The Magazine of the Bethlehem Writers Group
Issue No. 59, Winter 2020
The 2019 Bethlehem Writers Roundtable
Short Story Award Competition
is now open
Win cash and publication
for a short story (2000 words or fewer) on the theme
Animal Stories
For more information see 2020 SHORT STORY AWARD tab above
Editor's Note
 A.E. Decker, Chief Editor Welcome
to our first issue of 2020! We here at The Bethlehem Writers Roundtable hope
all our readers will have a most happy and prosperous new year. And if you’re a
writer, there is special reason to be joyous, because the BWG’s annual short
story competition is now open. We’re looking for animal stories up to 2,000 words
in length. In addition to a cash prize, the winner will be considered for publication in
our upcoming "Sweet, Funny, and Strange" anthology: Fur, Feathers, and Scales.
To make matters even more exciting, the finalists in our competition will be judged by the New York Times best-selling author of the delightful Chet and Bernie mystery series, Spencer Quinn, aka Peter Abrahams. In addition to being our celebrity judge, Mr. Abrahams has also graciously agreed to answer a few questions for our interview section in this issue of The Bethlehem Writers Roundtable. Our first issue of the year kicks off with “A Hollow Place Between Mountains,” a bone-chilling tale by our featured author, Zachary Kellian. Two of our runners-up from last year’s short story competition have also won a place in this issue. Bill White’s “Stanley the Cat” is guaranteed to make you smile, while Phil Giunta’s “Take a Cue From the Canine” might raise a tear. We also have no less than three wonderful poems, including our featured poem, “The Baptism,” by Jennifer Judge. For our Literary Learnings feature, BWG editor Dianna Sinovic dives into the dark realm of Edgar Allan Poe. As I look over this list of authors we are honored to publish in this issue, I realize that the greatest gift that comes from being an editor is discovering new talent. What makes it even better is that you are then able to go on and share your discovery with the world. Readers, the stories in this issue are the BWG’s gift to you. I hope some of you will be inspired to send us your work and continue this wonderful cycle of giving and receiving. Happy reading! | Featured Author . . .
 Zachary Kellian is a
5th-generation Appalachian-American
A Hollow Place Between Mountains
Zachary Kellian Around here people mind their own business. Even the cicadas continue to drone on, oblivious to the screams coming from the trailer at the far end of the park. It is like this every night. A man paces in the green-tinged light of the mercury-vapor lamps. A woman cowers just inside her trailer. The man’s hostile energy builds, his movements twitch and jerk, he demands to see his children. Someone will hear, the woman thinks. Someone will decide that tonight they’ve had enough. Help will come. She thinks these things, but she knows they are just a fantasy. Among the coal-rich hills and valleys so deep they swallow the sun, people keep to themselves. She will wait out another night, huddled below her windowsill, kitchen knife in hand, hoping the lock will hold. It is almost dawn by the time he leaves. She can hear the crunch of gravel as his truck drives away. Her joints make the same sound as she rises up from the crouch she’d held for hours. Her muscles burn from the arrested action.
She puts on a pot of coffee and stares out at the park and the other double-wides that must hide their own secrets. When had it all gone wrong and why hadn’t she acted sooner? How did a man, whose barrel chest carried such a passionate heart, turn so quickly into something monstrous? When had her school-girl blushes turned into bruises? When had the mountains’ embrace become a stranglehold? “You want to take your sister to the lot to play today?” She asks her oldest, a boy, age four. He shrugs. One can only feign interest in building castles out of parking lot gravel for so long. “What about you, little lady?” Her daughter cannot speak, but her eyes look up at her mother with sadness. How can she care about any day when she has to worry about nightfall? Three thousand more dollars. That will get them out of here. She will work a double today.
“Annie May” he calls out, using the same name her father had always used. It makes her feel weak, infantilized. “You’ve no right. No right to keep me from my kids.” She can hear the dense thud as he punctuates the sentence with a fist to his chest. He is calm so far, but his agitated pacing quickens. She wishes she had gotten the kids out of the house. Each night it escalates. He knows they’re in the trailer, she’s sure of that. Like some hunger-stricken black bear come down from the mountains, his senses are primal. Maybe if they weren’t here she could talk to him. Maybe they could chat like they used to, her head cradled in the crook of his shoulder, his heart beating against her temple. Maybe then he would even listen. Another fantasy, but she allows herself to think it. “Annie May.” A gentle, deceptive wrap at the door she is braced against. “Just come out so’s we can talk. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” He was going to hurt her. It was in his voice. “I know you can hear me. This door ain’t nothing but cork. You can hear me through it. And you know I can bust through it in a storm if I had a mind to.” She listens to his labored breathing just on the other side. A loud crack against her back. She is rocked forward and the wind escapes her lungs. Another boot kick lands against the door and it lurches forward on its flimsy hinges. Dust particles, shaken loose from the ceiling, cover her hair. “My kids,” he screams. “My goddamn blood. You’ve no right!” Another kick and the door will give way, but for some reason, he stops. She holds her breath. A spotlight sweeps through the slats of her blinds. She hears a car coast to a stop. She peels back a piece of the plastic blind and chances a look. Her heart sinks. A police cruiser is outside, and her ex is bent over, elbows on the cruiser’s open window, chatting as casual as he would with his bartender. The two men converse. Her ex pats the cruiser as it, driven by one of his uncles or perhaps a cousin, speeds away to continue its nightly rounds. He returns to the trailer, his voice a menaced hush through the busted particleboard door. “I’ll be back tomorrow for my kids.” But he isn’t through. She knows this and keeps still. From his truck he bellows, “Do you hear me? Tomorrow I’ll have my kids or so help me, I’ll burn you alive. I’ll burn that trailer down with the three of you in it!” She waits for a long while after he is gone before she gets up to check on the children. The built-in ironing board has fallen out from its nook with all the pounding and it blocks the bedroom door. She lifts it, cracks the door, and sees, in the slice of amber light, her boy lying there with his eyes wide open. She kisses him on the check and hears herself promise it won’t happen again. She has no idea what she will do, but she believes a promise is a promise. The kids are dropped off with the only neighbor who will take them. One night, the neighbor warned, just this one night. They didn’t want any trouble. Annie waits outside her trailer. The hills surrounding the valley are closing in on her. She can feel their weight. As a kid she had loved the mountains, felt embraced by them. They protected her from all the dangers outside. Now she sees that they have trapped her here. They have shielded her from seeing something better on the horizon. She would be their victim no longer. It is past two in the morning when his truck rolls in. She is ready for him. Before he even has the chance to knock or yell, she opens the door and invites him inside.
“Glad you finally got some sense.” He says as he steps into the small kitchen of the trailer. “They in the bedroom?” The stench of whiskey is carried along with the plume of cigarette smoke he expels in her face. “Yes,” she says. “Don’t blow your smoke on them.” She takes the lit cigarette from his lips. He lets her and sneers. He wipes a calloused palm across her face. She remembers when his touch had felt warm, like a kiss. Now his hands seem more like animal paws, chunks of meat made for violence. “I’m going to take ‘em to my truck. And then you and I will have words.” He walks into bedroom at the far end of the trailer. His senses are dulled by his own booze-stink. He is oblivious to the wavering fumes of gasoline all around them. She slams the ironing board down, blocking the bedroom door. The lit cigarette falls to the floor of the trailer. Little peaks of flame flicker in a pool of gas. Fire rushes toward the bedroom like a river. Cries of anger and pain. No one listens. Around here people mind their own business. | The Top Ten ...Women Who Have Inspired Me“A Hollow Place Between the Mountains” is dedicated to the strong matriarchs of Appalachia: mothers and grandmothers, frontierswomen and bedrock homesteaders. With them in mind, here are the top 10 women who have inspired me.1. My Mother, Deborah Lynn Magly Johnson — she taught me a love of the English language and inspired me by demonstrating the kind of work ethic that turns dreams into reality. She will forever be the strongest woman I know. 2. Toni Morrison — winner of both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes, began her writing career when the profession was a rarity for both women and people of color. A native of Ohio, her family comes from South Appalachia stock, and she was, in my opinion, one of the single greatest crafters of the English language. 3. My Aunt, Tracy Magly — who worked for years as a social services worker throughout the Mountain State before earning her degree in massage therapy where she now serves many of the state’s poorest as they seek pain management alternatives to the pill and opioid epidemic. 4. Nellie Bly — born in “The Paris of Appalachia," Nellie would become one of American’s first and greatest investigative reporters. One of her many daring investigations involved committing herself to an insane asylum just to report on the conditions firsthand. 5. My Great Aunt, Monnie Payton — an Appalachian woman through and through, she became the first in our family to finish school. She also was our family’s first author! 6. Pearl S. Buck —a noted humanitarian, and the first American Woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in Hillsboro, WV. 7. Ruby Bradly — a native of Spencer WV, became the most decorated woman in US Military history for her life-saving actions as a POW during WWII and later during the Korean War where she refused to abandon her post until all her patients were successfully evacuated. 8. Karen Johnson — an American mathematician and native of White Sulphur Springs, she helped put a man on the moon and was the subject of the book/movie “Hidden Figures.” 9. Joyce Carol Oates — a writer whose work ethic is second to none, she has contributed 58 literary masterpieces to the English language and thankfully shows no signs of slowing down. 10. A*tie* of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë — When literary society refused to champion female writers, they rewrote the rules and gave us a handful of classic novels we still cherish today. The 2020
SHORT
STORY
AWARD
Competition
is now open!
Enter your
Animal
Story
of
2000 words
or fewer
for a
First Prize of
$200
and publication.
See the tab above for more information.
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