Photo Courtesy of Unsplash/Maria Kovalets

Fig trees don’t communicate with you.
Fig trees aren’t fat with metaphors.
Fig trees aren’t typographical maps to your future.
Fig trees aren’t fecund with fraught possibilities.
Fig trees aren’t stuffed with story prompts for Type A girls.
Fig trees aren’t soggy with your sorrowful sentiments.
Fig trees aren’t breathing fire at the solar plexus of your enemy.
Fig trees aren’t whispering secrets, trailing their fingers down the backs of those
who brand images of their magisterial beauty on their sacred scarred flesh.

The poet didn’t die for your sins.
She did not perish to become, as her daughter said, your “Sylvia suicide doll.”
She did not place attenuated fingers to typewriters and dip bony knuckles
in inkwells to become the shorthand for self-destruction.
She didn’t warn you about figs rotting at your feet because she believed
the starving crotches of trees were gaping maws fed by lost female potential.

She just wanted to write cool shit.
She wanted to piss and puke all over the lies she also clung to
because a faulty belief system is still a rickety boat.
A rickety boat might kill you but without it drowning is inevitable.
She wanted you to wake from a narcotized haze.
She wanted you to bite the neck of life until it drew blood.
She knew choices were never infinite, and never without a price.

The figs sat on my plate.
I slathered them with honey.
You think I’m going for some sort of metaphor here.
The poet knows it is never as simple as that.
If you live long enough, the figments fade.
I was just hungry, I ate the fruit.
The seeds didn’t multiply inside me.
I was old, parchment paper for skin, but the gnawing had ceased.
I was finally full.

Kelly Murphy is a writer and editor based out of the Midwest. She lives happily with her husband Zach and too many books.

Around this time of year, writers from around the world used to start preparing for NaNoWriMo, an ambitious challenge to write 50,000 words in November (about 1,667 words per day). They created an account on the official site, some joined teams for the social element and peer support, and everyone let friends and family know they’d be pretty busy for the next thirty days. And when it shut down in 2025, writers lost more than a website. They lost a ritual.

While NaNoWriMo is gone, there are some other options for writers who still want the community, challenge, and accountability. Here are several NaNoWriMo alternatives available for anyone missing the ritual.

1. Novel November (ProWritingAid)

Best for: Writers Who Want the Closest Thing to Classic NaNoWriMo

The spiritual successor to NaNoWriMo, Novel November is free and offers workshops and community events. Members can participate in daily sprints and get support from a large community. While a non-profit organized NaNoWriMo, a commercial writing tool sponsors Novel November.

2. Reedsy Novel Sprint

Best for: Writers Who Want Stakes

Unlike classic NaNoWriMo, Reedsy adds a competitive element. In addition to cash prizes, winners can meet literary agents and take their November project to the next level.

3. NaNo 2.0

Best for: Writers Who Miss the Original Community

Community-focused, volunteer-driven, and built by people who wanted to preserve the spirit of NaNoWriMo, NaNo 2.0 feels more like a reunion than a replacement. This option avoids the software-focused approach other platforms use. This means participants can organize on Discord, Facebook, or even in person rather than on the organization’s proprietary platform. You can use any word processor to participate, and you type daily goals manually, not import them from your software.

4. Novel 90 (AutoCrit)

Best for: Adults With Jobs

Let’s be honest, why do you need to finish a novel in thirty days? You’ve got a job, maybe kids, maybe some pets, and you also want to binge a show or two over the holidays. Novel 90 is for writers who laughed when they found out they needed to write 1,667 words a day for NaNoWriMo. Novel 90 has the same goal but lets you complete it over a more relaxed ninety-day block. This program is designed for stability and habit-building rather than intensity.

5. NovelEmber (World Anvil)

Best for: Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers

There’s so much more to writing than, well, writing. And no one knows this better than fantasy and sci-fi writers. NovelEmber has flexible goals to let you focus on worldbuilding. If you want to create maps, family trees, magic systems, or exhaustive timelines, this is the platform for you.

Even if NaNoWriMo disappeared, November is still here. People write because they’re passionate about storytelling and being creative, not because of a website. Still, the community worked and brought people together around a common purpose. Let us know if you participate in any of these NaNoWriMo alternatives this November. And if you do, good luck!

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Day and night,
behind the wheel,
he claws a livelihood—
to sustain,
to save,
to build a nest
in this concrete jungle.

His mate fights
a tug of war
between her heart
and her mind.
She cannot choose him
over the vetted suitor—
unless, like the Ploceidae,
he builds her a home.

Day collapses hollow
as his ribs;
night is a deep-dark well
he stares into without blinking.

His manhood refuses
the luxury of tears—
blurry eyes map the world;
without a reason to live,
he looks for grounds to exit.

Driving his taxi
through the looped anatomy
of this city,
from fare to fare,
he searches on
for the likes of him—
who wear the same mask.

Tushar Sen is a finance professional from Bhoiwada village (India), who also engages in sustained creative and scholarly writing. He is the author of Pandora’s Box, a book of short stories. In 2020, he wrote and produced the short film Zulfi, which screened internationally and received 22 laurels across film festivals. His research papers have been published in the Romanian Astronomical Journal and HRC Journal of Economy & Finance. His poetry has appeared in The Mathematical Intelligencer(Springer-Nature), MENACE, The Orchards Poetry Journal, The Deronda Review, Flora Fiction, New Verse Review, Writers Resist, Ecological Citizen, Afrocritik, The Road Not Taken, Sortes, Lekh, Indian Review, 4LPH4NUM3R1C, SpecPo Verse, Infocalypse Arts & Literary Magazine, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, The Gilded Weathervane, Quill of the Goddess, Rivenery Literary and Military Review.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

Horror, thriller, and suspense writers often look for unsettling imagery to set the mood. An abandoned house, a crooked picture, or crows gathered on a wrought-iron fence definitely establish atmosphere. But what if you could set the tone with just one word, something that implies history and suggests something persists, returns, or lingers just outside the story’s or poem’s frame? Compare these phrases and see what a difference one word can make.

Still – Something refuses to leave

In both examples, the second sentence feels less stable. They imply something was there before and is unresolved.

Again – Something has returned

Use this word to suggest persistence or even obsession.

Once – Imply former reality

The first sentence just tells us what the building used to be. The second begs the questions, “What is it now?” and “What happened?” This engages the reader, nudging them to compare past and present.

Remained – Tells us something has outlasted its context

What happened to the others? Why didn’t it happen to this one? When set up the right way, this word is powerfully suggestive.

Writing Challenge

Write a sentence. Then, use one of the words from above to make it unsettling. Don’t use ghosts, violence, or any other clichés. Leave your original and modified sentences in the comments and show us how creepy you can get with just one word.

I arrive early for the Tuesday session and make a beeline for the coffee, which sits in a clear pot on a cheap wooden table beside a stack of styrofoam cups. I’m surprised styrofoam cups are still a thing. Like, aren’t they bad for the environment? Whatever. I have more immediate things to worry about.

A woman with thick, dark lashes who looks young enough to be my daughter (if I had one) stands beside me, smiles shyly and says, “The coffee is the best part about coming here.”

She is beautiful in that effortless way that young people are- shiny hair, glowing skin, white teeth. I bet she has defined abs, too. She’s wearing a white ribbed tank top and cut off jean shorts and looks so cool and chic that I feel a pang of envy even though I know I shouldn’t. She’s way too young to be here. Her nail polish is blue (on fingers and toes) and she has Birkenstocks on her feet. I hate Birkenstocks, but on her they look amazing.

I take a sip of the coffee. It tastes surprisingly good.

“What do you think they put in it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she laughs. “Maybe it’s a drug or a secret addictive ingredient, to get us to keep coming back? Want to sit?”

I nod and follow her to the plastic chairs, arranged in a semi-circle.

“Here?” She motions to two seats close to the center.

“Perfect,” I say. I don’t want to be on the end since today is a “Sharing Day” and I certainly don’t feel like going first. No fucking way. This isn’t my first rodeo.

We sit and sip our coffees in silence waiting for the others. I count twenty chairs, which includes one for the leader of our “Healing Circle” (her words, not mine). They fill up slowly; four remain empty. I don’t make an effort to learn the names of the women here, but some do stick. Like Evelyn. Evelyn loves to share and always cries her eyes out. Where is Evelyn, I wonder. I don’t miss her, but I notice her absence. It’s hard not to. She’s someone who isn’t afraid to take up space and there’s something kind of inspiring about that. I don’t take it for granted that I am able to attend on a regular basis. That’s the thing about being married to a vainglorious egomaniac; they actually stop caring where you are after a while.

“Welcome, everyone. Let’s begin,” says our leader. Her name is Joanne. She looks like a Joanne. The name suits her completely. She has kind, blue eyes and changes her hair color often. Today it’s a luminous shade of copper. I don’t actually mind it.

“So… it looks like we have a few new people joining us. Welcome. We are so glad you are here and hope you find our Healing Circle comforting and useful.”

I know she isn’t talking to me and I look around at the fresh faces. Joanne beams at each new attendee. She genuinely is a kind soul. An angel of sorts.

We are a real mix of ages and it’s clear we come from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. The common thread? All damaged souls. Every one of us. I look down at my Prada sneakers reflecting on my financial privilege for a brief moment. The shoes don’t look fancy at all, but they cost me $750. I think it’s worth mentioning that they are like five years old, but I still feel cool wearing them. When you think about it, you realize how money is like a blessing and a curse at the same time. It’s part of the reason I’m here. I’m so dependent on having it, which has really screwed me up.

I raise my eyes and look around at each individual in this “circle” which is technically a semi-circle. Women who probably don’t have much in common except our trauma. It is our pain which connects us. Sadly, it is binding. Some of us show visible signs like bruising, burns, or red marks. And some of us are covered in scars (physical or emotional) that we work desperately hard to conceal behind a fresh blowout, name brands and pounds of makeup. I am one of those people, but I worry that I’m not fooling anyone. Not here. Probably not out in the real world either. So put together on the outside, but the eyes, the windows to our soul, disclose a different story. I know mine do and I’m terrified that people can see what is behind the transparent glass pane. I have to remind myself that humans tend to be too self-absorbed to notice much. Look carefully at a victim of abuse and you will find a vacancy, a disconnect. The body goes on autopilot and separates itself from the mind. It’s a coping mechanism we have utilized many times.

The sharing begins with a blonde woman named Mary. Her tone is soft, which doesn’t match her exterior. Her skin has a leathery quality and she has colorful tattoos on her muscular arms. I wonder if they mean anything. Her ex forced her into degrading sexual acts and then told her to eat from the dog’s bowl. It’s a terrible story, but sadly, one I have heard before. I space out. My mind wanders and I keep thinking about how I don’t look the part. I feel like an impostor.

English was always my favorite subject; I didn’t even mind writing the exams. I remember how my peers would panic because of the “Sight Passage” section since it required the use of literary skills we supposedly honed throughout the year. I’m not sure when I discovered that the cookie cutter answer of appearance versus reality almost always worked. Like, if it wasn’t clear what the poem was about or the thesis in the article was difficult to pinpoint, all you had to say was how appearance versus reality applied and literally make something up on the spot. That’s how universal the concept is. Look beneath the surface and there is always something lurking there. Things that appear too good to be true almost always are. Little did I know that appearance versus reality would become the story of my life. A story that I finally feel ready to share. Note the use of the word share. Share has different connotations than tell. It suggests a much more intimate narrative. It gives the impression that what the narrator is going to reveal will create a personal bond between them and the reader. Stay and you will become privy to this twisted tale, raw and almost primal in nature.

I look up. It’s my turn to open up to the group. The moment couldn’t be better. I am so ready. Joanne gives me an encouraging nod. I take a breath. I have rehearsed this part.

“Once upon a time, a pretty princess fell hard for a chivalrous and charismatic knight. This charming young man promised to take care of the idealistic young woman and provide her with the most rich and wonderful life. Twenty years later, upon the removal of her rose colored glasses… she killed him in cold blood.”

There is silence. Everyone stares. They look confused. I am confusing to them. They think this is a sick joke. But it is the truth. At least, it’s my version of it. The how is unimportant. The fact that the crime happened is key. A few hours ago to be exact. All I wanted was to take a shower after the deed was done. I needed to feel clean. I took a leisurely one. I used a conditioning treatment on the ends of my hair. I did not rush the process. After toweling off, it was easy to fall back into my post shower routine. The only sound in the house besides the Dyson blow dryer was a soft gurgling of blood coming from his open mouth. I welcomed it. I decided to put rollers in to give some much needed volume to my strands. I applied my rigorous skin care routine and then added foundation, bronzer and blush. I put on a pair of designer jeans, an oversized black V neck sweater, my Tiffany bracelet and then I left him to bleed out and rot in the upstairs hall. His blood stained the tile I used to find so pretty. I got into my silver Land Rover, the one I had begged him for last month, and drove here.

The best thing about these sessions (besides the coffee) is that no one in this room says ignorant things like, “Oh honey, you need to leave him” as if it’s the easiest and most logical solution in the world. It’s very tempting to give advice when you have no fucking clue, but everyone here knows that life is textured and complex. We don’t judge. We only support.

And this is why I needed to show my face one last time. I stopped asking “Why me?’ years ago. Now the question is: why not me? No one deserves to be mistreated, especially by someone they once loved and trusted. It is the most corrosive form of betrayal and all too common. The more I starved, the tinier I became; the less space I occupied, the more he loved me. Until my need to replace the dull ache in my head, the weakness in my toned limbs, and the swelling in my stomach became too piercing. I turned the location of my phone off. I drove to the Drive Thru. I paid cash for two large burgers, a chocolate shake and cheese fries. I sat alone in my car in the parking lot and binged on the greasy food. I felt my hunger abate as I licked the sauce that trickled from my blushed lips. I satiated the beast within. A new energy propelled me forward.

Before Joanne can process my words or say anything calming to the group, the police are at the door. The timing is absolute perfection. Their clumsy presence is actually more disruptive than my confession. I face the officers head on, one male, the other female. I bat my expensive eyelashes at them and smirk. I don’t feel any fear. This is exactly how I expected things to play out. The handcuffs feel heavy on my bony wrists. The cop car smells like McDonalds’s, coffee and rotten fruit. I know the drive to the station is about fifteen minutes. I close my eyes. My only regret is I should have applied a fresh coat of plumping lip gloss before I lost the use of my hands. Live and learn.

Jodi Nathanson has been a High School English Teacher for over 20 years and currently teaches at Tanenbaum CHAT in Toronto, Canada. She received her degrees from Queen’s University, where she majored in English, minored in Drama and graduated from the University’s Concurrent Education program. Jodi holds an English Honours Specialist from OISE and has also filled the role of Co-Head of the English Department at Tanenbaum CHAT. Her articles have appeared in Canadian Teacher Magazine, The Ottawa Citizen, The Montreal Gazette, The Vancouver Sun, Wilderness House Literary Review, British Shakespeare Association’s Teaching Shakespeare Magazine, Recovering the Self; A Journal of Hope and Healing, The Bangalore Review and Jewish Women of Words. Jodi lives with her husband, 2 daughters, a dog and a cat in Toronto. She loves reading (especially the classics) and believes strongly in the power of words.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

Photo courtesy of Kelsey Booth/Unsplash

The apartment smelled like antiseptic and cigarettes, old Newport smoke pressed into walls yellowed by bad air, cheap heat, and past-due notices. 43rd Street Black jolted upright at 2 a.m. to the sound he’d been dreading. Thelma fighting for air.

“Baby.” He grabbed her hand. Clammy. Cold. Her eyes were wide with fear, her chest lifting in short, useless pulls. “Hold on. I got you.”

He snatched his phone off the nightstand and called Tasha down the hall. She came fast: nursing student, house shoes, a small bag she’d started carrying without being asked. She didn’t look surprised anymore, and that scared Black more than anything else in the room.

While Tasha worked, he stood against the wall, arms crossed tight over his chest, watching the woman he loved fight to do the one thing a body should do without thinking.

Slowly, Thelma’s breathing steadied. Her eyes drifted closed.

Tasha turned to him. “She’s stable enough for now.”

“She gonna be okay?”

Tasha put a hand on his shoulder. The kind of touch that doesn’t lie. “It ain’t gonna get better, Black.”

He nodded. He’d known. Hearing it said out loud made pretending feel stupid.

After Tasha left, he sat in the kitchen under a flickering bulb. Bills sat beside Thelma’s medicine like they had the same doctor. Seven pill bottles, three disconnect notices, one cracked tray. He lit a Newport and let the smoke fill his lungs until the shaking in his hands slowed down.

He found the shoebox on the shelf where it always sat, lid dusty, held shut by the weight of everything inside it.

Three photos. That was all he let himself look at.

First: Thelma at twenty-something, holding a tray of butter cookies fresh from the oven, kids crowding her with fistfuls of pennies. That smile could light a city block. She’d baked through the night, sold from the laundromat on Benny’s corner, kept the lights on and their stomachs full of sugar, hustle, and pure refusal to quit.

Second: himself on 79th, Newport between his lips, selling squares to anybody who’d stop. He’d told himself it was temporary. Just until something better came through.

That was twenty years ago.

Third: the two of them at a block party, red cups raised, her headwrap bright as Sunday, him grinning like the world owed him nothing because he already had everything. They’d talked big that night.

One day we gone have our own spot. Real storefront. Your name above the door.

One day never came.

He put the lid back on the box and set it down.

He thought she was asleep when he came back to sit beside her. Her breathing was slow, shallow, the room quiet except for the street noise leaking through the window.

He didn’t plan to say it. It just came out, low and ragged, into the dark.

“I’m sorry, Greasey.” He pressed his forehead against her hand. “I promised you everything and gave you nothing. Told you one day so many times I started believing it myself. You deserved a real life. Your name on something that mattered.”

His voice cracked.

“You paid for every broken thing I never fixed. That ain’t right. That was never right.”

The room held the words.

Then her fingers brushed his wrist.

Barely a touch. Quiet. Sharp. Enough.

Morning came gray and still. Black had fallen asleep in the chair, and when he opened his eyes, Thelma was watching him.

Weak, yes. But watching. Alert in that way she got when she had something to say and meant to say it.

“I heard you last night, Black,” she said. “Every word.”

He opened his mouth.

She stopped him with a look.

“Top drawer. The key.”

He crossed to the dresser. A small brass key was taped to a folded square of paper with an address written in her handwriting, a street three blocks east.

“Closet corner,” she said. “Pull up the board.”

He found it. A metal box, edges worn, lock scratched from years of being hidden and reopened and hidden again. He brought it to her. She nodded for him to open it.

Rubber-banded stacks. Tens and twenties and fives, some soft with age. More money than he’d expected. More than he could count without his hands starting to shake.

“Every cookie,” she said. “Every candy. Dollar by dollar.” She stopped to catch her breath. “Didn’t tell you because I knew you’d use it. Rent. Lights. Something that would disappear.”

Her eyes found his.

“This don’t disappear.”

“Thelma—”

“I chose you.” Her voice was thin, but it did not bend. “Every hard day, I still chose you. Don’t you sit here and tell me I paid for your mistakes. You were never a mistake.”

She reached for his hand.

“Love don’t count dollars, Black.”

He couldn’t speak.

“That address,” she said. “Talked to the man two years ago. Paid him little by little to hold it.”

A slow breath.

“Use it. Put my name on it. Sell them butter cookies out the front window.”

She gripped his hand tighter than he thought she still could.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

His voice broke on both words.

She settled back against the pillow. Something eased in her face, like a burden finally set down.

“We saved each other,” she said. “Don’t you forget that.”

She died two days later, just before dawn, her hand in his.

Neighbors brought food: foil pans of greens and rice, a sweet potato pie left outside the door. Black moved through the apartment like a man learning how to be in rooms again.

He found her note tucked inside the metal box, under the last stack of bills. Short. Her handwriting small and careful.

The address. You know what to do. I’ll be right there with you. — Greasey

He folded it and put it in his shirt pocket, against his chest.

Three weeks later, on a cold Thursday morning, Black stood in front of a narrow storefront three blocks east. Paint peeling. Windows filmed with dust. A bus groaned past behind him, and somewhere down the block, a gate rattled open.

He looked at the key in his hand.

Then at the door.

He put the key in.

The lock turned.

Dust rose in the empty room, caught in a bar of morning light from the window. The floors were worn wood. The walls were bare. It needed everything.

But for one impossible second, standing in the threshold, he smelled butter, sugar, and vanilla: warm and clean and real as any memory he’d ever carried.

Black stepped inside.

“This for you, Greasey,” he whispered. “Always been for you.”

Gregory Lamont Brown is a Chicago writer, publisher, and creative storyteller whose work explores love, loss, survival, faith, and the emotional cost of deferred dreams. His short story “Love Don’t Count Dollars” draws from the rhythms, grit, humor, and heartbreak of South Side life, centering ordinary people who carry extraordinary tenderness through poverty, illness, regret, and hope. Brown is the founder of D & G Publishing and author of the gothic fantasy novel Elara’s Silence. He also writes essays, articles, music concepts, digital magazine features, and community-centered creative work. A U.S. Army veteran and longtime public servant, Brown brings lived experience, cultural memory, and emotional honesty to stories about people who are too often overlooked. He believes powerful fiction should entertain, wound, heal, and leave readers carrying something human after the last line. His storytelling is rooted in Chicago, memory, grief, resilience, and stubborn, necessary hope.

My day job is a mix of science writing and marketing. It’s hard to describe products or processes without adjectives and adverbs, yet, like in poetry and fiction writing classes, we’re told that’s the goal. However, if we accept a community ban on adverbs and adjectives, we reduce our parts of speech by 25%. Here’s what I have learned about these cursed words, when to use them, and why using them too often hurts your writing.

When they hurt your writing

1. When there is a stronger verb or noun.

Why run quickly when you can sprint? Are you more of a hero for braving a strong wind or a hurricane? When your words just decorate, they dilute. This is especially true in poetry and short stories, which thrive on word economy.

2. Redundancy

Watch out for this one. Sunshine is bright. Whispers are quiet. Usually there’s no reason to say, “The bright sunshine,” or “she whispered quietly.”

3. Misattribution

“These yellow hats block 50% more sun” doesn’t tell the readers important connecting information. It may make them think the hats’ color makes the difference. If the real reason is that they have wider brims, a better description such as “wide-brimmed hats block 50% more sun” avoids confusion and misattribution. It may be that all (or even only) your yellow hats have wide brims, but now you’re focusing on the important connective tissue. And, although you’re still using an adjective, you’re avoiding confusion by using a sensible one.

When they can help your writing

1. When the noun or verb is too general

There are lots of houses on your block. Which one is the haunted one? Oh, the sagging house. I will avoid that one then.

2. For evoking atmosphere or sensory detail

This is probably where most of the pushback comes from when people are told not to use descriptors. After all, isn’t setting tone and putting a picture in the reader’s mind a part of the author’s job? Yes, it can be—especially if the detail is unexpected. Tell me that there was an ashen sky or a dirty drinking glass. If it stands out, describe it.

3. To control pacing

Ursula K. LeGuin, John Carpenter, and others have talked about the lyrical value of writing. You write for the ear. Adverbs and adjectives can even out sentences or paragraphs, making your writing less choppy and helping immerse the reader. Read out loud, listen, and if you’ve got disjointed sentences that interrupt the flow, it’s ok to draw things out with some decorative descriptors.

Tell us what you think about the whole adjectives-and-adverbs debate in the comments!

Minor Otology

A flower is growing out of my ear.
I can’t explain it. I’ve entered my own little myth,
the man with the flower growing out of his ear.
He has the voice of a bird and an Amish beard.

Ah, such music in my other ear,
the right one,devoid of flora. Effervescent fusion riffs
generated by a musical algorithm synched
with my biorhythms, brainwaves, and endolymph ...

Palmettos appear at the end of the dream
of the street, with its crumbled sidewalks and weeds.
Puddles from an afternoon shower mirror
the clearing sky and streaking bright birds.

I’ve tasted the otherness of being here, in my head,
and I’d prefer a mezzanine in a cool art deco
building, shaking sand out of my sandals and robe
But the pencil is my paint brush and piano.

Others see me like an ancient statue, stately
but with a busted nose and a coat of dust.
How does this make me feel, better or shitty?
This isn’t the warm happy place it’s cut out to be.

See the flamingo? Over there, by the alligator.
Pink is on the menu this afternoon, it appears.
Among the tormented, I barely hold water.
But I plan to be dull as a coma in the coming years.

A Tall Tall Man

You stood there like a man on a man
on stilts, ginger-haired, piano-toothed,
dressed in a forest green suit,
tall as a maple tree, and puffing a cigarette.
The road is long and I have met many
singular people on my walks
but no one else compares.

How tall are you, friend?

Tall enough to be your canopy, your sky.

I didn’t know whether to laugh
at your ready identification,
your intentions unclear. Then I heard
the squawking of a hawk,
but you blocked my view of it passing.

How far can you see? I asked

Very far and wide, you stated.
Across several time zones.

A flock of sheep came trundling by,
wooly and smelling of cheese.
The shepherd followed swinging
a stick and shielding the sun
from his eyes to regard you.

You are tall tall man, he said.

Yes I am, you said, taking a last haul
of your cigarette and tossing it aside.

The shepherd and the sheep moved on,
glancing back now and then in wonder.
Maybe the shepherd would tell his people
what he saw; maybe he would dream
of you, casting your long shadow.

Sometimes I get carried away.
The bewildering variety of people
never ceases to amaze. An inevitable
question clanged from my lips.

Did you ever play basketball?

You laughed and lit another cigarette.

Ask me if I ever was the Statue of Liberty.
Ask me if I ever was the Tokyo Skytree,
the CN Tower, Millau Viaduct, Kingda Ka,
Burj Khalifa, the Great Pyramid of Giza,
or Hyperion, the tallest tree in California.

O me of little mind! And smaller
imagination! O you, freakishly tall man
telling me in your way to go fuck myself.

I actually imagine I will see you again.
An air of inevitability lingers.
If not, I will climb the closest mountain
and seek out your ginger head,
bobbing purposelessly above the clouds.

Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada. Recent work appears in Cafe Irreal, Heavy Feather Review and Eclectica.

Write City E-zine is currently open to submissions.

Click here for details

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

Carmen Broussard stepped from her back porch into the yard. “Shoo-fly!” she called. “C’mon, kitty. C’mon home.” A shrill gust, a stiff southeasterly, threw her words back in her face.

On the path to the machine shed she met Joel, wheeling the portable generator. He wiped his brow beneath his LSU baseball cap, breathless from effort and excitement. “Won’t be long now. Look at that sky!”

She had: gun metal clouds eerily backlighted by a jaundiced mother-of-pearl glow. “Yeah, a real Kodak moment. Did you see Shoo-fly out there? I meant to bring her in this morning.”

“She’s probably out mousing. Don’t worry. If she don’t make it home, she’ll hole up in someone’s barn. She’ll be safe enough.”

“Oh. Well, if it’s safe enough for her … I’ll get your pillow.”

Joel sighed. “She’s been through these storms before, babe.”

Unlike her? Was that what he meant? Carmen eyed the generator. “I don’t trust those things. That woman in Pecan Island died from carbon monoxide from one of those.”

“That’s ’cause she didn’t vent it right. You’ll be glad for it if we lose power for more than a few days. We’ll need it for the well pump.”

Some choice – no water or dying in your sleep.

She retreated to her office off the kitchen and tried to grade papers, but every squally gust “oohed” a warning: Here she comes, Tropical Storm Andrea. Carmen wished she would hurry. For days, news reports had tracked her advance – which neighbors blithely plotted on longitude-latitude maps, a favorite pastime around there – updated hourly since Andrea entered the Gulf. Even now, after making landfall, she still held half the parish captive in that broad arc of possible pathways called the cone of uncertainty.

A meaningless term, Carmen thought. Was there any such thing as a cone of certainty? Yet she had lived in one – until two years ago, when she came from Milwaukee for a ten-month stint with Americorp, tutoring kids to earn money for grad school. Until the day she asked the FFA advisor to suggest a speaker for her Earth Day program. He suggested Joel (he stressed each syllable equally, as if it were two names) Broussard, the Cooperative Extension Service soil conservationist. That was new to her as well: soil conservationists weren’t commonly encountered in the hometown of Harley-Davidson and Miller Beer, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin. But she liked this one, with a homespun gentility as charming as the name, and a love for the land as deep as his French Creole roots. Proud, boyish, he showed her this little homestead, planted with native wildflowers, expounding on erosion control and biodiversity and making her smell and taste three different kinds of mint.

So she traded studying educational psychology in grad school for teaching social studies in a six-room junior high; the herb garden on the apartment balcony for a backyard garden of cayenne peppers and mirliton squash. And for hair-trigger fire ants and John Deere mowers with minds of their own. And the cone of uncertainty widened.

And now for tropical storms that swept away unsuspecting cats.

Suddenly Carmen realized how the room had grown dark. Fat raindrops splattered the window. Outside, even the sturdy bull thistle shivered before the unseen might of a 30-mile-an-hour wind. She recited the words on Shoo-fly’s ID tag: “St. Francis, protect my cat.”

She tried to occupy herself with dinner. She’d been working at using up the perishables in case they lost electricity. Now she surveyed the freezer. Gone were the Zatarain’s Chicken Gumbo and their neighbor Odile’s crawfish macque choux. Remaining, the catfish Joel’s father had caught in Lake Chicot (and cleaned, fortunately – she still couldn’t bring herself to gut a fish). She put it in the microwave and punched “defrost.”

The kitchen door jangled. Joel appeared, hair glistening with rain, eyes with excitement. “Coming down good now.”

Oh joy. “Hope you feel like fish tonight.”

“Sure. Maybe a cou’billion?”

Carmen scowled. “Doesn’t anyone here know how to do anything with fish besides fry it and make cou’billion? I wonder if Shoo-fly is back.”

“Too late to look now,” Joel said.

The finality of the words scared her, spurred her. “Not yet.”

She was out the door before he could reply. Rain pelted her like a swarm of flies. Shielding her eyes, she peered beneath the house and under the azaleas, calling. She jogged across the yard to the carport, looked under the Jeep Wrangler, then headed for the shed. The gale sideswiped her. She inhaled choking sheets of rain. Carmen sensed herself drifting, disoriented, lost in her own back yard.

A presence rushed alongside her. Joel held his windbreaker over their heads. Together they bent into the storm, like a team of plow horses, until they reached the shed. The wind flung the door in Joel’s face when he undid the latch. He wrenched it back and slammed it shut behind them.

“Are you crazy?”

That was one explanation she hadn’t thought of. “She’s out there all alone.”

“Trust me, cher. She’ll find someplace safe. She’s got more sense than you.”

“But she doesn’t know. She could hide in a drainpipe and drown, or get trapped when one of these old barns blows down. All the safe places are dangerous. Am I the only one around here who sees that?”

Joel hugged her and pressed his cheek into her hair. “She’ll be all right.”

Carmen tried to pull away, but fighting the storm had worn her out. She sagged against him, finding reprieve. Peace flowed like electricity from one soaked T-shirt to another, surging, spreading through her with each deep, soothing breath.

She thought of the woman in Pecan Island. If only she’d had someone like Joel, who knew about venting generators. It might have saved her. Finally she murmured, “We’re gonna get trapped when this old barn blows down.”

“Eh bien. If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.”

Carmen smiled – her first all day.

They sprinted for the back porch. Through half-opened eyes, Carmen glimpsed personal battle sites: the gully where she tipped the John Deere; the clothesline where she ran afoul of the fire ants. Guideposts, marking the way.

And a familiar calico shape, huddled against the back door.

They ate the catfish by candlelight, in the hallway, plates balanced on their laps; they ate by hand, lifting flesh off the spine, picking pin bones with their fingers. Shoo-fly, fish-stuffed, groomed herself with feline meticulousness. Outside, dusk fell like an eclipse. The weather radio brought reports of power outages, road closures, funnel cloud sightings.

“That was good fish,” Joel said.

“Wild caught,” Carmen said. “It’s their diet. Farm-raised fish are all fed the same thing, not what they’re are supposed to eat. Same food, same time, same place. They don’t taste like much of anything.”

“Makes me feel kinda sorry for them.”

Carmen licked butter and homegrown lemon mint off her fingers. “Me too.”

A self-confessed cat lady, Christine Venzon was a foods textbook editor before turning her hand to fiction and essays. Her nonfiction and short stories have been published in general interest magazines, literary anthologies, and on HowStuffWorks.com, on subjects ranging from dating tips for young men to embarrassing celebrity tattoos to the best places for a canoeing adventure. She was runner-up in the Saturday Evening Post’s Great American Fiction Contest in 2014 and 2017, with an honorable mention in 2021. She lives and writes in Illinois.

Write City E-zine is currently open to submissions.

Click here for details

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at the Printer’s Row - September 12-13 and at our LiveLit Event October 10 at the Sulzer Regional Library.

Do all of your characters sound the same? If you didn’t have attributions, would it be hard to know who was speaking? Do your characters reveal themselves through their words? Here are five ways to change up your dialogue to make characters sound unique or just to make it more clear what is going through their mind regardless of what they actually say.

Justify the emotion, don’t answer the question

If you’ve got a good ear for dialogue, you’ve probably noticed this one before. People in intense situations often don’t answer the questions they’re asked. Instead, they answer by justifying how they feel. For example, instead of this exchange:

Have them say:

This cuts right to the chase, keeps the story moving, and sounds more natural than a clippity-clop back-and-forth question-answer exchange.

Frame requests as observations

Instead of:

Have your character observe:

Stating an observation can achieve the desired response.

Use imperatives.

Instead of having your character say:

Try:

In this example, it makes it sound like the person on the receiving end screwed up, whereas the first example makes it sound like they just need to do some light home repair.

Replace explanations with assumptions

When time is a factor, and it usually is in a story, people tend not to explain their step-by-step reasoning.

Instead of:

Have them say:

People assume others in the same situation can see what they see and jump to the same conclusion.

Share

Reveal your characters’ priorities

When people are in crisis (or drunk), they drop their filter. This is a great time to show what they really value.

Instead of saying:

Have individual characters reveal what they care about most:

Let us know in the comments if you have any other examples of how to differentiate dialogue!

the salt we were
the salt we are
and the salt we are becoming

the day you rose fully
formed from the sea
and I took you in my arms

our mouths met
and we exchanged internal oceans

the salt we are

injured animals lapping
at the dead sea
between your legs
to replenish their blood loss

mineral deposits at the shore,
magic circles of protection
that I break with my tongue

our pasts have always been so

the salt we were
when Orpheus threw a glance
over his left shoulder
for luck

and Lot’s wife checking
what he’s looking at

dry brine circles around your eyes
that I break with my lips

the salt we are
becoming, thoroughly unlike bodies
of water

crusted on such alabaster exomoon
gleam, undimmed by human tears

and we’re going to ride
these sudden white pillars
to find out

if their mare nectaris
and sinus roris
taste like yours

Josh Pearce has published more than 200 stories, reviews, and poems in a wide variety of magazines, including Analog, Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Bourbon Penn, Clarkesworld, Diabolical Plots, Interzone, Kaleidotrope, Locus, Strange Horizons, Trollbreath, Weird Horror, and elsewhere. Find more of his writing at fictionaljosh.com.

Write City E-zine is currently open to submissions.

Click here for details

Telecaster

Lost in the dimly lit
blackness of a backwater
bar, abandoned

by its owner, a guitar
gently wept. Though she
had forgotten the sound

of blues, they were
all she played, alone in
a fraying and forgotten case.

Her pearly white pickguard
was obscured by a mud
colored mess of old blood,

as if when played
the sound bled out
and dripped down the strings –

though she had no strings,
except one: a mangled
rusted wreck. When my

fingers found her, she
trembled, her frets
fumbling, having forgotten

a loving touch. But when
cleaned and restrung, she
recalled every song she’d ever sung,

an old beauty emerging:
alder, maple, chrome,
and a tone so supple

you’d never know she once
lived alone. Like a sinner
once mute but who now can sing

she asks: what if this harmony
sleeps beneath the surface
of all abandoned things?

Doldrums

She didn’t feel happy anymore
but pain had abandoned her too, so she stumbled,
numb and dazed, through days that fumbled their way
into mourning. Mostly, she said, her ship

slept adrift in an endless lull of seas.
I told her that seas periodically freeze,
that trade winds would descend again
to push her toward the shore.

You’re wrong. These doldrums run deeper
than your winds or words can cure.

Each day passes the same: ships sail by
where the horizon crashes against the sky
while she grows sun-blind, her mouth silent and dry,

cursing the winds as time passes her by.

Michel Lee Garrett (”me-shell” // she/her) is a crime fiction author and Pennsyltucky poet. She has worked as an investigative journalist, the communications director of a U.S. Senate campaign, the chair of an advocacy focused LGBT+ non-profit, and the speechwriter to the president of a major research university. She is the author of the crime fiction collection “Born a Ramblin’ Man: Fourteen Tales of Thieves, Killers, Vagabonds, and Lost Souls“ (Shotgun Honey, 2025) and the editor of “Transcendent Love: True Stories of T4T Relationships“ (forthcoming, JKP Books, 2027), the first book from a major publisher to chronicle relationships between trans people in their own words. When she’s not writing, Michel can be found at local punk shows, cheering at women’s hockey games, and rooting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. She lives in Central Pennsylvania with her wife and two kids. Find her online at leegarrett.net.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at the Printer’s Row - September 12-13 and at our LiveLit Event October 10 at the Sulzer Regional Library.

Writers are always on the hunt for inspiration, but finding exciting people, places, or ideas doesn’t require exotic travel or epic adventures. Your neighborhood contains enough characters, conflicts, and story-worthy details to supply a career’s worth of ideas. Ironically, other writers may be traveling to places like where you live seeking inspiration, while you’re looking to escape to somewhere else. Here are some tips and exercises on how to turn your neighborhood into the setting for your next poem or story.

1. Become an Observant Walker

You probably walk more than you realize. Next time you step out of your chair, house, or car, pay attention to the architecture, gardens, and routines going on around you. Look for things you’ve passed hundreds of times without noticing.

Prompt: Describe a block of your neighborhood using all your senses.

2. Eavesdrop

Conversations happen all around you, whether you’re in a café, park, store, or just walking down the street. An overheard snippet can spark a character idea or even an entire plot.

Prompt: Write a story based on something you overhear today.

3. Explore Local History

Whether it’s a century-old house or a recently built storefront, every building around you has a story. Who moved in? Who was displaced? Check out historical landmarks, local museums, old newspapers, or records from community meetings for rich material.

Prompt: Imagine someone who lived in your home thirty years ago. What would surprise them about the neighborhood today? How would they feel about the changes?

4. Look for Characters Around You

Right across the alley from me is a retired handyman who is building a boat in his backyard. Down the street is a woman who my wife and I call Yogurt Cough. And one day, Yogurt Cough showed my wife and me the way to another neighbor’s yard where they keep a giant tortoise and some chickens. Real people can inspire characters. Don’t feel like you have to copy them exactly either. Smoosh personalities together to create someone new.

Prompt: Write about a character inspired by someone you see regularly but haven’t met.

If you do any of these exercises, or if you just have an interesting person or feature in your neighborhood, let us know in the comments!

On Monday, Marcus’s company made coffee. On Tuesday, it disrupted coffee. By Wednesday, they had pivoted out of coffee. They were building the infrastructure layer for the future of human hydration.

The investors loved it. The investors loved everything except the coffee, which had been, too literal.

“We were solving the wrong problem,” said Ryan, the CEO, at the all-hands.

Ryan was twenty-six, backed by venture funds, brash, and too cock-sure of his spin doctoring skills. He had the unblinking confidence of a man who had never been wrong long enough to notice, never staying long with a venture.

“We weren’t a coffee company. We were a warm-liquid delivery system that must scale.”

Marcus, who had joined as Head of Coffee, agreed. His title was now Head of Thermal Experience. He had the same desk. The coffee machine was still in the kitchen. Someone had put a sticky note on it that said legacy infrastructure. No one touched it.

The pivot required a rebrand. The company had been called Brewer. Now it was called Flo, with a registered trademark and a logo that looked like a water droplet that was uncertain about where to go.

A branding consultant named Derek presented seventeen logo options in a meeting that lasted four hours. The one they chose was option fourteen. Options one through thirteen were too reminiscent of existing hydration brands.

Option fifteen had tested poorly with Gen Z. Options sixteen and seventeen were described as “directional” which Marcus understood to mean wrong but expensive.

“Does the logo say water to you?” Ryan asked the room.

“It says movement,”; “It says trust,” “It says we paid Derek a lot of money,” Marcus did not say this aloud.

Flo launched a waitlist. This was standard. You could not simply offer Americans a product. You had to make them wait for it, briefly, create a splash, build word-of-mouth or WoW. They would then feel they had earned it.

Twelve thousand people joined the waitlist for an app that would remind them to drink water. Many of the signups were bots. Marcus understood that this was also something their bodies already did, through the sensation of thirst, for free.

Ryan explained, “The body’s notification system lacked one-on-one personalization.”

The app launched in beta. It sent users a push notification every forty minutes that said Hey! Time to hydrate, [Name].

Users could log their water intake in ounces, milliliters, or “sips.” Actually, sips was not a standard unit of measurement. But it had tested very well in UX feedback loops.

There was a streak system, a leaderboard, and badges. Marcus had a badge that said HYDRATION PIONEER, which he had received for drinking eight glasses of water. His doctor had been telling him to do for years, at no charge.

The Series A closed at forty million dollars.

“We’re not a hydration app,” Hanso, the innovation head said, at the press announcement.

“We’re a behavior change platform operating at the intersection of wellness, accountability, and joy.”

A journalist asked what that meant.

Ryan smiled. “It means we’re just getting started.”

Marcus went to the kitchen. The legacy coffee machine sat in the corner, patient and warm, asking nothing of anyone. He made a cup. It was good. It had always been good. That, he now understood, had been the problem.

His phone buzzed. Hey Marcus! Time to hydrate :)

He drank his coffee.

The badge did not come.

Based in Pune, India, Shashi Kadapa is the managing editor of ActiveMuse, a journal of literature. His stories across multiple genres are published in more than 45 US and UK anthologies. Winner of the IHRAF, NY short story prize, he has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Award.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at the Printer’s Row - September 12-13 and at our LiveLit Event October 10 at the Sulzer Regional Library.

^{Photo Courtesy of Ruben ValenZuela/UnSplash}

REPEAT AFTER ME

I am one of habit’s

most reliable creatures:

the latte - venti -

Starbucks -

breathing its steam.

This was me yesterday.

It will be me tomorrow.

I can bring you up to date

on the poem I wrote this morning.

And fill you in on the excitement

of tonight’s big event.

But how do I describe

the routine?

How can I make

it sound interesting

when it has no purpose

other than repetition.

I don’t know.

And the cup doesn’t seem to mind.

It warms my hands today

just like it always does

and always will.

And the light gilds the rim

of the same plastic lid.

And I could tell you about the muffin.

But I don’t want to bore you.

Oh well. I get it.

Repetition is not purpose.

But it is a kind of faith

that I will meet myself again

in this familiar moment,

that the steam rising

from a venti latte

can be its own quiet astonishment -

a little ceremony of staying alive

in the only life I have,

which is this one,

again and again.

MARKING PAPERS

To the teacher, dusk is

three parts geometry

to one part black coffee

Alone in the schoolroom,

he hunches over the stack

of finished test papers,

which amount to no more

than a landfill of half-baked logic.

He wonders why no one

grasps the concepts

that he has relentlessly

etched in chalk-dust hieroglyphs

on the blackboard.

Judging by their answers,

his students figure

the circumference was never round,

that a straight line wants nothing more

than to bend a little

and a square has

no business being equal-sided.

If their reasoning was a dog

it would be put down.

When he’s done with the marking,

he feels himself reduced to a lemma

that no one bothers to cite,

a factoid exiled to the footnotes

of their pervading dumbness.

So his mind creates

this convex polygon

for a temporary refuge

Its blessed boundaries

give such a good impression

of something that obeys the rules.

Here, he can still believe

in sense, in certainties,

be comforted by a place

whose angles only he can know.

INITIATION

My girlfriend – let’s call her Beth -

and her mother – Josie - went to get Chinese.

I stayed behind.

“You boys needs to get to know each other,”

said Josie.

We boys were me,

sitting nervously in a parlor chair,

and this guy Russ,

Josie’s latest special friend,

who passed the time,

when he wasn’t nodding off,

by giving me the onceover.

He was a carpenter,

was having problem finding work,

and took delight in showing off

the devil tattoo that stretched from elbow

to the wrist of his right hand.

Beth, in her “don’t repeat this” voice,

warned me how violent Russ could be,

that the purple patch under Josie’s left eye

wasn’t from too little sleep

but the result of a slap from his right hand.

I looked at his fists, the knuckles.

They were twice as big as mine.

He could have been a prize fighter

in my estimation.

But Beth said, he just hung around the house all day

had no interests other than drinking beer

and cursing.

I listened as he went on and on

about the construction business.

“They don’t want hard workers like me.

They hire these immigrant instead

and they pay ‘em shit.

They don’t even know one end of a hammer

from the other, some of ‘em.”

I nodded because guys like him

don’t want agreement.

They just like to have an audience.

Finally the women returned,

hauling bags of Chinese,

laughing too loudly

like people do sometimes

when there’s nothing in their lives

to laugh about.

Beth handed me a carton of lo mein.

Then she smiled that smile

that made me think the agony

of time spent with Russ was worth it.

And the out-of-work carpenter

lifted his beer

toward no one in particular

and said, “hell, kid…you’ll learn”

And maybe I would

but not that night.

The smell of fried rice filled their air.

Beth’s hand dropped down on my knee.

And the devil on Russ’s arm…

it closed its eyes, fell quiet for now.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at the Let’s Write Conference - June 20 and at Printer’s Row - September 12-13.

Some Substacks, like this one, offer advice to writers. With articles on topics such as “How to Write a Compelling Character” and “Five Ways to Liven Up a Scene,” they appeal to writers who want to learn more about the craft. And much of our advice on building an audience on Substack has focused on getting other writers to read your work. But what if you’re a writer with a book, website, or portfolio you’d like to get in front of actual readers? In this article, we’ll look at ways to attract readers to your page, not just other writers.

5. Spend more time and effort distributing.

Many writers create a post and wait for the “likes” to roll in. The problem is, people may not know who you are or where to find you. Spend time on other social media platforms advertising your work and linking back to your Substack. This way, people know where to find you and your stories.

4. Get those readers to subscribe—and quickly.

Many visitors never come back. Look at your site statistics, and you’ll likely see lots of unique visitors (possibly from all over the world) who never subscribe.

Add subscription prompts in at least three places in your posts: Near the top, in the middle, and at the end of the article. Make the button text a compelling call to action. Instead of a button that says, “Subscribe now,” choose to insert a “Subscribe w/ caption” button. And instead of the default text, “Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work,” change it to something like ours, which says, “Join a community of 3,000 writers for bi-weekly writing tips.”

3. Let them know what to expect.

Readers will subscribe more frequently when they know what they’ll get. For example, on your About Page (or even at the bottom of each post), remind them what they’ll get for staying subscribed.

For example:

• Every Monday: Winning submissions to the Write City Ezine

• Every Other Wednesday: Writing tips and industry updates from Write City Blog

You can also customize a “goodbye” message for when people unsubscribe. Let them know they’re leaving a community, not just someone’s individual page.

2. Collaborate with other creators

Whether they’re on Substack or another platform, reach out to other creators whose content overlaps with yours. YouTubers, Podcasters, and LinkedIn creators are just some examples of places where you can find successful artists and influencers to partner with. The right partnership can boost the audience for both people.

1. Do your research

This whole process may take some time. Follow the tips above, and then check your Audience statistics to see where you’ve gained the most traction. If most of them come from Facebook, X, Reddit, or Google searches, double-down on the method that brought in the most traffic. That’s where your readers are.

Building an audience isn’t so much a question of “How do I get more subscribers?” The real question is, “Where are my ideal readers already spending time?” Meet them where they are. Use Stubstack as the place they subscribe to you, not the place they discover you.

Share

Long after I found her, she began to return to me in fragments. Not the sirens, the police, the boat, the reporters, or the Chaplain who came by after. Only her. Dark boots. A tiny bit of bright pink. A shape where no shape should be. Slowly drifting past silently among the small icebergs dotting the still-frozen lake. Broken slabs, jagged and uneven, rising out of the dark water like the backs of something ancient, carrying her along.

Your mind tries to make it into driftwood, into a trick of light, into anything else. The details come slowly, unwillingly. Legs. A shoulder. A face. Some kind of tattoo across her torso. Hair clinging to the surface, fanning slightly with the water’s breath. The lake keeps its quiet, steady flow. The ice drifts. Nothing marks the moment except that. Just a quiet, unsettling wrongness.

Maybe it’s just one of those blow-up dolls left over from a bachelor party that made its way into the lake? Oh, please let it be. I adjust the binoculars and look again. Grabbing my phone, I pull on boots and a raincoat and head down to the beach. It’s so quiet, no one is out on this cold, eerie, misty morning. She has drifted. I walk down the beach a bit, following her and the icebergs. The mist grows thicker. I dial 911.

A few minutes later a young policeman walks down the beach toward me. I hand him my binoculars, and he looks for a long time. “It’s a body,” he says, almost to himself. The lake is so shallow here, they just walk out in survival suits, slip a gurney under her and bring her to shore. I walk home and pour myself a glass of wine. It’s 11:30 AM. An hour later, a chaplain and two grief counselors knock on my door.

I’m OK, I tell them, really. But I’m not.

After they leave, I look out to the lake. This Great Lake, the one we jokingly call The Erie Ocean. How much could be just below, held in that cold suspension. Not just this one body, but others. Shapes you never saw, so many shipwrecks long ago. Later that evening the Sheriff calls. Jeanne Renee Peterson. That’s her name.

Jeanne Renee Peterson.

Jumped off the Douglas MacArthur Bridge at Belle Isle three months ago. Parked her car on the Island, walked to the middle of the bridge and jumped into the icy Detroit River on a cold December morning. Six days before Christmas.

The Detroit police and Coast Guard searched but never found her. Somehow, she drifted all this way, down the icy river and into the lake. Forty-six miles. The ice holding her like a frozen secret until winter lost its grip and let her go.

She was 34. Someone posted a picture. She was beautiful. Stunning. Single, with four siblings. Left a suicide note asking to be cremated. “She was kind and generous and loving. We just don’t understand………. please don’t judge” ……. wrote her sister. Weeks pass, details blur, but that one moment doesn’t fade. It stays. Not sharp. Not defined, just present. Always. Like a stone stuck in mud.

I dream of her. Constantly. See her every time I gaze out to the lake. Lie in bed at night and think about what she was carrying that morning. The pretty pink bra she chose to wear, the warm boots. Did she lose her coat in the water, or did she walk the bridge without it in that cold December wind? Did anyone see her? Try to talk to her? And more agonizing – did she die from the fall or the cold? Could she swim?

I knew what I had to do. Go there. The bridge.

I chose Sunday morning. Hopefully there will be less traffic driving through Detroit, although there may be more on Belle Isle, a beautiful island city park.

The bridge looked ordinary from a distance—concrete arches against a pale sky, gulls turning in the wind, a few cars crossing. I wasn’t sure what side had parking, and as I approached there was a small but deserted lot on the city side, so I continued across the bridge to the island. Although it was a cold and windy April day, the cherry blossoms were in their glory. A few happy people taking pictures as the blossoms fell like pink snow in the cold wind. I found a place to park quite a way from the bridge, pulled on my stocking cap, wrapped my scarf around my neck, and started walking to the bridge.

The MacArthur Bridge, what most people call the Belle Isle Bridge, is not soaring or dramatic up close. It is solid, classical, even elegant.

The bridge itself is a long concrete arch structure, with sidewalks running along both sides, twelve feet wide. Every few feet, tall lamp posts topped with milky white glass globes stand along both sides, reminiscent of a fine Victorian promenade, or a bridge you might find in Paris.

I hesitate, feeling the gravity of this moment, and slowly walk toward the middle, my eyes on the concrete beneath me. I turn and place both hands on the cold metal railing, worn smooth by hands and more than a century of Detroit winters. The top of the railing is only waist high, enough to lean against, low enough that the river feels dangerously present. I take a deep breath and look over the edge at the dark, cold river. My heart quickens. There is a twelve-inch ledge on the other side. Only enough room to step out on, just like in the movies. This tiny ledge, balanced between leaving and staying, is where she must have stood.

Did she think of the first person who ever told her she was beautiful, or of the last person who made her feel invisible. Did she close her eyes?

A few people walk past me, and I wonder if they wonder why I am standing here so long in the cold wind. Cars cross behind me as gulls cry overhead, a smell of rain in the distance, the river below, black and endless, carrying the sky. No sign that something so monumental, so irreversible ever happened here. Only the railing, smooth and ordinary beneath my hand.

This beautiful bridge, which has stood here for a century, holding back wind, weather, history and sometimes, people who came to the edge holding more than they could bear.

I turn and walk quietly, as though departing a chapel, carrying something I can’t name. I sit for a while before heading home. There are more families now, gathered around the cherry trees. Laughing, happy people, joyous as the pink blossoms fall around them.

People cross bridges.

Lakes freeze and thaw.

Days move forward.

But I remember you.

C. L. Olsen is the author of the memoir The Home for Friendless Children and two children’s books featuring an old crabby sea turtle. She lives in a little white cottage on the shores of Lake Erie in Michigan with her husband and five ornery ducks.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at Printer’s Row - September 12-13 at the Chicago Writers Association booth.

I.

Size Two Shoes

The town I live in was your town.

One you came to as an exile after your father died.

You were the youngest and your mother bought you

ballet shoes so you could dance around

on tippy toe in the backyard at Roma.

There was nothing sinister, nothing that would justify

a long, sad memoir.

No sensational tragedy, no secret past.

You just went to boarding school there,

never knowing as you sang Ave Maria to the nuns

in that virginal soprano,

that you would give birth to eleven babies in

this town.

A snobby, cliquey place,

full of intrigues and incomprehensible crimes.

Underneath the neat streets and pretty gardens,

something angry and wayward loitered -

as perhaps it always does.

In any town.

By sheer chance our War Service house,

ended up in the better part of town,

as the long dirt road up a hill close by became bitumen,

and the invisible markers of social class went up.

This accidental status was never reflected

in the family’s bank balance,

but you went to the movies and to coffee and to choir,

and to church,

in your pretty clothes and tasteful jewellery,

as if it was.

You were proud of your tiny feet,

‘Size two’, you would say,

holding them out to be admired.

When we emptied the house to sell it,

after you died,

we found a tiny black leather baby shoe

of mine, in a drawer.

You had kept it all those years,

proud that your baby girl had inherited

your small feet.

Now the shoe sits on a bookcase,

with a family tree of photos.

It seems symbolic;

of your pale and freckled feet,

and the elegant little shoes you wore.

Always busy.

Always going somewhere,

walking quickly.

Eager as a child, even into old age,

for what lay around the corner.

II.

Piano Playing

She’s the reason I can never hear a piano playing

without hearing it as if it was playing in the next room.

Near, near to me, close to my heart.

She’s what makes me feel, still,

a frisson of fear when I smell beer,

her fear of drunkenness as near to me as if it was my own.

Her thoughts tame mine.

I believe people can be too rich and too thin.

I believe the rich are to be despised and envied simultaneously,

and that to fail your children is to fail utterly.

Songs my mother taught me.

She loved me first and best.

This is the family romance: so they tell us.

Maybe.

Perhaps my mother made love too important,

But how could that be done?

And by whom?

The tinkling notes die away.

The heart and the mind tick over.

The tinkling notes of an old fashioned song

settle on the air.

Fatal, but not serious.

III

Birthday by the River Styx

Death is as natural as breathing,

but this is not natural,

my mother’s last birthday celebration.

She is dying of cancer,

worried by death,

as if a dog had her in its hairy jaws.

So thin and so frightened,

even under the opiates.

At night she can’t be alone.

The dark is death’s brother,

and she notices the resemblance.

But this winter’s day,

there is wine,

apple pie and cream, lasagne,

a birthday cake, bunches of roses.

All her children are there,

Ray Charles is on the CD player singing,

I Can’t Stop Loving you,

with that smoky catch in his voice.

And it’s true.

I can’t.

Antonia Hildebrand’s first published short story appeared in Downs Images and in ‘Woman’s Day‘ Summer Reading’ and she has since been widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies in Australia as well as Britain and the USA and Ireland. She has contributed to ABC Radio National’s Bush Telegraph program. Many of her short stories have been broadcast by Radio 91.3FM Yeppoon. She won the University of Southern Queensland Library Poetry Prize 1998 and the Fellowship of Australian Writer’s Marjorie Barnard Award in 1999 for her short story, ‘To Breathe’. She is the author of nine books, ranging from biography to autobiography, essays, poetry, short fiction through to novels. Her novel, ‘The Darkened Room’ was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. Her next novel, ‘The Birthday Lunch’ is a work in progress. Her latest book is a poetry collection, ‘Broken Dolls’. She won ‘The Studio Prize’ for poetry in 2023.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at Printer’s Row - September 12-13.

B.A. Durham: At the 2026 Chicago Writers Association’s Let’s Just Write conference, you mentioned how to split your social media posts so they're a good mix of self-promotion, personal details, and being a good community member. Could you talk a bit about this?

Julia Borcherts: What I’ve discovered over the years is that readers really enjoy getting to know the authors creating books they like, and social media offers some access behind the scenes into authors’ lives. These different details are appealing to friends and colleagues, too. It helps people feel connected to others when in-person time is limited, and it’s a good way for authors to establish an authentic presence, rather than just going online to say, “buy my book” every day.

It’s also important for an author to demonstrate commitment to the larger community, and it’s a nice way to help them expand their audiences. Hopefully, what you put out in the world will come back to you, too.

I recommend balancing posts somewhat equally between the professional, personal, and community aspects of your life, which looks something like this:

Professional posts can be news about your book, photographs of your writing desk and/or written pages, manuscripts with notes, anecdotes about a new chapter or scene you’re working on, fun facts about research you’re doing, events or people in the news cycle that connect to your book, photographs of locations that inspire you or connect to your writing, graphics that announce your appearances, graphics that include a pull quote from a review or blurb, photographs from conferences and residences you’re attending, things you’ve discovered about yourself through writing, ways your writing process has evolved, etc.—and occasionally, announcements with links to pre-order your book.

Personal posts can be snapshots from family dinners, vacations, walks around your neighborhood, your pets, your local farmers’ market, a beautiful sunset, a classic car that’s parked on your block, a plant in your yard that’s beginning to flower, a mountain or waterway in your region, a snowstorm outside your window, an anniversary, a reunion, a recipe you’re cooking, a view from your bike ride or morning/evening run, a few videos from a show you’ve attended or a benefit for a cause that’s meaningful to you. Anything (no matter how big or small) that feels interesting to you at all is something you can consider for a personal post—but again, go with what feels authentic and/or interesting to you, not what you feel everyone else is doing.

Community posts are all about being a good literary citizen and connecting your online life to your real-life community. These posts can be a photo of a book you enjoyed with a few words about it (tag the author, of course, so their fans see it, too), a round-up of books you can’t wait to read, a photo or two from a book launch you attended, photos of bookstores and libraries you visit, re-shares of someone else’s preorder and/or launch day links, shared information about workshops others are teaching (and those you’re attending/investing in as a participant) and anything else that introduces and lifts up others’ work to your followers. Of course, your in-person participation at events is key because the online support will help amplify it but doesn’t take the place of real-life connections. Still, it’s important to build and nurture and grow your community.

B.A.: Which social media sites should authors use? You mentioned the ones where your audience will find you, but are there any that are a safe bet for all writers?

Borcherts: The most important thing is to identify the target audience for your book and then look for where that audience goes for their recommendations. If you’re writing crime fiction, that’s a very different target audience than if you’re a poet. See which influencers are promoting authors and books most similar to yours and start following them (and liking and commenting on their posts when appropriate). Which influencers are your friends following?

Most influencers are on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, since these platforms require visual components. Those three platforms are where you’re most likely to find people outside your own circle who are promoting books.

If you’re going to choose one to establish your own presence, it should be Instagram. If influencers (or friends) tag you in a post, new people can find you that way, and Instagram is probably the most universally used platform in the world of books, authors and literary influencers.

That said, your own current audience is also likely on either Facebook, BlueSky, or LinkedIn as well. Even though you’re not likely to find new people that would promote your book there, it’s still a place where you’re connecting to your community. It’s important to pay attention to the networks where you currently connect with your friends/colleagues/family, because mobilizing the audience you have is the baseline for everything else. That doesn’t mean you need to be promoting yourself continually on these platforms, but you should at least add your website link and new book information to your bio there. Also, make sure to use your book cover image as your cover page.

B.A.: Are there any social media sites that aren’t as good for authors trying to get discovered?

Borcherts: Certain platforms, such as X, have seen dramatic declines over the last few years. Threads, Pinterest, and Snapchat are not as popular as they were now that the initial novelty has worn off. Unless a specific influencer who’s perfect for your book is exclusively on one of those outlets and still has a lot of followers with strong interaction, you don’t need to invest much (if any) time there.

The most important thing for authors is to be writing—even when you’re promoting a new book, it’s more important to be working on your next book than to be chasing coverage all over the place. Because of this, it’s not great to invest a lot of time creating coverage for outlets that aren’t going to provide much visibility for you and your book, such as microblogs. (It would be ok for them to share a non-exclusive excerpt from your book, but maybe not worth taking a lot of time to pen a guest essay that few people will see.)

However, while blogs in general are declining in popularity as a platform, Substack seems to be increasing in popularity, particularly with authors, and it may be worth investing an hour of your time to see if it connects well with your goals.

B.A.: How does post frequency relate to building a successful online presence? Is there a balanced point at which it is frequent enough to let your audience know you’re alive without oversaturating their feeds?

Borcherts: That’s a great question. The most important thing is consistency, and maybe two to three times a week is good. Dramatic increases and/or long disappearances on a platform can cause readers and influencers to feel like you don’t value the outlet. And if an author suddenly becomes promotionally hyperactive near a book launch after months of dormancy, it can come off as very sales-y rather than organic.

As far as consistency, you don’t want to post more than once a day or less than once a month, unless there are special circumstances. You want people to recognize that you’re an active part of the community, but not to feel like you’re hogging the algorithm by posting all day, every day. (Also—you want readers to understand that you’re writing, working, or otherwise living your life most of the day, not glued to your social media accounts, right?)

Still, if there are fun things you like to post a lot that aren’t crucial, you can add them to your Instagram and/or Facebook stories—people will see them if they opt in to the Stories, and they expire after 24 hours, so it’s a polite way to post and/or reshare a lot of information without it looking like you’re over-doing it. Anything very important, however, such as pre-order links or your book launch party schedule, should go on your wall (rather than in a story) so people can find it later.

B.A.: Are author websites as relevant as they used to be? Or is social media more effective for getting the word out about your book?

Borcherts: A professional-looking author website is still crucial. Agents, potential publishers, media outlets, people who hear about your book from outside recommendations—they’ll all appreciate a professional website with a bio and—front and center—a prominent link to pre-order or buy the book. You can’t preorder a book directly from Instagram so, once readers discover you and your book, they can go to the website link in your bio to learn more about you.

Also, if you make bookmarks or postcards and include a QR code linking to your website so potential readers can learn more, it makes it easy for potential readers intrigued by the book to preorder directly. It’s much better than having the QR code go to your publisher’s website or a single retailer.

You’re correct, though, that a website is not a tool that enables discovery on its own, so social media presence is important. On the website, make sure there are buttons to connect to your active social media pages.

B.A.: Have you seen an impact from AI on social media on how authors use, or should use, social media?

Borcherts: The biggest shift I’m seeing is AI-generated book coverage from less-than-top-tier reviewers on sites such as Goodreads and Bookbub and retail outlets such as Amazon. I think they see it as a way to improve their efficiency--they can request a gazillion free books, read them, and then get credit for leaving a review that reads like a book report, which they didn’t actually write. There’s no apparent harm in this (the reviews are almost always positive), but it still makes many people (including me) uneasy. It’s like ordering a pizza, and then holding it up and saying, “See what I made!”

I’ll sometimes see authors post a potential book cover they generated using AI and this prompts backlash in the writing community because (even though it may seem like a fun game), they’re “creating” something through a language learning model that uses work stolen from actual artists without their consent, developed expressly to put them out of work, which isn’t really something to have fun with, is it?

With the proliferation of computer-generated images, text, and other content, there’s been a rise across all platforms in appreciation for content that is clearly authentic. Please feel free to post your photos, your graphics, all the things you make that aren’t flattering, and don’t look like they’ve been polished, altered, edited, filtered—the blooper reels are what people want to see more of, the types of things that only a human can create.

B.A.: Any other thoughts or information you think would be helpful for authors who don’t feel comfortable posting much on social media?

Borcherts: You can start small and you should not feel the need to post anything that feels too private or that feels like a risk to you. It’s not necessary to post opinions. If you want, just start by scrolling through your feed, adding a “like” or a comment to others’ posts that bring you enjoyment, and see if certain types of posts feel inspiring to you. If you do, you can look for something similar in your own life or work or creative practice to photograph and share.

And if you only want to go on social media once a week (or once a month), you can set that appointment on your calendar, look at it as part of the “business” side of your work and go from there. You can also, if you prefer, that half of that hour to see which influencers your friends and colleagues are following and, if you like what they’re posting, you can follow them, too. It’s absolutely fine to explore the community in small increments.

Julia Borcherts is the founder of Julia Publicity, a literary PR and marketing agency, and a 12-year industry veteran who has led successful campaigns for many New York Times bestselling authors and debut authors alike, as well as for titles and catalogs with Big Five, independent, and university publishing houses. She teaches at DePaul University and regularly speaks at literary conferences and events. You can visit her online at juliapublicity.com or email her at julia@juliapublicity.com.

Photo Courtesy of Merve-Bayar/Unsplash

Eliza Carroway had never known her grandmother without flowers. Even in the sterile white halls of the hospital where she took her last breath, there had been a vase of pale irises at the bedside table. Hope and faith, Eliza had read somewhere. It seemed fitting.

When the will was read, Eliza was surprised to learn that her grandmother had left her the house in Wiltshire. It was an old cottage, with ivy climbing up the stone walls and an expansive garden her grandmother had tended for decades.

Eliza, a twenty-eight-year-old librarian in Bath, wasn’t sure what she would do with a crumbling country property, but the pull of nostalgia was strong. She decided to spend the summer there, cataloging her grandmother’s things and deciding whether to sell.

The house smelled faintly of lavender and old wood. On her second day, while dusting the study, Eliza discovered something peculiar. Tucked behind a row of gardening manuals was a leather-bound journal. Its cover was embossed with a single pressed flower: a yellow carnation.

Curious, Eliza opened it. The first page contained a careful script:

The Garden of Silent Messages: A Record of Floriography.

Each entry described a flower, its symbolism, and—most strangely—a person’s name and a short note. For example:

Red Camellia – Deep desire. For Thomas: When you looked at me in the square, I felt it too.

White Rose – Innocence, secrecy. For Agnes: You must never tell them what we saw.

There were dozens of such entries, stretching across fifty years.

Eliza had studied floriography once, during a brief Victorian literature course. The Victorians had used flowers as secret codes, passing bouquets like whispered letters. To see her grandmother employing the same system was both enchanting and unsettling.

Why had she recorded these names? And what were these secrets?

The next morning, Eliza wandered into the garden, the journal in her hands. She traced the paths, noting the careful arrangement of plants. Roses of several colors clustered near the gate. A bed of marigolds spread bright orange beneath the kitchen window. Along the back fence grew foxgloves, stately and dangerous.

Her grandmother had been deliberate. Perhaps the whole garden was a message, a living diary.

Eliza began matching journal entries to the actual flowers. When she reached a patch of violets, she found the entry:

Violet – Loyalty, devotion. For Margaret: I will never forget your kindness that winter.

Eliza knelt and brushed the petals with her fingertips. Margaret, she remembered vaguely, had been a neighbor who died years ago.

But some names meant nothing to her—Thomas, Agnes, a mysterious “R.” Who were these people, and what had her grandmother been recording?

A week later, Eliza received a visitor. She had been kneeling by the foxgloves, weeds clinging to her gloves, when a voice startled her.

“You’ve kept it better than I imagined.”

Eliza looked up to see an elderly man leaning on a cane by the garden gate. His eyes were pale blue, sharp despite the lines around them.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Eliza asked, standing.

“Perhaps not. I was a friend of your grandmother’s. Name’s Edwin Marsh. I heard she passed.”

“Yes,” Eliza said cautiously.

Edwin nodded, his gaze drifting toward the roses. “She and I used to speak through these flowers. Back when words were too costly.”

Eliza’s heartbeat quickened. “You knew about… floriography?”

His eyes twinkled. “She taught me. Your grandmother had a gift. She could say more with a posy than most could with a book.”

Before Eliza could respond, Edwin reached into his coat and withdrew a small bouquet, tied with twine. He handed it to her. Inside were yellow carnations, white lilacs, and sprigs of rosemary.

Her breath caught. She knew enough to interpret: Yellow carnation—disappointment; White lilac—innocence, youth; Rosemary—remembrance.

She looked at him questioningly.

“A message,” he said simply. “One she wanted you to have.”

“But she’s gone.”

Edwin tapped his cane on the ground. “Not all messages are sent in life.”

He left without further explanation.

Eliza set the bouquet in water and returned to the journal. She flipped through the pages until she found the corresponding flowers.

Yellow Carnation – Disappointment, rejection. For R: I cannot give you what you ask.

White Lilac – Youthful innocence. For Edwin: We were too young to know better.

Rosemary – Remembrance. For Myself: May I never forget.

Her grandmother had written of Edwin—and an R.

Eliza’s curiosity deepened into obsession. Every evening she poured over the journal, mapping names to flowers, trying to construct a hidden history. She began to suspect a love story, or perhaps several.

One night, by lamplight, she pieced together a narrative. Her grandmother, it seemed, had been courted by more than one admirer. There were entries of passion and secrecy, flowers of betrayal and forgiveness.

But always, the name “R.” recurred, attached to darker blossoms: black dahlias, aconite, nightshade. The notes were brief and troubled: For R: This must never come to light.

Eliza shivered. What secret had her grandmother been hiding all these years?

Behind the garden, partially hidden by hedges, stood an old greenhouse. Its panes were cloudy with dirt, the door locked with a rusted chain. Eliza had ignored it until now, but the persistence of “R.” pushed her toward it.

She searched the house until she found a small iron key, tucked in a box of buttons. The lock gave way with effort.

Inside, the air was damp and stale. Rows of long-dead plants slumped in broken pots. But at the far end stood a single thriving flowerbed, curiously alive. Someone had been tending it.

Eliza approached and froze.

There, blooming in rich soil, were dark red poppies.

She remembered the journal.

Red Poppy – Consolation, eternal sleep. For R: Forgive me.

Her grandmother must have tended these even in her last years. Why?

Eliza’s stomach tightened. She bent down, brushing the petals. Beneath the soil her fingers struck something hard. Digging carefully, she unearthed a small tin box.

Inside lay a stack of letters, bound with ribbon. The handwriting was her grandmother’s.

That night, Eliza read the letters at the kitchen table.

They revealed a secret romance between her grandmother and a man only signed as “R.” He was married, older, and tormented by duty. Their correspondence spanned years—passionate, aching, clandestine.

One letter made Eliza’s breath falter:

R., I cannot live divided between what is right and what I feel. The child must not know. I will carry the burden alone. You must forget me.

The child.

Eliza’s mind raced. Could this mean her mother? Or someone else?

The later letters grew more fragmented, full of sorrow. The final one read:

I have chosen silence. May the flowers speak where I cannot.

Days passed in a blur. Eliza struggled between grief and revelation. She walked the garden as though each flower might whisper the truth.

When Edwin returned, she confronted him.

“You knew about R.,” she said, the letters clutched in her hand.

His face grew pale. He sank onto a bench. “I hoped you wouldn’t find those.”

“Who was he?”

Edwin stared at the poppies across the lawn. “Your grandfather’s closest friend. Richard.”

The name fit the initial.

“He and my grandmother…” Eliza began.

“Yes.” Edwin’s voice cracked. “It was war time. People clung to each other in strange ways. Promises were broken. But she chose your grandfather in the end. Richard left the village, never to return.”

Eliza’s heart pounded. “And the child?”

Edwin closed his eyes. “Your mother. She never knew.”

Eliza struggled with the revelation. Her grandmother’s garden was not just a hobby—it was a diary of forbidden love, betrayal, forgiveness, and silence. Every rose, every violet, every poppy carried the weight of her choices.

And now it was Eliza’s inheritance.

One evening, as dusk settled, Eliza stood in the garden with the journal open. She plucked a sprig of lavender—devotion—and laid it on the page. Then a white rose—secrecy—beside it. She began composing her own entry.

Lavender and White Rose – Devotion to silence. For Grandmother: I will keep your secret, but I will not forget your story.

By September, the cottage felt less like a burden and more like a calling. Eliza decided not to sell. She would restore the garden, preserve the journal, and perhaps even write about her grandmother’s life in a way that honored both truth and discretion.

On her final night before returning to Bath for work, she arranged a bouquet: rosemary, violets, and a single red camellia. She placed it on the windowsill where moonlight touched the petals.

Remembrance. Loyalty. Desire.

It was not for anyone in particular. It was for the language itself, the unspoken heritage passed from one woman to another.

She whispered, “May I never forget.”

And in the silence of the old cottage, surrounded by flowers heavy with meaning, Eliza felt her grandmother’s presence—wordless, fragrant, eternal.

***

Years later, Eliza would be known as the caretaker of the Carroway Garden, a place where visitors came to learn the lost art of floriography. She never revealed the full story behind the blooms, but she spoke often of how flowers carried messages more enduring than letters.

Children learned to weave daisies for innocence, lovers brought tulips for declarations, and mourners left lilies for peace. The garden grew into a living dictionary, a place where silence spoke in petals.

And somewhere between the roses and the poppies, Eliza always kept a single yellow carnation—her grandmother’s first pressed emblem. Disappointment, yes, but also resilience. The story of a woman who loved fiercely, erred deeply, and left behind a language for her granddaughter to decipher.

Plamen V. is an award-winning freelance writer/poet with published works online and in a dozen US magazines. He has been writing since he was 10. He has certificates on Creative Writing from the UK writing centre, from the Open University in Scotland, Oxford Study Centre and Harvard University.

Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.

Buy Now

The review will also be available for sale at the Let’s Write Conference - June 20 and at Printer’s Row - September 12-13.