A story I revised in response to an inspiring class on revisions at Stanford, “Wayfinding,” was originally published in The Avalon Literary Review. (See details here.) I am particularly fond of it not just because it’s set in Salisbury, a favorite place, but also since it set in motion these past several years of writing faithfully, fully, fantastically (salvation during the Pandemic) and publishing most of the shorter things I write.
Now, “Wayfinding” has been published again, this time online in Wild Roof Journal, Issue 22 – Sept. 6, 2023 (in Gallery 2, or find me by name). I do really love their format and their art, so do browse all the galleries.
Here’s a sampling of my rather wistful piece:
“She felt again the rise of the great spire above them, its miraculous continuity. Continuity: the connective breath of families, of the universe, that the Tewas believed they kept alive.
Like hope, the only thing left in Pandora's box—and in Hazel's. Brother Raymond had given her that. This quiet cloister, the sweep of stairs at Wells, the chance to know the brave, bright Salisbury spire, triumphant over despair. In-spire-ing, breathing into, ‘filling the heart with grace.’ Inspire came from spirare, to breathe; the breath of life continuing.
Continuing, if in shuddery gasps, after the human storm. Out of the box opened by Pandora, that fatally meddlesome woman formed from clay by the gods, had sprung war and pestilence, the stuff of Evan's work. Hazel's intention, as she'd told herself over and over, was only to set free a wistful prayer, fragile as one of the Holly Blue butterflies found in old churchyards. Palest blue wings with a small spattering of ink spots, embryonic words. What she had loosed instead had been catastrophic.”
Image: Photo by Cas Holmes on Unsplash
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