From WTP Vol. V #3 Royal By Kayla Miller There was a mother and a father, naturally. They were King and Queen. They had children, too, of course. Naturally, they had children: two, of course. A boy and a girl. Our Prince and Princess. Their royalty and royalties were vast—our children grew in a kingdom-sized…
Category: WTP spotlight: fiction
Literary Spotlight: Tricia Knoll
From WTP Vol. V #3 My Walk-In Museum of Natural History By Tricia Knoll As curator, I place artifacts for you to enjoy between sunbreaks and heartaches. Entry to the gardens is free, as is stepping across the scuffed welcome mat. Please leave your shoes beside my garden clogs and the running shoes by the…
Literary Spotlight: Steve Young
From WTP Vol. V #3 The Devil Will Find You By Steve Young The rusted Chevy pickup slid to a halt, as if just stalling out. Benson dropped his thumb, though the pickup wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind, with bald tires, rusted panels and doors, and the stink of horse shit and…
Literary Spotlight: Jennifer G. Peper
From WTP Vol. V #2 The Harpy By Jennifer G. Peper Once upon a time, there was a Harpy who lived on a hill in a beautiful circa-1882 Victorian nest in the suburbs. She was mean and drank too much. A quick word on Harpies: They are vain, cruel, and self-involved creatures. It’s best if…
Literary Spotlight: Rocio Anica
From WTP Vol. V #2 That You By Rocio Anica I liked him right away, because it was five o’clock in the morning and I was the only person in the hotel pool. In that early light, the sky reflected pink as he wandered onto the scene of my unholy-sunrise worship. He’d brought blue alcohol…
Literary Spotlight: David Wheldon
From WTP Vol. V #1 The Vigil By David Wheldon I came across Jane Shanks in a more personal way one May morning when she was twenty-eight. A tall woman, she came down the front steps of her father’s house at an active and determined pace, two steps at a time, and stood on the wide pavement…
Literary Spotlight: Dewitt Henry
What is a Jerk? “Maybe you, citizen, should be a jerk. Jerks get where they are going.” –By Dewitt Henry this appears in Vol. IV #7 A jerk is a chisler in the traffic jam, say on the Long Island expressway. Three lanes immobile, motors revving, heat shimmering, the cars barely rolling, and the line stretching out…
Literary Spotlight: J.G. McClure
The Deer J. G. McClure [dropcap]G[/dropcap]lass. Glass and blood not his own. His own mistake—the drinks, the brakes too late. Too late for the deer sprawled in the dark, slick road. Slick roads, he thought, it’s these slick fucking roads. Not the drinks. The man stood in the road and watched the woman watch the…
A Lesson in Odes
by Laura Shovan [dropcap]O[/dropcap]des are all about tone. Show enough enthusiasm for even a simple object like a shoe, and a poet can convince the reader of the object’s value, that it’s worthy of attention. That is what Chilean poet Pablo Neruda did with his Odes to Common Things, a book which still influences poets…