Monday Morsels: Summer, and the Reading is Easy...

JMWW Summer Issue 2010 is UP!!!! Mmm, mmm, mmm... what a smorgasbord of delights. Where to start? Always a fan of the word-weavings of Tim Horvath, he doesn't disappoint with SECTIONS, a chilling love told through sharing the newspaper. For seconds, check out Andrew Borgstrom's deliciously circular 525 POINTS, chased with Jane Hammons' moving PLEIKU JACKET. And more, so much more,... stories and poems by Sean Lovelace, Tersea Svoboda, J.A Tyler, Lily Hoang, Kim Chinquee, Jeremy M. Davies, Rae Spencer, and many more, including a treat by Robert Coover. Indulge in the reading... and send your best stuff our way.

The Daily s-Press features near-daily reviews on the best of independent press -- publishers, novellas, chapbooks, and litzines. Today proprietress Dorothee Lang features 52/250, a zine of stories and poems by a collective of writers gathered under a common weekly theme. This week, the theme 'cigarette smoke in the window' garnered 19 stories by such diverse authors as Susan Teppper, Darryl Price, Marcus Speh, and Kevin Myrick. 52/250 was founded by Michelle Elvy, Walter Bjorkman, and John Wentworth Chapin.

In the garden... the heat's wilted much of our flowers and fruits; this weekend's rain more a teaser than sustenance. Yellow plums are sweet this year, their sugars concentrated in the drought, and the hardy kiwis are starting to soften. The skins of the Asian pears are almost gilded. Currants finished their crimson show and I extracted six cups of juice for jelly and sorbet. The first tomatoes made their way into our salads, and I prepared a rhubard crisp last night, the last of the season. Soon, the raspberries will set their fruit. The daylilies are peaking, vibrant hues of gold and orange, lime and pink, ochre and lavender. Gorgeous.

Peace, Linda

Harvested Today from the Garden...

Raspberries, hazelnuts, pole beans, Kentucky Wonder bush beans, asparagus, white peaches, Asian pears, basil, cucumbers, and tomatoes: yellow pear, green zebra, purple cherokee, roma, brandywine.

From our farm share -- tomatillos, garlic, basil, Blue Peruvian fingerlings, onions (red, yellow, white)

Dinner -- tomato salsa, roasted tomatillo salsa, grilled chicken breasts, corn/tomato/black bean salad, roasted asparagus, peach crisp with vanilla ice cream, reisling/traminer with raspberries

Happy eating... Peace, Linda

What Grows in the Garden

The peak of summer. My garden is lush with foliage, flowers, and the buds of many edibles: blueberries and service berries, hazelnuts fat for the squirrel to pick off, sugar snap peas late this year from the chilling spring rains. The asparagus have sprouted into high feathery fronds that hide my children and the rabbits, and the raspberries sport small white flowers that buzz with bees.


This year, for the first time, the kiwi trees droop with fruit, although the white peach is sparse after last season's bountiful crop.

We spend a lot of time in our garden. My husband is the primary caretaker; the garden is his genius genesis. I play supporting actor by weeding and dead-heading his prize daylilies, harvesting the bounty and making it part of our dinner staple. Caring for our outside living room, preparing the peas and berries, slows me down, puts me in a meditative frame.

Like my garden, my words slow, become more lazy yet purposive at the same time, unlike the manic rush of writing in the early dark hours of winter.

How does your garden grow?

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The Writing... PURE trucking along at a steady pace. I am preparing work for the Harbinger*33 anthology, which has me confounded - what to submit? Something new? Something old and tweaked? I'm running out of time, and my head is full...

My short story DEFECTION placed well in the popular vote in the Editor Unleashed Flash Fiction 40, and snagged a spot in the anthology. I'm grateful for the feedback from readers, and especially thrilled that so many of the stories penned by my writing peeps (especially my Nudgers) will snuggle between the covers with mine.

The Reading... Finished Middlemarch and starting in on The Corrections (Franzen) and Lady Chatterly's Lover, among others. Also grooving on Best American Short Stories 2006, picked up at a yard sale for a dime. Short stories are one of those writing groups I don't eat enough of.

My dad... Thanks all who have shared your concerns and sent good thoughts and prayers. He starts a Phase II clinical trial that may help slow tumor growth. We leave this week to spend some vacation time with him and my mom...

My kids... turn 10 and 7 this week! My little sprouts, my joys, they grow with abundance like our garden.


Peace, Linda

(Garden by Henry, pictures by me)