Upon his Feast Day, January 25 by John Estes In Jean Cocteau’s film Orphée, Orpheus (the most square-jawed Orpheus ever conceived, played with pompadour by Jean Marai) is challenged by the admissions committee to the gates of hell to explain what precisely (there is no almost in hell, he is told) what it means to … Continue reading St. Gregory Nazianzen, Divine Sensualist
Rock & Sling's Creative Nonfiction editor, Julie Riddle, recently corresponded with writer Dawn Claflin about what R&S seeks in an essay. Check out Claflin's blog post on the conversation. Riddle is the craft-essay editor for Brevity. She works as senior writer for marketing and development at Whitworth University, and is associate editor of Whitworth Today magazine. Her memoir, The Solace of Stones: Finding … Continue reading CNF Editor Offers Advice to R&S Submitters
by Cara Strickland I am the last person you might expect to see at a music festival. Although I’m a lover of live music, that love is rivaled by my love of sitting down in climate-controlled spaces. I camp only when there is no other option. My feet get easily tired. My brother called in … Continue reading Love, Loss, and Rock & Roll
by Terra Ojeda Susie Meserve was born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts, but has lived on the West coast for most of her adult life. She is a poet, essayist, and memoirist whose essays have recently appeared in Salon, Elle, OffbeatMama.com, the journal of The Santa Fe Writers Project, and The New York Times … Continue reading An Interview with R&S Contributor Susie Meserve
by Sunni Brown Wilkinson When the Spanish poet Antonio Machado fled Spain during that country's civil war, he crossed the Pyrenees in an old car with his elderly mother on his lap. The two died only a few days apart. In one of the notebooks he left behind he writes about how, one day when … Continue reading What Have You Done With Your Eyes?
by Laura Bloxham When I was in grade school I lived for summer reading programs at the local library. If I read so many books or so many pages, I could qualify for prizes. Usually the top prize was a ride through town on a fire engine. I qualified for that prize after the first … Continue reading Looking Back at Summer Reading
by Amy Rice com·fort food noun food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being, typically any with a high sugar or other carbohydrate content and associated with childhood or home cooking.* com·fort read noun book that induces fuzzy warm feelings, can be read repeatedly, and is quick and easy to consume.** After I … Continue reading Comfort Reads
by Sunni Brown Wilkinson Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein after spending a chilly, wet summer near Lake Geneva. That terrain – the rugged Swiss Alps and that deep, blue water – coupled with the unusually stormy weather worked on her imagination. The wildness of it no doubt seemed unearthly. Every summer over the last several years … Continue reading Summer Reading: David Copperfield in the High Uintas
by Andy Zell Summer reading is the time to read books that aren’t on the list or on the table at the bookstore prominently displayed. It’s the time for picking up the unexpected and adventurous. All reading can transport me to another time and place. Summer reading is for transportation to a wholly different time … Continue reading Summer Reading: The Perfect Time To Get In Trouble
by Julie Riddle Once the carefree summer days of my youth (floating the stream that winked past our house, playing baseball on a freshly mown field, tanning at the lake, my skin shiny with baby oil) gave way to the horrors of adulthood (global warming, suspicious-looking moles, wrinkles), summer became my least favorite season. A … Continue reading How Beachcombing and Book-Combing Brought Summer Back
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