Welcome to The Lakeshore, a new on-line literary magazine. The Lakeshore is an outgrowth of Lakeshore Writers Workshop (LWW) created to showcase the work of the talented writers—emerging to established—with whom I've had the great pleasure of working in classes and workshops or in one-on-one coaching sessions.
2011-12
Tincture of Time – A Memoir
It’s a hot August night, especially for the West Virginia hills, the kind that makes sleeping fretful. Though it’s beginning to cool off a lot in the early morning, I probably should have worn my lighter cotton nightgown. I push …
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The Workshop
The eager newbie,
shiny notebook, pen poised,
audaciously wondering
could I be a writer
seven strangers on mismatched chairs
clutching sturdy mugs
like medieval shields of armor
“assume everything is fiction”
we are admonished
and we nod but steal sly glances
Our elephants came with
at first docile and obedient
until they …
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My Mother Finds God at Pinky’s Nails on East 57th Street
When my mother meets God, she’s not surprised to find that She’s a manicurist, a quiet woman with jade bracelets around Her thin wrists and a warm tub of whirling water waiting for weary feet. “Square or oval,” God wants …
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Photograph
An excerpt from Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History
October 1995
Near Taejon, Korea
In this photograph you are devastated, devastated at being caught. Eyelids heavy with fatigue, hair shorn, by you or your captors, I don’t know. The lack …
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Dinner
John held his shotgun like their father had taught them, the barrel leaned up against his shoulder, the butt resting in his palm. Fred, the older and stockier boy, held his 12-gauge in his right hand so it rode alongside …
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High Sierra Night
I had picked a place apart from the rest
not realizing how alone I might be.
A place far from campfire and flashlights
out in the open, with no protective surround.
A rock in the valley my headboard
the ground my bed.
Craggy granite cliffs encircle …
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Dan and Emily
The last time they were together, she was blonde and still wore clothing that showed off her tattoos: a cross on her clavicle, a hibiscus flower on the back of her neck, a button on her hipbone. She kept putting …
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Mementos
I’d always planned on going through that trunk of old pictures and asking my mother for her stories. I wanted to hear something more true than the usual lines. Something about her relationships, what it was like for her widowed …
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Notes on Morbidity: Cancer Wife Phones Cheating Husband
When I call Gordon, whom I already miss and forgive, I’ll tell him I found the birdcage in the corner of my grandparents’ dining room, the same place it always was. I remember my grandparents’ birds were yellow, canaries, something …
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The Bulls of San Pablo
It’s December 23rd around four o‘clock. The downtown air is chilled just enough that I can wear my old bomber jacket without breaking a sweat. My lungs seize for a moment, choked by car exhaust. There is little in the …
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Pelican Mother
Pregnancy is power, even if you never give birth – that quickening in your gut, the secret knowledge of it – it was what gave me the strength to escape the wasteland of my marriage. But it’s shocking to me …
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Between Worlds
“Taylor, please stop looking back now. You’re making me nervous.”
But he did not take his eyes off the view from the vehicle’s rear window. The long parade of cars with their headlights on in the blinding daylight riveted his attention …
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Lessons on White Privilege on the 19-Polk
I got on the 19 Polk at the corner of 8th and Market, made my way to the back of the bus and stood reading by the stairwell as the driver lurched us into traffic. About a block later I …
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Yellow
I remember yellow blending with ochre rocks, striations of cream – and the dust everywhere, sifting in bands in the sunshine, lifting above our feet hovering in the still, silent desert.
Our clothes became monochromatic, the olive camouflage covered by granular …
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Snowgirl
When the snow falls
you’ll build a snowgirl
with big boobies and you’ll adorn her
with a soft red scarf
from the Mr. Charles Shop.
After you and your wife go to bed
she’ll gaze through your window
longing to be inside.
Then one night snowgirl will slip
in …
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