Part 1 Char Glimmer sits on her porch in a ladder-backed chair, waiting for a familiar face to drive her to the doctor. She is wearing a… Read more “Charlotte Glimmer (a Harshbarger Mills Story)”
Author: joanspilman
Former teacher, writer of Appalachian Literature, short stories, and fantasy. Current publication, "This Will Never Stop" see Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LXXXXVII, NO. 22 Nov. 15, 2019. Also featured on booktrib, and Booklife. Has published a YA entitled "Sansablatt Head", and books for children under the general title of "The Waddling Dead". Received MFA from Wichita State University where she received the fellowship. Published in Southern Humanities Review, Short Story International, Carriage House Review,Willow Springs, Laurel Review and other literary magazines. Winner of George Garrett Prize for Best Prose, W.WashingtonU. Winner of Microkosmos Fiction Award, WSU. Winner of John Maier Award at Marshall University.
This Textured Darkness, #26
He was being branded; the air smelled as it did when they marked the wild horses in the spring.
This Textured Darkness,#25
“My source tells me the bark is odd. Flesh colored with specks of red. The shoots spring up, only to die.”
Anne Estes, 1922 ( A Harshbarger Mills Story)
I don’t know why her father, who is a good man, didn’t walk fifty yards and stop a beating that ended a boy’s life.
This Textured Darkness, # 24
“What if the child is already dead?”
“He is alive. Else why would Jah demand that he be rescued?”
Ray Welk, 1911-1962 (A Harshbarger Mills Story)
For years and years, Iris was the wife of the town’s only mortician. She’s popped in, treating me like a source of income, unannounced and unafraid.
This Textured Darkness, #23
“Here is the message you must take. Read it before it is waxed.”
This Textured Darkness, #22
“You will be fine as long as you remember to stay out of the taverns and pleasure houses.”
This Textured Darkness, #21
Sometimes he’d commanded, sometimes he’d wept. Once, he banged his head against the cave walls.
This Textured Darkness, #20
He knew nothing about her, save that she was young and clothed in what appeared to be an old-fashioned night rail.
