“I have grown determined to prove that the art of literature is more resilient than what menaces it. The best defense of literary freedoms lies in their exercise, in continuing to make untrammeled, uncowed books.” Joseph Anton, aka Salman Rushdie By 1989, Norman Mailer was championing an ex-ad man who was to become …
Continue reading “Save a Tree, Burn an Author: A Green History of Writer Recycling: Fatw”
All writers are the same. We all have lungs and wrists and feet. Sylvia Plath had a belly button. Jane Austen had knees. Having this awareness embodiment makes the writers we admire more human. “Sharon Olds mentioned that after hearing a talk about Emily Dickinson, she suddenly flashed upon a vision of Dickinson’s naked foot. …
Five o’clock on Sunday and I’m trying to figure out, again, how to get out of going to church. My husband and I watch television in the living room, savoring those last moments of the weekend before Monday begins to breathe its heavy hand over us. Feeling Jason’s eyes, I peel myself from the couch and hobble to our bedroom in my best old lady impression. I collapse into bed, tugging unmade blankets over my body and peep between wisps of hair to see if he has followed. Hearing footsteps, I begin to whimper.
Jen Palmares Meadows is a Filipina American writer whose work has appeared in publications like Denver Quarterly, Memoir Journal, Kartika Review, and elsewhere. She received her MA in Creative Writing at California State University, Sacramento.
No one will love us until we love ourselves You can’t touch it, but it affects how you feel. You can’t see it, but it’s there when you look in the mirror. You can’t hear it, but it’s there when you talk or think about yourself. Self-image: one’s concept of oneself; our self-perception, whether …
Continue reading “Body Narrative: Writing the Story of Your Body”
This is how I learned what abuse looks like: I’m sitting at the bar with Jesse. Nineteen years old, sipping my Jack and Coke, I think I know everything, so sure I have the world figured out. “So,” I ask her, “why did you and Ronny get a divorce?” Marriage, for me, is a foreign …
A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body –the wishbone. –Robert Frost Our bodies respond to our thoughts, emotions, and our inner spirit. In this column you will be asked to dialogue with your body and explore what your body has to say to …
Continue reading “Body Narrative: Writing the Story of Your Body”
I. It is 2014. Blue, flowing water glides into my memory. The Bagmati River is healthy and calm behind my brother and me. It was perhaps 1977, when my brother was about four or five and I was five or six years old. We stand arm in arm in our thick crepe polyester outfits (me …
Sometimes you hear a little rattle in your head, and then it gets louder and louder. Eventually, you can’t ignore it. Gertie and the Babe is a story that “I knew” for a while before I bothered to write it down. Where did it come from? I don’t have a clue.
Charles Holdefer is an American writer currently based in Brussels. His work has appeared in the New England Review, North American Review, Slice and other magazines. He has published four novels with the Permanent Press and is now at work on a new novel. More information is at www.charlesholdefer.com.
In 1977 he had a stroke in his home. The jarred electrical currents made his body crash down to the mountain cabin floorboards. The stroke did not cripple him, but it did make him take his body to a different home, one in an actual city, with a hospital really nearby. This was when he …
One puts down the first line…in trust that life and language are abundant enough to complete it. Wendell Berry To fully connect with the skin you live in now, you may want to blindfold yourself and touch your elbows, your heels, your hips, your face. Taking the visual element out of the equation often helps …
Continue reading “Body Narrative: Writing the Story of Your Body”
Essay and Other Nonfiction Workshops at Eckleburg
Personal Essay
Lyric Essay
Body Narrative
Modern Memoir
Submit Your Nonfiction
We accept polished creative nonfiction/essays up to 8,000 words year round, unless announced otherwise. Preferences veer toward shorter works under 1500 words with an arts and culture focus. If you wish to include a bio, keep it short, under 200 words. Submit your nonfiction.
Essay Collections and Memoir Manuscripts
We publish short works at The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. At this time, we do not publish novel, long memoir, essay collections, story collections or poetry collections at The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. We do offer manuscript workshops at The Eckleburg Workshops. If you are looking to place a manuscript, we can suggest several excellent small and large presses whose excellent books are promoted through our Eckleburg Book Club — i.e., Random House, Graywolf Press, Coffeehouse, Tinhouse, St. Martins Press and more.