whispered something.
“When a heart is shattered, its pieces fall to earth. Tears of pain water and grows the blood rose that springs forth the serpent that feeds on the rat.”
The bedroom clock screams. Luthien wakes to the sun’s rays slithering past his silk curtains. His mane of hair, dripping sweat, soaking the grey cotton sheets. Saturday morning. Shelby would have slapped the alarm off then woken him with a tender kiss. They used to make love on Saturdays.
Love writing flash fiction, especially monster-themed. I let loose a bit more when invoking character voices. Hope you enjoy, leftover sensations, as much as I enjoyed writing it 😘
As the writing gods sometimes align themselves, my dear, faraway writing friend, DS Levy also in this issue with a masterful short, Pit Viper.
adore this cover art by Aisha Ali!
his bliss
this affectionate guy created at the Jersey Shore while I was in a lovely morning mood 😘 – thank you
making art
he asks
why do I have to take art
I respond
art is not something you take
it is something you give
she says
I can’t even draw a stick figure
I respond
life saving fire has been born
of simple sticks
he says
I can’t do anything right
I respond
you’re in good company
now put all your wrongs together
and make beautiful art
I really like this verse (first posted last year) but not because I wrote it.
I wish we said this to young creative hearts more often.
tiger – acrylic on canvas, long ago-thank you
your efforts
The Truth About My Art
My Friends,
When someone places an artist’s hat upon my head, I often feel unworthy. I’m not glued nightly to a canvas. I’m not angst-ridden at 3 am. I don’t take myself very seriously.
The truth about my art…
There isn’t a prestigious fine art degree, but there is greatly advanced naiveté.
There haven’t been decades of rendering, but there have been years of creative struggle.
There isn’t an artist hiding in my house, but there is one hiding in my brain.
There isn’t a grand studio filled with en plein air studies and sable brushes in old coffee cans.
There is a room off the kitchen built with a hammer and nails,
by a creative husband for his emotional wife.
Self/acrylic
I hope this painting (featured once before) keeps my blog’s PG13 rating – as I consider these subjects nude, but not naked 🙂
Thank you. May you dream of wearing many hats and loving them all.
Self is one of my larger acrylic pieces – 4 ft x 4 ft. Painted in 1997 (if memory serves)
Seeing through the Flog
It is Valentine’s Day 2014. Outside is covered in snow too deep to even call it a blanket – it’s more like one of those comforters you start to shop for when you’re nearing 50 ’cause you’re always cold except on the nights you rip all the covers off ’cause your beyond human sweat.
Truth be told this is my second attempt at blogging. I began a blog 2 years ago (if I remember correctly) but stopped, fearing I didn’t quite grasp the medium. Here I am two years later hoping I’m a wee bit smarter because I read a blog book and watched WP tutorials. My fifteen-year old daughter can’t believe my tech ignorance at times, but in those moments I gently remind her how I helped her with some HS art projects ’cause that’s what comes naturally to me. My thirteen-year old son will simply sigh and return to playing Xbox (during his alotted time of course!).
I’ve written over nine manuscripts (submitted to the big houses and have built an extensive rejection file thick enough to be used as booster seat – I did get a few second reads – those positive rejections have kept me writing), I draw and paint, sometimes attempt poetry, I now write a little monthly column for my local paper, I enjoy coming up with catchy slogans or images on tees, – in short, I’m all over the place and my places aren’t always connected. This new blog, anntogether is my best hope for getting all the things I love in one place while reading and seeing and enjoying what others do in this ginormous, creative community.
So here’s to a day of love, snow-shoveling and thinking good thoughts.
ps Please bear with me on my blog’s nakedness. I hope to add picts and color…as I go…
anntogether 