Issue 32

NewMyths.com

A quarterly ezine by a community of writers, poets and artists.

Issue 32, September, 2015

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your continued loyalty. We at NewMyths.com couldn't survive without the volunteers that make it happen. Please take a moment to read their bios here.

This month guest editor Susan Shell Winston is responsible for choosing almost all the fine poems, stories, and nonfiction below. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Enjoy,

Scott T. Barnes, Editor

What makes a gemstone shine?

My novel-in-progress follows a gem-cutter and her father trying to survive the destruction of their world. In writing it, I've needed to research gemstones, their properties and beliefs surrounding them, their reality and their fantasy. As my heroine's father cuts an emerald, he admires its beauty with a professional eye -- in terms, by the way, straight from the research. Its crystal is transparent with one inclusion near the center, its color is a deep verdant green. It's a stone of "the finest water and the brightest fire. The three elements in one that would give it life." It's the inclusion near the center that the gemcutter can make the most use of, the fault at its heart.

So too in writing characters and stories.

I was asked this summer at a workshop for Odyssey graduates what kind of stories is New Myths looking for. Beautiful writing, yes. "Dance of Gramarye" by Kathryn Yelinek swirls beautiful images of the finest water, the whitest snow, and the brightest fire into the minds of her audience watching--and reading--the dance of magic. But the spark that gives it life, the inclusion that makes it shine is the "heart" of the story.

That sense of heart, of an emotional honesty in the center of the story is the most common thread in the stories and poems selected for this issue. From a child looking outside the box to find his mother in Ronald Ferguson's "Everyplace is Halfway to Somewhere" to a dog losing her poetry in "Roxy" by Lisa Timpf, to a friendship a lonely orphan tries to believe is still alive in "An Orphan at Eventide" by Tyler Bourassa, to the Filipino learning why his god weeps for his lost love in "Conversations with Tungkung Langit" by Recle Vibal, to the dawning rays of love in "The Warmth of Sun In Winter" by Stephen Power, to the magic that masqueraded as love in "Masque" by Amy Allison, to the four poems in this issues, each of these selections come alive because they convey the brightest fire of a human heart.

The second thread that sparks at the center of the gems we look for here at New Myths is the questions raised that make us think, questions that keep nagging at us long after the story ends.

I can't help comparing Joshua Pearce's "And Then There Were Infinite" to the classic story "The Lady or the Tiger." No other story that I have ever read has come closer to being as unanswerable. That's an achievement, Joshua, that New Myths is proud to publish! And I hope our readers feel the same.

Thinking about it, I had my guess which button is pushed in "And Then There Were Infinite", but when I told the author, he laughed and wondered how many of our readers would guess the same button or not.

I wonder too....

Shall we take a poll?

-Susan Shell Winston, Editor

Table of Contents

Fiction

An Orphan at Eventide by Tyler Bourassa

Elaris' stomach rumbled, demanding nourishment. He was so sick of the gnawing emptiness in his belly, aching to be filled, always wanting more. The older kids used to say that hunger was an orphan's constant companion. Now he knew why.

Everyplace is Halfway to Somewhere by Ronald D. Ferguson

Unable to take his eyes from her sallow face, Hal held his wife Sandra's hand. Again, he cursed the expedition medic for disappearing in a blizzard--her body never located. Sometimes, he suspected she had done it on purpose because she couldn't stand the hardship.

And Then There Were Infinite by Josh Pearce

“Do you ever feel like you’re standing with your finger in the dam of reality?”

Roxy by Lisa Timpf

There's a full moon tonight, and the patch of light that falls through the window onto the carpet has moved half-way across the floor as I watch, unable to sleep. I am thinking about tomorrow, and all the things that will be lost, gone like forgotten bones buried in the dark, sweet earth.

Conversations with Tungkung Langit by Recle Etino Vibal

Matanong looked out the window of their hut. The wind had calmed down, but the rain continued its downpour. The rain annoyed Matanong because it prevented him from playing up and down the mountainsides, among the forest trees, or across the grass fields.

Dance of Gramarye by Kathryn Yelinek

Mirabel slipped into the sheltered cove, the surf loud in her ears. With quick, sure movements, she pulled off her shoes and stood lightly balanced on bare feet. The sand was coarse underfoot, quite different from the smooth practice halls in the academy.

Flash Fiction

Masque by Amy Allison

I remember it all with sharpness of a blade against the throat.

The Warmth of Sun in Winter by Stephen S. Power

A little after noon, his morning work done, Hul crawls from his stone cottage to watch the sunrise. A blue wash saturates the snow-covered plains.

NonFiction

The Mythology of Water by Tala Bar

All natural forces have the contradicting qualities of being beneficial and destructive, and none more so than water.

Dark God Rising: The Slender Man by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt

In late spring of 2014, police arrested two twelve-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin for allegedly holding down and stabbing a classmate over a dozen times. Child-on-child violence is terrible enough, but this crime had another, surreal feature.

Poetry

A Bottle of Blue Glass by Adele Gardner

The Sounds of Science by John Reinhart

Remains by Janet Ruhe-Schoen

Twenty Years by Christina Sng