A CRAFT CHAT WITH KIM MAGOWAN by Andrea Caswell
Andrea Caswell A CRAFT CHAT WITH KIM MAGOWAN In her story “The Back Nine” (Issue 45), Kim Magowan shows us a character with a growing list of personal losses, trying to come to terms with the lost connections that still haunt her. “You rejected people, and then they died, and your feelings of longing or bitterness had nowhere to fasten onto. Regret undulated like some aquatic plant.” Kim Magowan, “THE back nine” from Cleaver Issue 45 Andrea: Where did this story begin for you? With the main character of Marianne, or a general situation, or the story’s thematic preoccupations? Thanks for sharing your early ideas as you crafted the narrative. Kim: This story has a basis in fact. Several high school classmates of mine have died in the past decade, and “Sad News” is, indeed, the subject heading of these emails that go round announcing their deaths. Another classmate of … chop! chop! read more!
DUALITY IN THE PERSONAL ESSAY: A Writing Tip by Clifford Thompson
A Writing Tip by Clifford ThompsonDUALITY IN THE PERSONAL ESSAY Duality is the soul of the personal essay. I sometimes tell students that while the province of speeches and op-ed articles is certainty, the domain of the personal essay is uncertainty. The personal essay represents an attempt, raised to the level of art, to make some sense of life and navigate some of its complexities. The word “complexities” suggests that there is more than one way of looking at a subject, that uncertainty is possible, and this is where duality comes in. To read many of the best works in the genre is to follow along as the writer argues with themselves. The writer of the personal essay does not start out knowing the answer and may not know by the end, either—but if we are reading the work of a master, we are at least given a new way … chop! chop! read more!
COMPANY, Stories by Shannon Sanders, reviewed by Kayla McCall
Stories by Shannon Sanders, reviewed by Kayla McCall COMPANY (Graywolf Press) My family’s matriarch has a ritual when company comes to visit. She chases carefully-swept corners with lemon-scented cleaners. The vacuum hums over the rug, then the hardwood, then the pink hexagonal tiles in the hall bathroom and the blue ones in the en suite. She dusts the coffee table and the wire shelf, pays special attention to the thick buildup on the ceiling fan blades. She wipes down the counter and the range hood, the kitchen table and the windows. She sweeps the pine needles from the deck, the dirt from the porch, and adjusts the welcome wreath on the door. Then she straightens her back, puts on a brown sweater, and pretends the work took five minutes instead of five hours. My least favorite part is when the front door opens, and the sun pierces the screen door … chop! chop! read more!
A Conversation with Alina Pleskova and Kimberly Ann Southwick
ALINA PLESKOVA AND KIMBERLY ANN SOUTHWICK WANT YOU TO DIY IT THIS POETRY MONTH A Conversation with Alina Pleskova and Kimberly Ann Southwick Edited by Hannah Felt Garner Alina: Kimberly Ann Southwick and I have traveled in the same extended poetry circles for about a decade–she as founder and editor of the long-running journal Gigantic Sequins, me as co-founder/co-editor of bedfellows, which has published a few of her poems! Both of us are Philly-connected (me, a current resident; she, a former one). We’ve done various readings together over the years, too. One, as I recall, was in a dive bar basement, where performers read in a corner, sandwiched between an ATM and a trash bin. Ah, the lives of poets! That’s what I wanted to talk with Kimberly about: the life of a poet. Specifically, a poet with a first book out. Kimberly’s first full-length collection, Orchid Alpha, was released … chop! chop! read more!
DUALITY IN NONFICTION: Sydney Tammarine
A Conversation with Cleaver Senior Nonfiction Editor Sydney Tammarine DUALITY IN NONFICTION Estimated reading time: 1 minute What does duality in creative nonfiction mean to you? Do you have any favorite essays or memoirs that explore duality? When I think about duality, I think about the tension that is inherent in all life, and therefore, in all good literature. I often tell my students that one definition of essay is a verb that means to try: the essay is an attempt to understand—to reconcile—those parts of life that feel most contradictory. One of my favorite short essays about duality—one I got to read with students in a recent visit to Davis & Elkins College—is Anika Fajardo’s “What Didn’t Happen.” Fajardo examines the life she didn’t live—the self she didn’t become—because her family left Colombia to live in the United States. The essay asks those most universal questions: Who am I? What … chop! chop! read more!
TRIAL AND ERROR: A Writing Tip by Snowden Wright
A Writing Tip by Snowden Wright TRIAL AND ERROR At an Oxford, Mississippi, courthouse last summer, I sat in on the trial for the most recent person to try to assassinate my father, a circuit court judge. Things went poorly for the defendant. The prosecutor played the recording of a call he had made to his cousin while he was awaiting trial. During the call, he asked his cousin to Google information about the accusations against him—the guy might as well have asked his cousin to visit some website called I’mGuilty.com. But that’s not what I found most interesting about the call. Whenever the tape went silent, presumably while the defendant’s cousin searched the internet, a strange tap-tap-tapping could be heard, like the sound when a stand-up comic, bombing on stage, hits the microphone: Is this thing on? After playing the phone call, the Assistant DA prefaced her examination of … chop! chop! read more!
NO SURPRISE FOR THE WRITER? WHAT A RELIEF FOR ME, a Craft Essay by David Galef
David Galef NO SURPRISE FOR THE WRITER? WHAT A RELIEF FOR ME. Robert Frost’s famous line of writing advice, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” comes not from a poem but from his essay “The Figure a Poem Makes.” A lot of writers love this idea. They find it liberating. If authors start a project knowing exactly where they want to go, that’s exactly how it’ll read: planned out, executed without inspiration, showing the blueprint underlying the writing. So, they reason, how can writers evoke a sense of wonder in their work unless they also work in a state of unknowing? Multitudes have embraced this “no surprise” view, trusting in divine uncertainty, hoping to preserve freshness that way. That’s not the way I work, and I’m tired of apologizing for it. I’ve never been a spontaneous type, to the annoyance of friends who call me … chop! chop! read more!
THE POD by Nicole Brogdon
Nicole BrogdonTHE POD I never felt enough eyes on me, never enough love. Never enough arms, wrapping round my body. Nor hands, chopping vegetables for soup. Not enough healthy backs, moving my furniture. More hands, putting on clean sheets—floral sheets, washed by someone else. Clean hands, bringing me the trash can, when I’m down five days with stomach flu. More hands, bringing me a plate of tea and crackers, whisking the waste-bin away, sliding a clean bin beside the bed. Multiple hands, for multiple orgasms, hands gently plugging all my body’s holes. A village—at least, a pod—might fix our wounds, might patch our leaks and dents. This I believed, for a while. One person could never satisfy it all, my experiences said. My first boyfriend, always studying. The later one, work work working. Other men, lying—about where they’d been, who’d they’d been with, who they were. Deceptive, about musky odors … chop! chop! read more!
THE BACK NINE by Kim Magowan
Kim MagowanTHE BACK NINE The email is from Marianne’s boarding school classmate Harrison McBee, then captain of the lacrosse team, now an investment banker living with his husband in Manhattan; the subject heading is “Sad News.” Reluctantly, Marianne opens it. This time, it’s her classmate Chip who died. What Marianne can visualize most clearly about Chip’s face are the slashes of black greasepaint all the football players wore under their eyes. And she remembers being at a school dance, leaning against the wall, and bracing herself because Chip appeared to be looking at her. But he was merely looking through her. At fifty-two, Marianne is familiar with that experience of invisibility, and doesn’t entirely mind it. There’s a power in watching everyone watch. But at fifteen, it had felt so humiliating. Chip Macomber: greasepaint under eyes that didn’t see her. Other classmates have detailed memories of Chip. All … chop! chop! read more!
MIGUEL’S SANCHO by T.S. Bender
T.S. BenderMIGUEL’S SANCHO It was some point early in August, a Thursday or Friday, some point at the end of the week that Miguel didn’t show up to work. And that morning, as the sun streamed into the garage of the grounds shop and mowers rumbled in place, the guys said that Miguel would be in. “He don’t miss work,” Victor said, and someone else said to check the kitchen, that maybe he was in there with Mary, and Victor smirked and said it was too early for that. But later, long after starting at six, long after finishing the first jobs and then the second ones, Victor came by the golden willow beside the fourteenth green that me, Fin, and Gilberto had gathered under after push mowing around trees and benches and wherever else the rough mower couldn’t get to. Victor slipped through the dangling branches that swayed just … chop! chop! read more!
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chop! chop! read more!BABY, SWEETHEART, HONEY by Katie Tonellato
Katie TonellatoBABY, SWEETHEART, HONEY When I was young, they called me baby, sweetpea, honey, cherry pie, chubs. So often they called me these things, that when they called me my name, my real name, I curdled into myself, unfamiliar, anticipating something unknown the way animals cower in their homes, teeth bared. They called me those things until I grew teeth, grew wings, snarled at them. My mom used to read the paper on Sunday mornings, curled up in bed, without makeup on her face, reading glasses resting on the rim of her nose. This was when I was small, in the way we were all small once, nestled at our mom’s feet under the covers of her bed, hand wrapped around her ankle. Little Bear Cub, she would call me, taking stock of my tiny-ness: the bean pod–shaped ears, the jagged tic tac teeth, the slim transparent fingernails, sharp … chop! chop! read more!
SUSPENSION POINTS by Julian Shendelman
Julian ShendelmanSUSPENSION POINTS “I suppose you could DM,” Marine said, staring into her clipboard. “Direct message?” “Dungeon monitor. You essentially walk around making sure people aren’t openly bleeding on the carpet. It’s a violation of our lease. Here.” She handed me a laminated double-sided list of rules. The first three—no fire, breath play, or unconfined fluids—seemed straightforward enough. But I couldn’t wrap my head around interrupting a scene in progress. “Are you sure there isn’t, like, a clean-up shift I could take?” The goth shrugged. “We’re booked up. It’s DM or full price.” Forty dollars was a lot of sesame tofu. Marine rose to her feet, towering in buckle-encrusted platform boots. The wings of her black eyeliner extended into her temples, bisecting her face. Her teeth were small and crooked, brown behind purple lipstick. She handed off door duties to another volunteer, a nasally man in a snug, black … chop! chop! read more!
SALT PAINT by Claudia Monpere
Claudia MonpereSALT PAINT Tina and her sister, Meredith, are painting cats on the six-foot cardboard coffin. Tuxedo cats, tortoiseshells, tabbies, Maine Coons. Meredith is the real artist. Tina should have left her to it, sick of her sister offering advice or silently hovering. Hiding her hands under the table so Meredith can’t see, she kneads her fingers from the arthritis pain, focuses on her next panel—Meredith has assigned them half each, spread about. “This way our styles will be mixed,” Meredith says. “The whole will have integrity.” They need to finish painting tonight. Tina longs to leave the cats behind. And dreads it. It will mean moving on to the other part of the painting. She watches her sister finish up an Abyssinian, the tail long and perfectly tapered, then gets up to pee, sneaking brandy into her coffee. When Tina returns, Meredith asks about her arthritis. “Are you doing … chop! chop! read more!
FAIRY SHRIMP by Richard Parisio
Richard Parisio FAIRY SHRIMP In my first year of teaching ………………………I led my seventh graders to the woods ………..to study vernal pools. Study? No—to stare ………………………………….astonished at what we found: plump transparent one inch freshwater shrimp ………………………………………………sidestroked across a black pool, …………………………….chalk streaks on a slate board. I scooped some tea-brown water in my hand: ……………………………the pink knots of their hearts ……………….winked through their crystal cases. ……………………………………It felt almost sacramental as if we had been invited ………………………to the marriage of earth and ether …………….where sun first woke the water ………………………………………………to this life. Later that spring we plucked the milky ………………………………………………gelatinous masses of salamander eggs ………………………………from those pools. They hatched ………………..in white enameled trays in the classroom, things to know, to name, but none …………………….……………..like those first unfathomables: ………………………secrets entrusted to us who were somehow— ………………………………dumbstruck as we were— ………………………………………………….exactly the witnesses needed. Richard Parisio has worked as an interpretive naturalist … chop! chop! read more!
EXHUME by Sofia Drummond-Moore
Sofia Drummond-MooreEXHUME The bog body lies on the light table like an oil spill made flesh. Curled on his side, knees drawn up, Avril can see the outlines of his once-bones under skin like leather. She can also see the creases in his forehead, a remnant of worry. She can see the folds of his eyelids, sweetly closed, the downturn of his lips. Copper hair still tangled at the back of his neck. His hand, bare, gently curled as if in sleep, still with fingernails, still with the lines of his palms, lies so close to hers. Inches and her white conservators gloves between them. Three weeks she’s been in Copenhagen, three weeks fled from her mother’s house in Boston. Fled from her college, the claustrophobia, her mother’s house, her mother’s house, her mother’s house. This is what she’d come for. The museum internship, like a beacon. She didn’t … chop! chop! read more!
THEY ARE CALLING YOU AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE SAYING by Michael Grinthal
Michael GrinthalTHEY ARE CALLING YOU AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE SAYING In the unsolvable sun Of a yellowing year All of the newest tunes Of tiredness are rolling About in the blacked-out trucks All of the yellowing trees Are blue with an emptying Outness (obviously This means me And my rapidly oxidizing Friends) my family Owned a yellow string Of cars so long Ago the memory Is brown An Opel A Skylark and a Dart It was easy To spot them in parking lots All of them wrecked Except the Skylark And the Dart Marianne Moore Supposedly invented Several names for cars Ford Motor Company politely Did not build The Pastfinder The Thunder Anticipator Pastelogram The Yellowing Sclera I made up most of those My very yellow hat Is gone I must get out There. If you strike the day Down it will become More powerful than you Can … chop! chop! read more!
AQUACULTURE QUARTET by Jess Yuan
Jess YuanAQUACULTURE QUARTET [1] to explain eyestalk ablation imagine floating mid face fallopian tube connecting to the ocular nerve ………….in your shrimp body ………….eroded by a losing economy overextending, deteriorating because blindness makes more babies in her ………….she grows fertile in dim light is it possible to construct a gentle and fair existence? my eyeball promises a brighter world if only she were whole and the world her oyster [2] coral too when broken regenerates with desperate flare so the laboratory can celebrate their accidents incorporate their expertise and destruction like starfish ……………..pull your fingers apart to become five people ……………..do the work of five women to save the world [3] frog fish squid and oyster all these friends ejaculating millions into this disastrous bisque this delirious broth ……………..frothing foam of each bubble a being ……………..how could this not be enough when everyone is not only pulling their weight but … chop! chop! read more!
LIGERTOWN: HERALDIC ATTITUDE by Susan Goslee
Susan GosleeLIGERTOWN: HERALDIC ATTITUDE Ligertown —Idaho, 1995 Heraldic attitude —Photograph of lion 9 Goldenrod lines the creek like torches lighting the road to a garrison. Narrow banks shortbread-mold the lion’s spine and chest, but his red-gold mane floats out as Ophelia model’s hair. Bathtub water was freezing. One giant paw propped on other. He’s posed on his side. Some rulers have felt under siege. Light sheds in clumps till it clogs the camera’s drain. Viewfinder molts. Colors are legion. One time, I stared, kneeled to the bulk bin of circus cookies at Winco. Pale figures of elephants, tigers, camels have their tops iced pink or white with royal blue sprinkles. They don’t make boar, hedgehog, deer —only balk in the ring. Damp makes tawny lion dark. Bullet hole must be snug to creek bottom. The sweet grass, though, ballets in sleek green, twirls out the frame. Frontiers don’t trouble pleasure. … chop! chop! read more!
THREE MICROFICTIONS by Kathryn Silver-Hajo
Kathryn Silver-Hajo THREE MICROFICTIONS The Divide I hadn’t spoken with Grandma since she went into assisted living. I missed visiting her lemon-and-love-infused apartment at holidays, our weekly calls. Now we chatted about my MFA program, the Haitian nurse who snuck her beignets and pain patate. Before hanging up, she asked, Sorry, dear—who is this again? * As They Lower the Coffin into the Earth Ruby senses the caterpillar crawling up her leg, shudders, flicks it away. When it returns, she sees that it’s the black and amber of a familiar flannel shirt. Ruby closes her eyes, tries to ignore the tickle on her leg, but despite all efforts at evading that woolly bear, it insists on clinging. Soon you’ll fly free, she whispers, now let me do the same. * What’s Left: Order finger sandwiches. Make his favorite caponata. Call brawling sibs Dan, Bob re: plant tree on Mt. Jefferson? … chop! chop! read more!
A CONSTELLATION OF ERRORS by Sophie Nunberg
Sophie NunbergA CONSTELLATION OF ERRORS I study the events of my birth like astrologers do stars in the sky. I’m already late when, two days before I finally do break my mom’s amniotic sac, a 6.9 earthquake nearly splits our city clear in two. My parents’ marriage never had a chance and now, I never seem to be on time. The morning after the shake, my father takes the only picture of my mother pregnant. She is in a royal blue cashmere turtleneck pulled taut across her stomach and electric orange pants. Now, my phone storage is littered with self-portraits. When the contractions do start, she loads herself into the backseat of my father’s gray Alfa Romeo; he finishes a cigarette outside. The detours of closed roads twist them around the city right into San Francisco’s Castro on Halloween, of all days. The tiny Alfa is swallowed by the ecstatic … chop! chop! read more!
HOW TO DRINK ENOUGH WATER IN WARTIME by Rebecca Entel
Rebecca EntelHOW TO DRINK ENOUGH WATER IN WARTIME You have finally logged out from your social media because it was making you physically ill. With less scrolling, you’re not getting more done. You feel bad news from journalists or emails sent somehow across the ocean but from nowhere is about you. People ask you how you’re doing as if it’s about you. You fall ill with thinking anything’s about you. You only see bad news. You’re told the way to take care is with sleep, eight glasses a day, and putting down your phone. You’re told the world is getting more dangerous for you. Your grandmother finally seems right: you live not in the aftertimes but in the in-between-times. Still you walk from your car to your house at the same pace and turn the deadbolt with the certainty of the faithful. You have never considered yourself one of the … chop! chop! read more!
AT ELEVATION by Ariana Kelly
Ariana KellyAT ELEVATION In mid-June after my sophomore year at Yale, I took a Greyhound bus from New Haven, Connecticut to Boise, Idaho for $59.00. The ride took three-and-a-half days, during which two people were kicked off in Ohio for smoking pot, and another three in Nebraska for being belligerent drunks. In Wyoming, a passenger died after slipping into a diabetic coma without anyone noticing. By that time most of the bus was legless, having passed around a bottle of room-temperature vodka for hours. It was four in the morning when we finally pulled into Boise. I’d have to wait another several hours for my friend Katy to pick me up in her Mazda station wagon she filled with a dollar’s worth of gas at a time. We were that broke. That’s why, after spending a day recovering from the trip at Katy’s parents’ house, where we would be living, … chop! chop! read more!
SOMETIMES WE SPEAK TO OURSELVES by Peter Grandbois
Peter GrandboisSOMETIMES WE SPEAK TO OURSELVES in dead things other times we fit too many bodies into the meadow where the elk whistle and stamp it’s strange this book of burning leaves where snow sometimes settles inside like prayer other times you walk a thousand lost roads hammered by rain while the moon interrogates the night sky in one sorrowful frenzy of longing stars reminding us we can do the hard things now it’s easy to carry the abraded blanket to the river’s edge the days are forever letting go and we are not here to explain a thing but simply to choose the rumor of the sea this animal slowness of life Peter Grandbois is the author of fourteen books, the most recent of which is Domestic Bestiary. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard and … chop! chop! read more!
ALL THAT WAS NOT THERE… by Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts ALL THAT WAS NOT THERE… When I was in the eighth grade at Berkshire Junior High in Birmingham, Michigan, I had a Spanish class with Mrs. Whittaker. I woke up today thinking about that class, though more than fifty years have passed and that whole period of time, me with it, has slipped into that penumbral zone of memory, which seems to extend its reach as time goes by. Why this morning? I didn’t know at first. I don’t think I dreamed about the class, though now I think it may have come to remind me of something I seem to keep forgetting. Mrs. Whittaker was thin, with thin legs and a thin keen face. She was Spanish, so Whittaker was probably her married name, though as the semester wore on it somehow became clear that there was no Mr. Whittaker, only a teenage son named Tolo who … chop! chop! read more!
A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND by Darcy Lohmiller
Darcy LohmillerA SUDDEN GUST OF WIND We step out of the truck into a bright October sun and a howling wind. In the field we have chosen to hunt, thick stalks of grass flatten and shudder against the gusts. Our two hunting dogs welcome the wind. It creates whorls of scent from all directions and kicks up dust in explosive bursts, and they clench their eyes against the sharp grass, snortle and snuffle the ground and air. Between their panting breath and mindless desire, Dan’s whistle is a thin reed of sound in the wind. Unhampered by our control, the dogs are feral predators chasing the blood and breath of the game birds hidden in the field. It only adds to the general chaos of a windy day in central Montana. In this basin, the wind is purposeful, sometimes malevolent, as it races through the coulees and veers around splintered … chop! chop! read more!
ON WHAT USED TO BE THE R7, ON WHAT USED TO BE THE R8, ON WHAT USED TO by Rachel Toliver
Rachel Toliver ON WHAT USED TO BE THE R7, ON WHAT USED TO BE THE R8, ON WHAT USED TO In those days, what I call my girlhood, there was always a man and he was always at the end of the train. It mattered less who the man was. It was the train and the going that gave him a name, a measure, a distance between. Here in Philly, in Germantown: the sunset on slate, the beech trees losing track of themselves. The streets that, when I was a girl, would make me a grownup. Then I grew up but I didn’t realize I was growing up because growing up took so long, all the years of boredom interspersed with years of hurt. I lived for a while in Ohio. No trains there, where I was in Ohio, and this read in me like heartbreak. Like a hitch across … chop! chop! read more!
PROXIMITY by Sofi Guven
Sofi GuvenPROXIMITY When I get home, I start to make bread. I open my window curtains wide and prepare the ingredients. Buckwheat flour, salt, sugar, and yeast stored in jars, scooped out with a ring of measuring cups. The windowsill is too narrow for my sleek new bread-maker, but I keep it there anyway. I touch the curtains of the sliding glass door as I pass, impatient. I wait for it to grow darker. I turn on lights. Just yards away, she responds, raising the blinds to her own kitchen, shiny granite counters visible to me down to the mottled grains. I see her pour expensive wine into a glass. She lifts a record, tilting the Wagner aria slightly in my direction. She took a bit to build up to operas, but plays them almost always now, all grandeur and pretense. When Michael lived here, the curtains would close before … chop! chop! read more!
QUESTION 1: HOW WILL YOU BECOME YOUR MOTHER by Sofia Sears
Sofia Sears QUESTION 1: HOW WILL YOU BECOME YOUR MOTHER? Your body is a secret you forgot how to keep. A lesson in scorn & sediment. Loose fingernails, fathers, passageways. A seabed sucked dry, passing animals baited and bled. The surfaces hunger for daylight. God help you salt-teeth & jelly-spine, god help seasonless water. Your body is a freshly opened underworld. Skip the lines, slip past the snarling ghosts. Hoard your friction close. Invent islands, pretend your bones belong to the birds. Home as in hell as in a wilted room you can’t dissolve. Home as in a burst blood vessel in Persephone’s clenched eye. Home as in your skin pretends. As in your teeth fit better in her mouth. Your body is any other body. Unspecial, unfocused, and yet, and yet. Your body is not a price but it is a sentence. It hunts itself, poses in a lithe … chop! chop! read more!
ANGELA by Federico Escobar
Federico Escobar ANGELA He got to the bus stop trailed by wet footsteps that merged with the night. His Converse shoes squished as he walked, and his drenched denim jacket clung to a watery button-down with its belly buttons missing. The only person at the bus stop, a woman with dark roots chasing after streaks of dyed blonde hair, sized him up, slid to the end of the bench, and went back to thumb-scrolling on her phone. He took off a baseball cap and squeezed what felt like a gallon of water onto the sidewalk. “It was raining when I left,” he said. She took five seconds to return his gaze. “Figured. Either that or you feed dolphins for a living.” “I don’t feed dolphins for a living,” he said. And squeezed again, his left sock this time. Another five seconds. “Figured out that part, too, old man.” He stared … chop! chop! read more!
HOSPICE INTAKE by Luke Koesters
Luke KoestersHOSPICE INTAKE I close my eyes and jump / off a stone pointed cliff. / I’m back to falling / into the gulch below La Quebrada. / I was high diving / only four months ago. / I open my eyes / to a room blanketed in warmth. / It’s too warm, / and I’m still falling / onto each word the doctor / chews and spits out / like stale gum. / The hunch in my spine / juts out like a rock. / It’s cold, / I tell the doctors / touch it. / I think it feels like the coastal breeze and seashore waters. / It points me / toward memories of falling / off more comfortable cliffs. / Luke Koesters is a queer, Asian-American poet from Omaha, Nebraska. He is working toward a BFA from the University of Nebraska Omaha, where he works as the … chop! chop! read more!
ROOTED IN THE PLACE YOU KNOW, a Craft Essay by Bradley Sides
Bradley Sides ROOTED IN THE PLACE YOU KNOW You live in a place that doesn’t have a bookstore. You live in a place that doesn’t even have a chain dollar store. The latter is still ten, fifteen years away. The former will likely never be. In your world, there are trees, cows, and boundless supplies of blue sky. But you have a dream—and you are determined to live it. You drive to the country store to fill your gas tank. Once finished, you go inside to pay with cash. The bells on the heavy door jingle as you exit. You look to your left and wave to the old men on the bench. They nod. You smell pork from their biscuits. The scent lingers even when you are inside your car. You begin the journey. In an hour, you’ll be there. You arrive at the bookstore. It’s a chain, and … chop! chop! read more!
CREATING READER INVESTMENT IN YOUR CHARACTERS: A Writing Tip by Jess Silfa
A Writing Tip by Jess Silfa CREATING READER INVESTMENT IN YOUR CHARACTERS As I write (or rewrite) a piece of fiction, I ask myself a few questions: Why does the story start when it does? What does my chosen point of view add or subtract from the piece? What is the problem, and how is it a symptom of the deeper conflict? I’ve recently started asking myself: What will readers want for my characters? What will they fear for them? When it comes to crafting a character, the heart of their journey lies in the emotional investment of the reader. A character should transcend being a mere plot device; they should be someone the reader cheers for, frets over, and ultimately cares deeply about. Readers should yearn for something for the character—be it conquering a mythical dragon, finding true love, or battling their inner demons. This yearning fosters a connection … chop! chop! read more!
A CRAFT CHAT WITH RICHIE ZABOROWSKE
Andrea Caswell A CRAFT CHAT WITH RICHIE ZABOROWSKE Andrea Caswell: “Stay on the Line” begins in media res, in a hospital during a medical emergency. What made you decide to start there? With short stories, it can be hard to know where to jump in sometimes. Richie Zaborowske: I love short stories. I love how every word counts and is working toward a common goal. I love how, in a matter of minutes, I can have a complete literary experience. With this in mind, when I’m constructing a story, I’m always considering if what I’m writing is necessary to the piece as a whole. Does it move the plot forward? Is it interesting? Is it needed? The opening here isn’t necessarily needed in the sense of the plot or character development, but I thought it helped establish the voice and tone of the piece, and created a vivid scene that … chop! chop! read more!
IN A WRITING RUT? TRY FREE ASSOCIATING: A Writing Tip by Layla Murphy
A Writing Tip by Layla Murphy IN A WRITING RUT? TRY FREE ASSOCIATING The idea that psychoanalysis and the art of writing have significant common ground is not revolutionary. What is explored, what can be learned, what challenges must be faced—in writing as in psychotherapy, the answer can be found in the complex emotional fabric of a human life. For that reason, we can easily apply the techniques used in one of these fields to aid our struggles in the other. Free association was a therapeutic tool developed by Freud which consisted of the patient verbalizing unrelated, seemingly unimportant thoughts as they come to mind. Freud’s theories and techniques are now mostly debunked, which is fine for us because we aren’t using free association to heal our inner child, but as a tool for generative writing. What makes this tool so helpful for writing is that it disabuses us of … chop! chop! read more!
BEAT THE CLOCK: A Writing Tip by Chuck Augello
A Writing Tip by Chuck Augello Beat the Clock Estimated reading time: 3 minutes During my years as a working writer I’ve had opportunities to participate in public readings and open mic nights, including a “slam” in which I placed second while a student at the MFA Program at Queens University at Charlotte. With such events, a common element is the time limit. Often I’ve had only two or three minutes to make an impression, which has led me to a game I call Beat The Clock, a revision strategy that helps pare one’s prose to its vital core. While it works with flash and microfiction, it’s most effective with longer stories or passages from a novel. First, select the passage needing revision. Time yourself reading it aloud. A two thousand-word story takes me approximately eleven minutes to read. After that initial timed reading, I’ll pretend I have a coveted … chop! chop! read more!
WHEN WILLPOWER ISN’T ENOUGH: A Writing Tip by Moriah Hampton
A Writing Tip by Moriah Hampton When Willpower Isn’t Enough Recently, I set aside a story I’d been working on for over a year. I did so reluctantly after revising the opening section to build to certain plot points I selected from earlier drafts. The more I revised, the more dissatisfied I became. It was like watching dominoes lined up between two walls topple over one by one. Despite knowing that something prevented the story moving forward in an interesting way, I continued to revise. I have goals, I told myself. Six stories into the collection I want to publish someday, I anticipated completing the seventh story I was revising and starting on the eighth, my momentum steady until the project was complete. Writing takes work, I reminded myself, which entails not quitting when it becomes difficult but pushing through whatever obstacle lies in the way. But sometimes will power … chop! chop! read more!
A CRAFT CHAT WITH HANNAH SMART by Andrea Caswell
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH HANNAH SMART Hannah: I developed the concept for this story first. I knew I wanted to write a piece that questioned the nature of truth, and I knew that in order to do that, I’d need a scenario with lots of built-in assumptions about truthfulness. My fiancé and I were throwing around ideas, and one of his suggestions was a 911 call. Since 911 dispatchers are required to take callers at their word, I immediately knew it was the plot-grounding form I’d been looking for. Andrea: You’ve written this story using only dialogue. Was that an original constraint or parameter, perhaps related to a prompt or exercise? If not, at what point did you decide to write it as a dialogue-only text? Hannah: The story wasn’t in response to a prompt, but it did develop from the concept I mentioned above. I intended it to … chop! chop! read more!
THE ALMOST-BUT-NOT-QUITE POEM, A Writing Tip by Shoshauna Shy
A Writing Tip by Shoshauna ShyThe Almost-But-Not-Quite Poem Three weeks of wrangling words into position—and still when you cap your pen or click Save, there’s a crumpled shirt tag chafing at your neck. Something isn’t right. Why does your poem feel unfinished no matter how many times you smooth things into place? You read it out loud. The language has a stilted quality. Or the images don’t segue seamlessly from one to the next. Like pulling on a sweater when there’s a thread or two coming loose, and the sleeve catches halfway up your arm. Consider this: You may actually have chosen the perfect verbs and nouns—but it’s their sequence that’s the problem! One trick I use often is to simply swap the order of lines in a sentence. It’s a very small tweak, but the change in perspective can do wonders against that stilted feeling we, as poets, know … chop! chop! read more!
A CONVERSATION WITH DANUTA HINC, Author of WHEN WE WERE TWINS by Andrea Caswell
A Conversation with Danuta Hinc, author of When We Were TwinsPlamen Press, 232 PagesInterview by Andrea Caswell Danuta Hinc’s novel, When We Were Twins (Plamen Press, 2023), follows a group of characters caught in cycles of violence and war. The book imagines the evolution of an intelligent young man into a radicalized terrorist, challenging us to see into his heart and humanity. In this interview with senior fiction editor Andrea Caswell, Hinc discusses the importance of creating connections across cultures, and explains how writing historical fiction forced her to question her own assumptions about human history and the consequences of war. Andrea Caswell: In When We Were Twins, the main character, Taher, begins life as an innocent child, but evolves into a radicalized terrorist. His twin sister follows a different path. Can you tell us about the idea of twins and how this symbol informs themes in the novel? Danuta Hinc: … chop! chop! read more!
WRITE IN SAFETY: A Writing Tip by Karen Rile
A Writing Tip by Karen RileWRITE IN SAFETY Recently I wrote about The Most Dangerous Writing App, an efficient but hair-raising way to generate fresh ideas for your writing. If you haven’t tried it, give it a spin. You might catch something you can use; at very least you’ll get a three-cups-of-coffee adrenaline spurt. Yesterday, a student of mine told me she has a friend who drafts all his writing in The Most Dangerous app. Imagine that! For most of us, however, such a heart-pounding practice isn’t sustainable for more than a few minutes at a time. To write deeply, to compose, one needs to be composed. Maybe, like me, you compose on a keyboard, fingers flying to keep up with your thoughts. Maybe as you type you’re struggling against the urge to look away, to Google that last reference, to answer that ding (typing this, just now, I floated … chop! chop! read more!
A CRAFT CHAT WITH MONIQUE D. CLARK by Andrea Caswell
Andrea CaswellA Craft Chat With Monique D. Clark Andrea: Congratulations on “The Love,” (Issue 44) which feels like a perfect short story. It’s got it all: deep love, disenchantment, humor, food, family secrets, and a profound moment of truth, encapsulated within 1500 words. What’s your “recipe” for creating a powerful short story? Monique: Thank you so much! It was an honor to have “The Love” published in Cleaver Magazine. This is a great question, and in theory feels like an easy one to answer. However, it truly isn’t. My best answer is: Know at least one thing for certain, whether it’s setting, a theme, or in this case, word count. For this piece, the primary goal was for the story to be a maximum of 1500 words, with very little room for compromise. I had spent the past two years in my MFA program at Drexel University working on a short story collection. … chop! chop! read more!
I TOOK INSTRUCTIONS FROM MY HANDS, a craft essay by Beth Kephart
Beth Kephart will teach an all-new interactive Zoom masterclass for Cleaver on Sunday, February 24 2-4 PM: WRITING ADVANCED BY CATEGORIES: TURNING OUR OBSESSIONS INTO STORIES. Join us live or purchase the recording. More info here. Beth Kephart I TOOK INSTRUCTIONS FROM MY HANDS The writer as maker is the poet who weaves, the essayist who stitches, the quilter of fabrics and words. They are Virginia Woolf baking bread and Elizabeth Bishop watercoloring. They are Zelda Fitzgerald cutting paper dolls, Stanley Kunitz among the seaside garden bees, Lorraine Hansberry and the allure of her sketches, and Flannery O’Connor gone exuberant with her pen-and-ink, sometimes linoleum-cut cartoons. (Also Leo Tolstoy. Also Charles Bukowski. Also Lars Horn.) The hands and the head. The ineffable and the uttered. The touch and the tone. The counterpoise and the hush. The one who sees and the one who, having seen, somehow finds the words. I … chop! chop! read more!
FIRST TO THIRD: A Writing Tip by Karen Rile
A Writing Tip by Karen RileFIRST TO THIRD Here’s the truth: Your first instinct is your best. Write the draft the way it comes to you. Maybe your story comes out naturally in first person. And you nail it, fluently: the voice, the character, the plot. Brava! Here’s the rub: You show your draft to trusted readers and—what the heck?—they don’t get it. This narrator is too unlikeable to care about, they complain. They confuse the narrator’s motivations with the story’s intent. They miss your carefully laid irony. Should you fire your writers’ workshop and look for a new set of literary peers? Hold on. Your story isn’t quite telling itself. Here’s the tip: When something feels off about your first-person narrative, try reworking it in a close third-person voice. This is a minor adjustment that produces big results. Third person breathes a puff of air, a little narrative distance, … chop! chop! read more!
2024 Creative Nonfiction Contest
ANNOUNCING Cleaver’s 2024 Short Creative Nonfiction Contest Creative nonfiction is a genre of exploration into ourselves, our society, and our world. We invite short works that explore life in its dualities: memory and imagination, self and society, perfection in flaws, language and its limitations, how the truth can both unite and divide. Far from singular or simple, the world around us glistens with contradictions. Show us where you hold yours. Submissions close April 20, 2024 DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MAY 1, 2024 Judge: Clifford Thompson $500 First Prize $250 Second Prize $100 Third Prize Submission Guidelines Questions? Contact Claire Oleson, Contest Manager Creative Nonfiction Contest Judge Clifford Thompson’s books include What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues (2019), which Time magazine called one of the “most anticipated” books of the season, and the graphic novel Big Man and the Little Men (2022), which he wrote and illustrated. He … chop! chop! read more!
SOLVING FOR X: A Writing Tip by Karen Rile
Where did this prompt come from? I’ve used it in my Penn classes for more than twenty years. I’ve personalized and fancied it, but I don’t think the original idea was mine. This week I paged through my personal library of books on writing and teaching and scoured the internet, but I cannot find the author. If you recognize it, drop me a line! Solving for X creates a detailed and seemingly capricious to-do list that, like all great prompts, frees you from the prison of the empty page. Not quite as daunting as a sestina, but hard enough to keep you interested. The best Solving for X stories make the prompt seem to disappear entirely. The reader becomes so absorbed in your quirky story they don’t notice the successive initial words. Make it fun, or make it serious. Use it alone, or with your peer writing group, or assign … chop! chop! read more!
A CRAFT CHAT WITH SUE MELL, by Andrea Caswell
Andrea CaswellA CRAFT CHAT WITH SUE MELL In her flash CNF piece “Transported” (Issue 44), Sue Mell takes readers on a joy ride through a coming-of-age friendship. Mell shares insights about writing the story with senior fiction editor Andrea Caswell. Andrea: In “Transported,” you’ve packed just about all we need to know into three short paragraphs. It feels like magic! Did this piece begin as something longer, or did you plan to write with great compression from the outset? Sue: What a great compliment—thanks so much! I’d tried using this material as the basis for a short story as well as telling it in a longer or personal essay form. None of which succeeded. So yes—in different versions I attempted over the years—you could say this piece began as something longer. But with this version, originally intended for Instagram (more about that below), I was always going for great compression. … chop! chop! read more!
THREE FLASH PIECES by Matthew Guenette
Matthew Guenette THREE FLASH PIECES Pet Peeve A jackhammer hammers somewhere in the school and your armpits sweat through your shirt. You don’t know what you’re doing, and the class knows that you know they know, but you can’t tell what any of them are wearing, you have no idea what’s going on with their hair. A student points at an outlet. Sparks, she says. Another notices a leak, and look, there it is, something coffee-colored pooling in a corner. A ceiling panel falls, snaps to pieces at your feet. Your laugh-it-off sounds desperate. More falling panels expose bundled wires, coiled cables, electric vines. A row of fluorescent lights comes loudly unhatched. An expensive projector smashes to the floor. A smoldering beam crushes your desk. The jackhammering nears. Pigeons fly through the ceiling, and one lands on your shoulder. You love this pigeon, its little, red, wide-eyed view is your … chop! chop! read more!
THE DETRIMENT OF DOUBT by Hannah Smart
Hannah SmartTHE DETRIMENT OF DOUBT “Hello, I’d like to report a fire at the Gerry’s Pizza off West Ninth Street.” “Okay, and your name, sir?” “Gerry Parker.” “Could you describe the situation?” “I am seated in the restaurant parking lot about twenty feet from the double-paned glass door customers use to enter the building. The flames have moved through the restaurant and are threatening to enter the liminal buffer space between the two sets of doors leading to the outside and inside of the restaurant, respectively—the area where guests wipe off their boots and queue to be seated on particularly busy days. The flames are licking the inside doors. I am sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette within a safe distance.” “Anyone in the restaurant?” “Part of me wishes Rebecca were in there.” “But no one is?” “Long history with Rebecca. You wouldn’t want to hear it.” “I certainly … chop! chop! read more!
ANNIVERSARY POEM II by Matt Thomas
Matt Thomas ANNIVERSARY POEM II Remember the tracked snow it was last to melt and so was like a suture in the flattened grass, Robins feeding impression to impression hashes as if marking time passed from The Incident that dried the trees, brooded a generation of change in their damped, stubborn ashes & then, as if voicing that fire, The Crack of a stick giving to your weight panicked the Robins. We watched them scatter, black thrown seeds, the press of your taut belly a hard pressure at both of our spines We felt it then, but never said, how love, like snow, is a tension between transition and the late present misremembered as stillness By now it goes without saying, all of the lessons to short, illogical ends we’ve hefted and carried from forest to meadow and back Matt Thomas is a smallholder farmer, engineer, and environmentalist. His work … chop! chop! read more!