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Reading, writing...that's what I do.

Love for the printed word, love and belief in ideas.

HOW TO CATCH A CRITTER….OR LIVE WITH THEM.

April 14, 2024 12 Comments

WHO LIVES HERE???   

When we moved from Chicago to Des Moines, Iowa, we were excited about the deck on the back of our home, the many oak trees providing shade and beauty. We formed the habit of opening our windows to the night air, falling asleep to the sounds of the woods—the chirps of crickets, hum of insect mandibles chewing. Ah, the country, a little bit of heaven.

Think again. One night I was awakened by a piercing screech, so intense I couldn’t sleep. I knew it would keep up until the owl had killed its prey or our neighbor’s cat could free herself from the local fox. Tooth and claw, the survival of the fittest, very alive and functioning just beyond our fence. But the point was we had a fence. I had my territory and they had theirs and we would just keep it that way.

Eventually my neighbors explained that the reason my hosta plants had morphed into razor-edged sticks was because of something called browsing—a word meaning the deer were enjoying a salad. But come on, this was so new to us, we spent a few evenings watching the deer from my son’s treefort. We counted the points on the male’s rack, called the folks back in Chicago bragging about our amazing wildlife.

But then there was the large doe finishing off my impatiens. I clapped my hands, shouted, picked up a stone (a small one) to lob at her. Inner-city deer. She kept on chewing.

Thus the mythology of dealing with deer bloomed. “Put out bars of soap. Scatter human hair. Let your son relieve himself on your plants.” Whatever!!!

The gardening center had shelves of products. I read the labels. Apply frequently; apply when it’s not going to rain; apply and cover each frond of the plant! I had about 90 hostas. And this stuff wasn’t cheap. I bought something called Liquid Fence which when applied leaves a stench that will keep the deer away and your best friends. But I sprayed. And I had my fence, right?

The deer were jumping the fence.  And the rest of nature was just beginning to gear up. The word had gotten around in the critter community—we’ve got fresh meat living in the grey house, go for broke.

There was scratching below our deck. Then I saw a creature scuttle to its new home—under that deck. I found a picture of my critter—a woodchuck. SO…go ahead, start singing the old rhyme. But like skunks, you don’t want one of these living with you.  They are more territorial then I was surely becoming. Oak trees, acorns—this  woodchuck was set for life.

The critter-catcher set up three traps. We caught two possum, two raccoons and the neighbor’s cat. Finally one afternoon I actually saw the critter walk right into the trap. I was so excited I called my husband at work. I’d gone over the edge. The critter-catcher wasn’t far behind. He brought a camera . “I’ve never caught one of these,” he told me happily. We were a pair.

Then at two a.m. there was the bat, fighting the circles of the ceiling fan above our bed. And me with a broom, a baseball cap and a towel—you use the towel to throw the bat to the ground. I was learning!

Now I’m definitely dreaming of a condo—no trees, no animals. But can I give up listening to the sounds of nature as I fall asleep?

A few nights ago: bump, thunk! It’s four a.m. and something has just knocked over the bird bath. I’m awake. Is it deer in the hostas? I haven’t sprayed. A raccoon? My husband says a raccoon is eating through our roof shingles. He’s starting to crack too. I closed my eyes, but all I could see was the yard below swarming with wild life, every inch crawling with nature, vivid with its slither and instinct, its hunger and need.

In the morning, the lawn was full of squirrels and chipmunks. For even if the legal documents for our dwelling has the name HAVEY on it, we now know who truly owns the place.

If you have critter problems, please share.

P.S. This is a favorite, but older post. I loved my life in Des Moines! We then moved to California….loved that too. No deer. And now we are back in Chicago, with a tall fence around our garden, the bustle of city streets in our neighborhood. And thus I have yet to see a deer. But they are adaptable, love hosta plants, and I have MANY.  You just never know. 

Deer-Proof Perennials:

  • Black-Eyed Susans – classic daisy flowers with dark eyes.
  • Bleeding Hearts – traditional, heart-shaped flowers.
  • Coreopsis – colorful, daisy-like flowers.
  • Daffodils – terrific trumpet flowers, toxic to deer.
  • Coneflowers – cone-shaped native flowers with prominent eyes.
  • Ferns – a varied family of foliage plants.
  • Irises – beautiful bearded flowers.
  • Lavender – very fragrant flower spikes with namesake color.
  • Mint – excellent edible with strong fragrance to ward off deer.
  • Monarda – pincushion flowers adored by pollinators.
  • Ornamental Grasses – beautiful, but not as appetizing as a lawn.
  • Sage – spikes of fragrant flowers.

SOLAR ECLIPSE: When Earthlings Are Not In Control: Annie Dillard; Melissa Kirsch

April 7, 2024 12 Comments

You might have read Annie Dillard’s work: An American Childhood; Teaching a Stone to Talk. I admit that I haven’t read her in a long time.  She has an amazing brain, a way of seeing things that most of us do not. When Dillard takes a walk, the the world opens up to her, like it would never open to me. She sees beyond SEEING. 

Here is Dillard on a topic, The Eclipse. 

“Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse, as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.”  (Okay read it again. Think about it.) 

 

The following sections appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES, and The Marginalian Magazine, MELISSA KIRSCH writing about The TOTAL ECLIPSE: 

Totality’s power comes from how strange it is, how unlike anything else. This entirely natural event has a supernatural vibe.  

The first time I (Kirsch) heard of an eclipse, I was in sixth grade. My science teacher, too aptly named Mr. Lux (“light,” in Latin), described the mechanics of the event, but what stayed with me, an anxious child, was not the idea of a world plunged into daytime darkness, but the risk of permanent retinal damage posed by looking directly at the eclipse. I couldn’t believe I was permitted proximity to this much peril, this much responsibility over my safety. One glance skyward and I could damage my eyesight forever. Why was I just learning about this now?

I didn’t think much of eclipses again until the very branded “Great American Eclipse” of 2017, for which I procured safety glasses and witnessed a few moments of the sun mostly disappearing on a crowded street corner in Manhattan, near my office. The experience was brief, strange, uncoordinated. A quick astronomy interlude then back to work.

This time around, I’ve been considering the eclipse the way I did the coronationof Charles III: It’s not an event of organic fascination for me, but there’s enough hype and chatter afoot that I want in. I’ll read up and geek out so that I understand its significance, so that I can be a part of the pop-up community that materializes when big things are happening. That’s the blessing and the curse of endless information:

If everyone’s talking about something, you can join in on the fun! Also, everyone’s always talking about something; why won’t they ever shut up.

Or, as a friend of mine put it grumpily, “Is this a disturbance in the heavens or a pure product of a grotesque news cycle where everything has to be a topic of ‘the national conversation’?”

I heard him, but given an option to quash my cynicism, I’ll always pursue it.

I got on a video chat with my friends Christa and Ali, umbraphiles who are traveling from their home in Amsterdam to an Airbnb in the Adirondacks for Monday’s spectacle. In 2017 they rented a house in the path of totality in Oregon, and immediately afterward booked accommodations for this year. 

What had they seen last time that made them so eager to do it again?

They described the hours leading up to the eclipse, when the weather gets colder, when you’re suddenly aware of how much the sun is heating us. In Oregon, the streetlights had come on and the birds went silent at 10 in the morning. Kids got tired and more snugly, bedtime behavior triggered.

“I’m not a spiritual person. I don’t usually think about the bigger picture of what we’re swimming in,” Ali said. “But I felt that at the eclipse. I had a sense that I’m this one person in this huge thing.” That’s the feeling she’s hoping to encounter again. Christa compared the experience to the awe felt by astronauts seeing Earth from space for the first time. The End!

SO…Thanks again to The Marginalian  Magazine for these interesting comments. And yes, there are many people who are really into this, like my son and daughter-in-law. I say GO FOR IT, and later, anyone reading this, please share with me what you learn. I would love to hear from you. Thanks.  

A writer is someone who pays attention to the world — a writer is a professional observer,” Susan Sontag 

What Good Friday Teaches Us About Cynicism

March 30, 2024 6 Comments

For my post this Easter Weekend, I am sharing sections of an opinion written by the late Michael Gerson, which appeared in the Washington Post. Mr. Gerson was an unabashed evangelical Christian who believed in the importance of faith in public life. A speech writer for President George W. Bush, the two men could not have been more different — Mr. Gerson cerebral, reserved, fidgety; Mr. Bush folksy, outgoing, relaxed — but they shared an almost psychic connection, especially when putting shared values into words.

WHAT GOOD FRIDAY TEACHES US ABOUT CYNICISM 

The story of GOOD FRIDAY—the garden, bloody sweat, sleeping friends, a torch-carrying crowd, the kiss, the slash of a sword, the questioning, scourging, mocking…the nails, the despair of a good man—is an invitation to cynicism. Nearly every human institution is revealed at its worst.

Government comes off poorly, giving Jesus the bureaucratic shuffle, with no one wanting to take responsibility, until a weak leader gives in to the crowd in the name of keeping the peace.

“What is truth?” asks Pontius Pilate, with a sneer typical of politics to this present day. Professional men of religion do not appear in their best light. They are violently sectarian, judgmental and turn to the state to enforce their beliefs. “Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy,” theologian Barbara Taylor sharply observers. “He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix.”

The crowd does not acquit itself well, turning hostile and cruel as quickly as an Internet mob, first putting palms beneath his feet, then thorns upon his brow. Even friendship comes in for a beating. The men closest to Jesus sleep while his enemies are fully awake. There is betrayal by a close, disgruntled associate. And then Peter’s spastic violence and cowardly denials. The women—all assorted Marys—come off far better in the narrative. But Jesus is essentially abandoned to face his long, suffocating death alone.

And, for a moment, even God seems to fail, vanishing into a shocking silence…

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” asks Jesus, in words that many of his followers would want to erase from the Bible. How could the Son of God be subject to despair? G.K. Chesterton called Christianity the only religion in which “God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”

WAS GOD ABSENT ON GOOD FRIDAY?

Consider how the world appeared at the finish of Good Friday. It would have seemed that every source of order, justice and comfort—politics, institutional religion, the community of friendship—had been discredited. It was the cynic’s finest hour. And God Himself seemed absent or unmoved, turning cynicism toward nihilism. Every ember of human hope was cold. And there was nothing to be done about it.

Then something happened. There was disagreement at the time, as now, on what that something was. According to the story, Pilate posted a guard at the tomb with the instruction: “Make it as secure as you can.” Then the cynics somehow lost control of the narrative. There was an empty tomb and wild reports of angels and ghosts. And the claim of resurrection.

EASTER 

Even those who believe the body was moved, must confront certain facts. Faith in the figure who Rome executed has far outlasted the Roman Empire. (Comment: I love this major point.) The cowardly friends became BOLD missionaries, most dying torturous deaths (according to tradition) for the sake of a figure they had once betrayed in their sleep. The faith thus founded has given the mob—all of us, even the ones who mock, especially the ones who mock—the hope of pardon and peace.

For believers, the complete story of Good Friday and Easter legitimize both despair and faith. Nearly every life features less-than-good Fridays.

We grow tired of our own company and travel a descending path of depression. We experience lonely pain, unearned suffering or stinging injustice.

We are rejected or betrayed by a friend.

And then there are the unspeakable things—the death of a child, the diagnosis of an aggressive cancer, the steady advance of a disease that will take our minds and our dignity.

We look into the abyss of self-murder. And given the example of Christ, we are permitted to feel God-forsaken.

And yet…eventually …or so we trust…or so we try to trust: God is forever on the side of HOPE! ( my capitals)

If the resurrection is real, death’s hold is broken. There is a truth and human existence that cannot be contained in a tomb.

It is possible to live lightly, even in the face of death—not by becoming hard and strong, but through a confident perseverance. Because cynicism is the failure of patience. Because Good Friday does not have the final word.

(artwork by Harold Coping; unknown; Gustav Klimt)

THE LADY WITH THE DARK HAIR

March 24, 2024 8 Comments

Erin Bartels never disappoints. Whether she is echoing her own life in, The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water, or creating a story based in her state of Michigan, The Words Between US, Erin’s characters, story lines, and flowing use of language will pull you in page after page.

Bartels’ most recent work, The Lady with the Dark Hair, emphasizes her ability to take on bigger challenges, the novel requiring a great deal of research to bring flesh to her characters and reality to her settings. Yes, we are once again in Bartels state of Michigan, but this time it is East Lansing, home to Michigan State University, founded in 1855. Then, after what must have been months of research, Bartels takes us to places and times beyond present day: Southern France, 1879, 1880; Paris, 1880; Tunisia, 1881; Morocco, 1881; Gibraltar, 1881; the Bahamas and the Atlantic Ocean, 1881; and once again to Gibraltar, up to the present day.

In the novel, East Lansing is home to its main characters: daughter Esther Markstrom and her mother Lorena. Readers of Bartels previous work will be familiar with the author’s love and knowledge of Michigan and all it has to offer. The Lady with the Dark Hair explores the puzzle of discovering the history of a painting that currently hangs above the mantel in the home of the Markstroms. Esther is single, taking care of her mother, while wedded to her work running a small art museum in this Michigan college town.

Yes here she was, forty-four, single, childless, often regretting aspects of her life, her mother seeming not to understand, and thus failing to thank her daughter for giving up other life possibilities for her.

But though Esther is part of an uncommon family, early on this suited her. Not many people…could say that they worked for a respected…museum named for an eccentric relative who obsessively painted the same woman again and again, but whose own visage was a complete mystery, because he never completed a self-portrait.

And no one but Esther and her mother, the last living leaves on Francico Vella’s family tree, could claim ownership over his finest work—La Dama del Cabello Oscuro. The Lady with the Dark Hair.  

 BEGINNINGS

Early on, readers are introduced to Vivienne, living in Southern France in 1879, a brush in hand, but not for painting, but for scrubbing a copper pot, her first one that day. When later, she is posing for an artist named Renaud, she tells him she is Catalan.

“Ah, Catalan!” Renaud says. “Then we may find we have much in common. We are both from crossroads. My family is from Gibraltar. We’re Spanish and Genoese and Maltese and, rumor has it, just a little bit of English and Scottish.”

Yes! Bartels is immediately setting up a major theme of the novel, while also exploring the historic and human times of which she writes. Vivienne muses: “It wasn’t fair. Men could live rich and exciting lives if they wanted to, while she knew of few woman who even traveled outside their own towns. She only had…because of a mistake. And her adventures…were never pleasant. Not for the first time, she wished she’d been born a boy.

Concurrently, the novel explores the lives of Esther and her mother, both dealing with the task of enhancing their small museum, its second floor displaying a permanent exhibit of Francisco Vella’s work, the novel hinting at the connections between this Michigan family and a deceased but very famous artist. The reader wants to discover how these connections came to be, the novel allowing that some history is still missing, but with Esther’s intelligence, her eagerness to enhance the museum and their family fortune, the novel will eventually reveal all these  connections.

THE WRITING: Research and Beauty

Europe is a big place, but Bartels finds a way to connect the Lady with the Dark Hair to the artist who painted her. And there are many characters, who step by step reveal knowledge that will complete the mystery, the puzzle. Who was this woman? How and why was she the model for so many paintings? And Bartels doesn’t just focus on one artwork. The novel is expansive, so that we are drawn into the time period when women didn’t just want to be MODELS, they wanted to be ARTISTS. And certainly Bartels, who writes about women and their struggles, would focus on this aspect of history.

Thus the Lady with the Dark Hair, Viviana, back in history, must make a decision that might mirror one Esther will eventually be forced to make. …but neither was she bound to follow Francisco Vella the rest of her life like a concubine, dependent on his largesse for food and shelter and subject to his whims and wants. She had found her own way through the Pyrenees Mountains to Toulouse. She could find her way in Paris. She had lived as an unwanted child, an orphan, a model, a student. Surely, she could live as an artist.

The novel then returns to Esther, who has befriended two different men whose interest in art not only provides her with conversation, but also might change her life if she chooses one of them. Will Esther begin a love relationship, or forever live with her mother, charged with taking care of their art, her energy devoted to those quieter parts of her life. She has few friends, rarely spends an evening with someone of the opposite sex. But then there are two gentlemen, both involved with art, and in the eyes of the reader, both marriage possibilities. Bartels makes us guess.

ON TO GIBRALTAR, 1881

The novel moves back and forth from present day Michigan to the history of the painting that hangs above the mantel in Esther and Lorena’s home. It is the story of a time when the Lady with the Dark Hair, Vivienne, lived on the Rock of Gibraltar, before finding her way to the United States. It eventually becomes the story of Esther leaving Michigan to visit this amazing place. These chapters are highlights of the novel. I have been to Gibraltar, made my way to the top of the rock, watched but avoided the monkeys, then found my way through the caves and back down to the ocean. I have looked out to see Africa in the distance. In the novel, this adventure is a turning point for both Viviana and of course much later for Esther. Once again, Bartels never disappoints, her rendering of living on the rock in 1881 and then having Esther visit there in the present day is beautifully written and accurate.

Erin Bartels knows how to create echoes in her work, meaningful echoes that are inciteful and beautifully written. And yes, the novel does end in present time…fulfilling all story questions. Who was the lady with the dark hair? Why is she important to a story of art history? Those who have read Bartels previous works know she honors the role of women. This novel is no exception as it works its way back through history, creating the story of a woman, a painter the reader will admire and cheer on, a woman who learns her craft and is thus honored by other artists and art lovers. Yes, a woman who no longer models for some man’s canvas, but a female artist creating work worthy of admiration, that eventually finds its way into famous art galleries.

 

What Did You Read As A Child?

March 17, 2024 4 Comments

 

Let’s go back and look at what we read growing up. Let us then ask the question: are we damaged? Have we done harm to others? Have we been unable to raise our children with kindness and empathy? No. We have done an awesome job raising them.

So let us ask why. Did we grow up slowly learning about love, but also hurts, anger, naughty people? Yes. Absolutely.

A FAMILIAR STORY

I was a kid and I was sick. I don’t remember what I had, but my brother, three years older, brought me some books to look at while I lay in bed. One was THE FAMILY OF MAN. If you aren’t familiar with this book–it is all photographs by Edward Steichen from an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York–the exhibit then circulated around the world, the beloved Chicago poet, Carl Sandburg, writing an introduction for the book: 

THERE IS ONLY ONE MAN IN THE WORLD and his name is ALL MEN. THERE IS ONLY ONE WOMAN IN THE WORLD and her name is ALL WOMEN. THERE IS ONLY ONE CHILD IN THE WOLRD and the child’s name is ALL CHILDREN.

But I wasn’t reading that. I didn’t GET THAT.

I’m a kid, probably six or seven. (And if I watched TV, it was cartoons and Disney.) So I’m opening the book and wow, being shocked. Why? The photographs are amazing, but also photos of people naked and kissing; a baby being born; a mother nursing a baby with her breast exposed. Keep turning the pages and I am now in countries where people don’t dress like Americans, don’t look like them–they are dancing, singing, eating, crying…and dying.

I closed the book. Had my brother made a mistake? Was I really supposed to see these things? YES!!

Because it is all about context. Ten years later a close friend and I picked up a pornographic magazine found on a street corner. (Nudity can be art and not art.) We looked, then immediatly tossed it away. Instinct. But we were learning about the world. No parent can keep a child from reality, though as we all know, there are wonderful ways and sordid ways for children to become worldly. We learn to evaluate. We learn to understand. Because we live in the real world. If you were sheltered to the extent that life was all sweetness and light, at what point did you realize that it wasn’t? And if so, how did you deal with that realization?

BOOK BANNING

Heidi Stevens, mother, writer, like most of us reading this…had a recent column in the Chicago Tribune: BOOk-BAN MADNESS.

“The first is Florida’s obscenity law, which prohibits distributing to minors ‘any picture…which depicts nudity or sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sexual battery, bestiality, or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to minors.”

Thus, Jennifer Pippin, chair of Moms for Liberty, “claims the law prohibits all nudity in school library books.”

“The law actually only prohibits nudity that specifically harms minors, Popular Information points out, which legally means that it appeals primarily to prurient, shameful or morbid interests, is patently offensive, and is without serious literary or artistic merit for minors.”

But in an interview with Popular Information, Pippen said she worries that if a “5-year-old picks up this book and has never seen a picture of a penis…the parent wouldn’t be able to discuss this with the child.” So officials suggested the school district draw little clothes on the characters. Which they did. And now the books are back on school library shelves!!

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 

I had brothers. My younger brother and I ran naked in the hallway after our bath. Innocent! Also a way to learn about boys and girls…they are different, no getting around that. THIS IS LIFE. So why not use a children’s story book to “point that out”, some pun intended. Check out the pages above from story books.  

DRAW ME A STAR by Eric Carle….”Draw me a man and a woman” the book reads and Carle provides a drawing. A child can see there is a difference. A child can ask questions, learn what a penis is, learn what a vagina. So many parents have struggled with this, making up silly words that alienate the child from THE TRUTH, that make the child early on believe there is something wrong, dirty etc. And how about Maurice Sendak’s THE NIGHT KITCHEN? Why would anyone be offended by a baby boy and his penis? When you get all wild and crazy about nudity…THAT IS WHEN KIDS THINK IT’S BAD. It’s not bad. It’s human. That’s how we were made and nothing is going to change that. 

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Stevens writes that some libraries have a best practice plan for challenged books. A parent can fill out a form stating what they believe is objectionable and whether they have read the entire book. The book remains on the shelf while the challenge is being considered. Monica Harris, member of the Illinois Library System encourages parents alarmed by the movement to contact local libraries and offer support. “…the best thing they (parents) can do is get involved and voice their support.” 

Thus Stevens ends her article: Our kids are listening. Panic and shame shouldn’t be the loudest things they hear.”

Over to you…have books you once loved and read to your children been banned in your library? Can you find these books in you local book store? I am proud to write that my grandchildren own all of them and more!!  

When Things Don’t Work Out

March 10, 2024 4 Comments

WHEN I WAS WRITING SHORT STORIES:

Dear Ms. Havey, 

Many thanks for submitting “When the Song Ends.”  I like this story very much, if not quite enough to buy it for Avenue–and so I’m returning it herewith. I would, however, be pleased to consider other stories, if you wish to send them in.  With best wishes, Gary Fisketjon. 

I failed to send him another…though I did look over my work, wondering if there even was another that I thought might be good enough. 

Because: Gary Fisketjon is widely known in the literary world both for his hand in revolutionizing the modern book publishing industry in the US, and for his reputation as a meticulous and comprehensive editor…As a young editor with many contacts among emerging writers, Fisketjon saw that the literary market lacked a proper format in which they could be published, and…founded Vintage Contemporaries, “a line of high-quality trade paperbacks” that created a new forum with much better distribution through independent booksellers.

Its immediate success transformed how contemporary fiction was published in the country; it also helped authors including Jay McInerney and Richard Russo to become well-known with their first books, and brought new readers to established but underappreciated writers such as Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. Mr. Fisketjon … settled at Knopf as vice president & editor-at-large, and worked with a number of acclaimed writers, including Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, Kent Haruf, Patricia Highsmith, Tobias Wolff, Julian Barnes, Cormac McCarthy, and Haruki Murakami, while also picking out and fostering new talent.

 

So Dear Friends and Fellow Writers, it is still a very long road! But in order to pump myself up and keep querying my NOVEL, When The Cottonwoods Blew…below is the first paragraph. Also what we call the HOOK, a statement to make you all curious:

When Ella Singleton’s four-year-old daughter, Sarah, is abducted, memories of Ella’s dead mother, Cecile, take on new power, propelling Ella into a search that will not only redeem her child, but also extricate Ella from a debt Cecile and society owe the kidnapper.

Comments, complaints, confusions are very helpful and welcome. Thanks so much, Beth 

WHEN THE COTTONWOODS BLEW    Elizabeth A. Havey CHAPTER ONE      ELLA  Chicago, Illinois, Late August, 1998   

She never meant to run this far, rows of cottonwoods arching overhead, so many crows caw cawing in the swaying branches, Ella Singleton again on Greenwood Avenue, the corner home where her mother Cecile had raised her. Ella checked her watch, fifty minutes until her 3-11 shift… enough time to discover if it was still there, the abandoned house at the end of their street. In childhood, a place of danger, of ignoring Cecile’s warnings…Bingo Gallagher, Rick the Skinny daring neighbor kids to climb crumbling, shattered walls, escape iron rebars that reached out to gouge any kid who scrambled, jumped. A place of escape, child Ella lying on smooth stones, falling asleep under overhanging branches, tangles of weedy trees that magically protected her during a spring shower…all before, the child who screamed.

PHOTOS: a crow…crows are featured in the novel, as they recognize faces; my collection of short stories, published in 2015; Gary Fisketjon;  

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