Notes about The Clinch Mountain Review
The Clinch Mountain Review is the literary review of Southwest Virginia Community College. This year, the CMR celebrates its sixteenth year of publication. All of the authors have a tie to the southwestern Appalachian region of Virginia. In these pages, you will find poems, short stories, and memoirs; the hope is that something will endear itself to you. Additionally, I want to remind you that the CMR accepts submissions from authors and artists who live, work, or have a tie to southwest Virginia. SWCC students can also submit poems, short stories, and memoirs, as well as artwork for the cover. Submission guidelines can be found on The CMR website: http://www.sw.edu/cmr. S. Russell Wood, Editor September 2020
The Clinch Mountain Review 2020 Cover Art by Kohava Blount Cover Art Design by John Dezember Copyright 2020 The Clinch Mountain Review All rights to works in The Clinch Mountain Review revert to individual authors after publication herein. Authors should cite The Clinch Mountain Review as place of original publication when republishing a work elsewhere. Poetry
Where I’m From Chrissie Anderson Peters 3 Kitten Lou Gallo 5 Through This Year, If David Wayne Hampton 9 The Loneliest Thing R. R. Beach 12 Neighbors Craig Kurtz 14 The Crocus Inheritance Piper Durrell 16 Wild Kingdom David Wayne Hampton 18 The Way of Life Katherine Chantal 21 Isolation 2020 Les Epstein 24 Devil Drives a Corvette Matthew J. Spireng 26 Radio Matthew J. Spireng 28 Transient Gale Kohava Blount 29 The Café Chrissie Anderson Peters 30 On to Infinity Piper Durrell 31 Glutton For Punishment Frank Shortt 34 This Too Shall Pass Oscar L. Price 36 Hideaway B. Chelsea Adams 37 A Mind of Leaves Lisa Ress 39 Marks of Beauty Macon Clement 41 When a Parent Dies Joe Womack 43 Disheveled Linda Hoagland 44 Winter Scene Ben Rasnic 47
Fiction
Control Chrissie Anderson Peters 48
Creative Non-fiction/Memoir
Never Enough Hugs Chrissie Anderson Peters 61 Royalty Russell County Oscar L. Price 67 Ten Years Too Late Linda Hoagland 78 Contributors’ Notes
2 Poetry
Where I’m From
By Chrissie Anderson Peters
I am from poor dirt farms, from Pocahontas ginger ale and
Ford automobiles.
I am from the doublewide paneling, old, yellowed, and smelling of Pledge.
I am from daisies, delicate white flowers with yellow buttons, and my mother’s mother’s mother.
I'm from midnight Michigan pilgrimages and Sunday fried chicken.
From Arthur and Dorothy,
I'm from the Little stubbornness and the Vance love of money.
From witches living under the bed,
3 and St. Bernards playing leapfrog.
I'm from slick-backed Baptist hymnals,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me.
I'm from Adria and Baptist Valley, cheap red hotdogs, and Toney’s lunchmeat.
From the water moccasin that bit
Papaw’s ankle as a boy,
The glass eyes of Uncle Paul and Uncle Earl,
I am from Mamaw’s photo albums inside her coffee table, the doors that slid open, yielding treasures inside;
I am even more made up of the stories
Papaw fed me on from childhood
‘til Alzheimer’s took them from him, Spring 2014.
4 Kitten
By Lou Gallo
We take her as a sign as we have always done,
The kitten who showed up on our deck yesterday
When Cat left for work, calling me on the cell
A bit later to effuse over this new one, sweet,
Cold and hungry. “When you leave,” she said,
“be sure to feed her again.” I adore the decency
And kindness of this woman.
As for the kitten—grey and white, pinkish nose,
Her purr resounding as she rubs against your pants
As you attempt to walk to the car without
Tripping over her, so desperate and intent she is.
We figured she would have vanished when
We returned hours later—but no, she rushed
Out from under the deck to greet me, then Cat
5 A few minutes later. “She must be lost!”
Exclaimed my wife. “What should we do?
It’s supposed to freeze and maybe snow tonight.
She’ll die or get slaughtered by the groundhog.”
We couldn’t carry her inside. Who knows
What fleas or afflictions she might have
That could infect our other two cats
And occasional dog when the girls visit?
We set up an old carrier with blankets
And a little food, and she crawled right in
As if prescient to our intents.
Then the outrageous vet bills—eight thousand
Already on one Visa for four years of vaccines,
Medication and repairs during the last four years.
How could we take on another?
Or should we declare ourselves a neo-St. Francis
And minister to the lost and hungry?
6 It’s already enormous work to take care of the others.
On whom would the burden of still another fall?
We keep lamenting, too much to do, too little time . . .
And now this forlorn yet gentle, fragile guest?
Has she had her shots, been checked for feline leukemia
And all the rest of it? Did some wretch toss her out?
It will be cold, cold, cold tonight, Artic invasion
Across the country.
My daughters, of course, yearn for us to keep her.
They can’t because Cinnamon would go nuts
In their small apartment.
What to do? I think of the cages immigrant children
Have been locked into and feel rage sizzle in my blood.
7 Poor little creature, we actually loved you at first sight.
What harm might befall you, another innocent
Beset by predators, weather, hunger and loneliness?
Anybody out there want a beautiful little kitten?
St. Francis, where are you?
8 Through This Year, If
By David Wayne Hampton
I already missed living at my grandmother’s when we moved into the 2-bedroom factory house, and I didn’t want the top bunk over my sister, but my mom let me hang my Garfield calendar in the kitchen next to the back door, and she wrote on Wednesday, June 15th,
“this is the day I stopped drinking.”
My fourth-grade textbooks were as heavy as the walk home from the bus stop, and the September sun cared little of whether his car was in the driveway or not, but I held my little sister’s hand tighter, as the diesel fumes dissipated, and hoped we had pudding pops in the freezer.
When I jumped on my Huffy, I didn’t wait
9 for the pouring of confessions to my mom, or see the look on her boyfriend’s face after finding his empty liquor bottles drained in the sink.
I pedaled hard to escape the smashing glass on pavement, popping like the rifle fire of choice words behind me.
I inhaled freedom with every cold, sucking breath.
Maybe she told him to take his Trans Am and leave.
I wasn’t around for the fallout, so I don’t know.
My sister, I think, was safe in our room watching TV, and having tea parties with Skipper in the Dream House.
We had been on this ride before, and it was all my fault, but even over a bowl of Frosted Flakes I couldn’t get her to see,
10 even when I ripped that calendar right off the wall.
There wasn’t as many boxes this time, thank God, and I didn’t care if my GoBots were mixed with her Barbies.
My sister and I would get our own rooms, thanks to
Mom’s new job and help from the Housing Authority.
I can’t say when I learned about that fickle relationship, though, when people asked, we were always doing just fine.
But somewhere between the over-bite of a ripe peach and a missed visit from the tooth fairy,
I found it was right there all along, that familiar, gnawing, hard little pit.
11 The Loneliest Thing
By R. R. Beach
I was sitting on William Trainor’s porch up in the hills of Tennessee listening to the little rill running down through the mountain laurel asking myself when the crooked tree on the far slope all decayed and rotten was going to give up the ghost and come crashing down while off in the distance an old logging truck was burning up its gears on the road over Buffalo Mountain with the smell of woodsmoke working its way up the hollow
12 as I was looking off into the purple haze of my existence
I saw the loneliest thing ever a tired old propjet like the ones with the Rolls Royce engines that should have been mothballed years ago beating its way through the mottled sky uncertain of its destination as if it ever had a place to land with twenty souls or so condemned to fly over these sad hills forever
13 Neighbors
By Craig Kurtz
My neighbors I don’t really know –
I wave “Hi” from the patio; we see each other outside when we’re mowing our lawns now and then;
I only know them from afar when one of us waxes their car;
I’m all for being neighborly providing there’s a boundary;
I’ll be polite but breaking bread
I will not do with the undead.
I wave to them from my driveway – they wave back, say “Have a nice day”; a cup of sugar, lend a tool, a jump start even, that’s all cool;
14 but if they think I’ll shake their hand they’re really out in La-La Land; and if they think I’d let my kid get near theirs, then their brains have slid;
I’m not so snobby how they’re bred but I don’t hang with the undead.
Now, high school, as I recall it, was “Are you in” and “Do you fit”?; it was a big, fat pyramid with dirty tricks we all kept hid; and after all that silly crap, adults still fall into that trap; it’s “Who’s the boss” and “Who’s on top” just like a Steven King sock hop; now, prejudice I know ain’t right but zombies should be shunned on sight.
15 The Crocus Inheritance
By Piper Durrell
A midwinter invasion arrived in the back field.
The 70 year old home we had purchased last fall- thrown money at, cursed at- today was visited by an unexpected apparition.
Purple popping through grass, mulch, leaves; shades of lilac & lavender from deep violet to almost white. All centered by an electric orange stamen creeping across our yard
16 in nature’s eclectic interpretation of rows.
By morning the crocuses glittered from dew or frost; under the mid-day sun six petals aimed for the sky; by late afternoon the endearing look of floppy petals enjoying an afternoon nap.
Together an illusory and heavenly first taste of spring.
Then came the violets...
17 Wild Kingdom
By David Wayne Hampton
We crouched in the tall weeds on the bank of a logging road, quietly scratching chigger bites like a three-member pride of lion cubs.
Cockleburs in our shoelaces, we advanced upon our prey under the moonless mask of summer dark.
I could hear my heartbeat in every stealthy breath, twelve-year-old bodies tense with anticipation.
My ears rang from the strain of listening to muffled voices outside of a parked car, tried to guess from their shadows if it was Norma Strickland and Bobby Carpenter’s older brother again, by the murmur of teenage experience.
Bucky nudged my elbow and pointed to a swirling red eye,
18 pungent draws of a skinny joint passed between them.
The glow gave little form, though, to their unsuspecting faces.
We stopped scratching our chigger bites when a throaty, girlish giggle closed the distance.
I tried hard to imagine in the meager starlight, from the creaking shocks and dull ping of sheet metal, their touching, kissing, tangled embraces.
Our minds buzzed and raced as fast as the surrounding crescendo of cicadas, and heavy, heavenly breathing.
I don’t know why Joe did it, pulled a flashlight from his cargo pants pocket.
Its fresh battery glow skipped across bare white skin on the faded hood of a blue Chrysler LeBaron, with a foul-ball dent in the driver’s door.
19 I turned away from the couple’s flushed looks, my parents’ faces, unfamiliar only by circumstance, and caught my own pale look reflected in Joe’s glasses, before running blindly into the astonished darkness.
I lost my left shoe hopping over a cow pasture gate, past tethered dogs of God and lit kitchen windows, not caring to see what direction my friends had run.
I limped through a tragic gauntlet of a cornfield, my legs and forearms whipped raw and bloody from leafy stalks and blades, as bodily penance for that animal image burned into my memory.
20 The Way of Life
By Katherine Chantal
The life I am living
Has not been planned
Though, it may have been ordained
May yet be so
There was no one moment
When what I lived in
Shifted to what became of my days
The appearance of adolescent rebellion,
Short as it was,
Possessed threads of experiences
I had never had
A compass I could not see
Yet, working me all the while
That life had its way with me
Was no plan at all
21 To be sure, much is familiar
Vestiges of the reactive, young adult, still remain
The thread, larger now in every direction
Thinner, durative
Just when was the moment
I got the notion that,
All the decisions I thought
I was making
Were veritable responses to what life was making of me?
Ordination, truly, not a noun that stays put
Rather, an active current,
Agency, perhaps
Reaching back, moving forward
22 Synchronistically simultaneous
Or simultaneously synchronistic?
An ancient story,
Rewritten, reshaping, slightly
Life having its way, still
Life tugging the thread of my days
Preceding and succeeding
In its own measure
23 Isolation 2020
By Les Epstein
Another night in the tank
We all call home
And I fancy 1976 a better year
When my lunch bag
So delightfully smelling like fish
Found itself
Tossed from the Practical Science room
Bag and all
Leaving me
In my cat fur plastered coat
Gasping for the taste of tuna
I could escape the tank
And take peak at the farms
From the edge of Chestnut Ridge
I would be up high
24 And lament the dearth
Of practical science
Or tuck my neck
In a fur plastered coat
As my remaining shield
Since breathing between friends
Is recommended to be at six feet
(Why is every damn ultimatum left at six feet?)
And consider spending
Another night in the tank
Praising sardines with the cats
So which is a better world:
To be banished for the love of fish
Or starved for the need of communal breath
25 The Devil Drives a Corvette
By Matthew J. Spireng
“Sinkhole Opens Up in National Corvette Museum, Swallows Eight Cars”
– Internet news headline
The devil drives a Corvette and he’s adding to his collection, though the story doesn’t say that, citing a sinkhole instead, but the devil is down there making a grab for the finest Corvettes around, less damaged than those he claims after crashes he’s caused—and eight at once!
His prized mechanic will have no problem doing the bodywork and getting these Corvettes up and running. He was as gentle with the collapse
26 as he could be. And he’s already making plans for more. He’s gotten wind of a car carrier fully loaded heading out next week. The train will be at the crossing to meet it. Six more Corvettes!
27 Radio
By Matthew J. Spireng
High as my head then, it was furniture: dark wood and tan fabric over the speaker.
This little remains. And the memory of different bands. One for near and familiar, another to pick up broadcasts from around the world, the exotic to be discovered, then ignored. But I was so young and it’s faded like a distant station, then gone. Replaced by television.
Howdy Doody. Circus Boy. Andy Devine and Pluck your magic twanger, froggy.
What if I’d listened to the world?
28 Transient Gale
By Kohava Blount
One breeze, and the befallen is
Elapsed. Gentle gust, but draping
Any vision of a rearward glance.
Rebirth through the same eyes
Yet
Impermanent, the second to lapse; a cycle of evermore. Cherry blossom, to blink and know vanished was an instant of splendor. Captured, or lost amid the anonymity. Ephemeral opportunity evaded a phase reverberating eternally; progressing or passing; drifting in a fleeting wind.
29 The Café
By Chrissie Anderson Peters
And the fans who rise each morning, sing with praise of mocha and latte, those who play and sing at midday, with stirred cream and sugar smoothly. And the fans who stay up all night, coffee dark as spaces curled up at hallways’ ends, with two green eyes darting, unseen, unbound: music pulls them in like the melody and harmonies; the hummers, singers, canters, too; each instrument so vital, each word felt and enunciated in this anthem, each sentiment proclaimed in this survival hymn, each syllable whispered in this sacred prayer -- that each is equal, that each part is precious, that without any one part, the music dies forever.
30 On to Infinity
By Piper Durrell
The friend said she would be a comet.
Then, turning to me, asked
“How about you?
Our group was discussing how poets write about death
I never heard the original question.
Conversation moved on
I sat there wondering how to respond.
Is this when I admit
I have no spiritual side- no spiritual questions- that it has been a long time
31 since I pondered what comes next based on the assumption that what happens happens and I hope my mom is happily up somewhere with my dad who is wearing his Red Sox hat just as we promised her.
I can name the 12 disciples if I sing the song that I taught 2nd graders in Sunday school.
A bevy of prophets have roamed this earth-
I have no favorites- and I turn silent, worshipful in all places of faith
32 until, eventually, I walk out.
This is the long way of saying that heaven is not in my future plans.
The sea
I wrote on the poem in front of me.
Lapping waves, salty taste life cycle, moon cycle filled by gentle rain and sister rivers eventually returning to the sky.
I would be the sea.
33 Glutton For Punishment
By Frank Shortt
He stayed too late at grandma’s house
Listening to tales of horror, wide-eyed
Knowing he had to go home alone
Along a dark path, this, to himself, he denied.
Breathless, he ran headlong, blindly
Not forgetting the stories told to him
By uncaring uncles, who thought it funny,
To scare the boy at their whim.
Each root was a snake, each stump a bear
Trees became tall giants, swooping low
Their arms seeking to snatch him up
Their limbs wielding the death blow.
Why must he have to pass the graves
Of all the animals for which wakes
Had been held at the event of death
34 Their funerals now real, though fakes.
The barn in the mist a haunted house
Ethereal in the deepening night
Where ghosts and goblins lurked
A source of dread added to his fright.
Now safe at home, dodging at shadows,
He climbed at once into bed, beside brother
Where solitude claimed him until morning light
Not caring for one thing or the other.
The day brought a welcome respite
From all the cares of the previous day
Forgetting all the scares he encountered
To grandma’s house he made his way.
35 This Too Shall Pass
By Oscar L. Price
We wake in the night thinking of things in life we fear,
With our minds on grief and things we cannot change.
Let our minds be in still water.
Let good memories bring us rest.
Think about little birds leaving the nest.
See little kittens playing; how soft and warm they feel upon our chest.
See little ducklings swimming on a pond.
Dream about pretty flowers, good things and having lots of fun.
This, Too, Shall Pass.
36 Hideaway
By B. Chelsea Adams
As the willow weeps, its arms and fingers reaching for the earth, the woman with long hair the color of soil approaches, parts its lengthy branches, and sits down on the bench she placed near its trunk.
In her green-leaved hideaway a feeling of welcome warms her.
The only words are wind songs, a
Nina Simone slow jazz whisper.
37 The long leaved branches begin to dance. As she watches the performance, the swirls and flutters, lifts and bows, she forgets what she has left behind, and almost envisions hope.
38 A Mind of Leaves
By Lisa Ress
I have dragged myself – the jagged bits, the splintered thoughts, the curdling bolts of noise, uncoiling snakes of fear --
I have dragged myself here to these woods thirsting for the solace of shade, for a healing calm, for the sensible, sturdy presence of trees.
Though these are not the dense tracts that used to stretch for untold miles, not those that harbored Robin Hood, nor those where children came to nibble on that tasty witch’s house, no longer those
39 beneath whose massive canopies beasts spoke with us and sometimes offered aid.
These trees, though so much younger, still keep that upright stance, still speak in that same sibilant tongue, still speak the intricate language of leaves.
Their soaring trunks uplift me, arms reach out, embrace me, and their voices, thousand tongues still speak of roots entwined, of roots entwining soil, still speak of unity, of wholeness everlasting, speak of peace.
40 Marks of Beauty
By Macon Clement
Scars are marks of beauty whether they be emotional or physical.
They are tattoos that say we as humans are vulnerable.
They tell stories of trauma but they also represent the strength and willpower to overcome it.
They remind us that
41 no matter how badly we are scarred inside or out we are beautiful souls.
42 When a Parent Dies
By Joe Womack
She approaches the open coffin,
reaching for a final touch,
whispering a final word,
hand trembling, tears falling.
Days later she opens
a box of his items
which opens her emotions
as she finds his death alive again.
“Because of his pain,
I wanted him to die… but nothing will be the same again,” she whispers painfully, mostly to herself.
Loss has its way, unique with each survivor, but always undaunted it meets us,
as in a coffin or a box.
43 Disheveled
By Linda Hoagland
Left Turn Lucy, should be my new name because of my unchanging desire to drive off into the wrong direction.
I did exactly that when I went in search of the Harvest Table where I could set up and sell the books I wrote.
I located the establishment and exited my car where I went in search of the person I needed to talk with to get myself set up and ready to sell. I started to walk to the front of the building and I spotted a walking, raggedy clothed man who was disheveled to the point of needing a good hard scrubbing.
44 He was no more than five-two with long, straggly gray hair, a dirty beard, and moustache. From his shoulders he had tied on cloth bags that seemed to be empty waiting to be filled with whatever.
Initially I was frightened of this small man but when he said “hello” in a bright and cheerful tone my first impression changed. He appeared to be homeless but not unhappy. He didn’t ask me for anything for which I was relieved because that would have caused my opinion of him to be drastically different.
I believed he was on his way to collect cans and other items that would earn him some eating or drinking money.
45 If I hadn’t been running late for my commitment to set up and sell my books, I would have loved to have talked with him. I might have contributed some funds to help him survive.
46 Winter Scene
By Ben Rasnic
Unforgiving Chinook winds vibrating barren branches, bereft of vitality.
Garden remnants, snapdragons and geraniums concede a downward trajectory beneath the rising onslaught yet a chunk of deadwood, a fallen pine branch provides a comfortable perch for a red cardinal pondering the drifting snow.
47 Fiction
Control
By Chrissie Anderson Peters
“I’ll bet I can eat more no-bake cookies than you can!” Sally Singleton challenged me.
“Ugh, Sally, I’m already so full!”
“Come on, Brooke,” she urged me. “I just ate every bit as much as you did!”
And she had. “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly, and every kid in the middle school cafeteria cheered us on as we started stuffing ourselves with the chocolate-oatmeal no-bakes. I honestly don’t remember how many we had; I quit counting around eighteen or nineteen. The entire plate that had sat before us had been devoured. We were both winners, I guess, but I sure felt like a loser as we half-giggled our way toward the bathroom before the class-change bell rang.
48 “How are you gonna make it through the rest of the day?” I asked Sally. “I feel like my gut’s gonna bust wide open!”
“Oh, that part’s easy,” she smiled. “It’s all about control, Brooke.” She stuck her finger down her throat and forced herself to vomit. All those cookies. I thought I’d never eat chocolate again. The bell rang to go to class. She rinsed her mouth, patted me on the shoulder and said, “See you next period.” That was in eighth grade, four years ago; I was thirteen years old, and control was the last thing in the world that I had any of in my awkward teenage life.
I was never skinny as a kid. But the first time anyone called me fat was in fifth grade. I’d gotten sick at school, and my older cousin Bart had to come pick me up to take me home because no one else was available. He was in high school. He had a cool car and played football. I remember feeling so awful, and then, when I got in his car, he looked at me and with absolute disgust said, “You
49 know, Brooke, guys don’t like fat girls.” And that was it. The whole conversation. All eight words of it. But it jabbed at my gut worse than the pain I already had. I didn’t want to be fat, and at that moment, I vowed that I’d find a way not to be.
By seventh grade, I’d started skipping lunch. Not every day, but often enough that I wasn’t as overweight as I had been. Lunch was $1 per day. I had $79 dollars by the end of the school year— counting was control, I realized later, after my lesson in the bathroom from Sally. And I’d been in control at lunch that whole year. My momma found the money. She never asked where it came from. She just took it and spent it at the Estée Lauder counter at the Mall.
I grew up on a farm, a place where you ate what was on the table, when it was on the table. My mother was the queen of diet pills. Dexatrim was her best friend—well, Dexatrim and coffee. For a while in ninth grade, Dexatrim and I became buddies, too. Momma bought the first month’s
50 supply. It worked. But it worked so well, I needed more. So I just started taking Momma’s. Either she never figured out that I was taking from her supply, or she just didn’t care; I was never really sure which it was.
My Aunt Sue had lost over seventy pounds on the Beverly Hills Diet when I was a sophomore in high school; I knew firsthand that controlling one’s weight was absolutely possible. I loved my Aunt Sue—I worshiped the ground that she walked on. It never even occurred to me the two times that she collapsed when I went shopping with her at the mall before Christmas my junior year had anything at all to do with that diet stuff— she was Aunt Sue, infallible, incredible, as close to perfect as anyone I knew.
On a farm, you’re expected to “pull your weight.” My dad called me “Oxy,” because I was strong as an ox, and because I was so much bigger than my little brother, who was only two years younger than I was. Teenage girls, for the most part, don’t
51 take such nicknames as compliments. They also don’t forget them easily.
Control. I had to find some way to control my weight better, to make him see that I was beautiful and talented, that I wasn’t a piece of livestock at all.
My freshman year of high school, I ran track, so I had to eat. But I ate very small portions—I could control those portions. And I ate lots of proteins. Boiled chicken. Boiled eggs. I could control what I ate. I did 300 sit-ups each night before bed. It hurt so bad; I actually rubbed my tailbone raw on a regular basis. I could barely walk, much less run. But 300 sit-ups—no one else could do that—I had full control, and I was the absolute best. Those were the days of those hideously long sweater dresses in the ‘80s, and tights. My younger brother sat on my legs while I did the sit-ups. Everyone in my family knew that I was doing them. I was like Wonder Woman, another one of my heroes. Oh, to look like her. Or Erin Grey,
52 from Buck Rogers in the 21st Century. I idolized the lean, magnificent idealized beauty of women like these. Even my own name—Brooke—was synonymous with Brooke Shields, a gorgeous, perfect girl, known for her sex appeal. I longed for that—not to be called Oxy by my father. Not to be told by my cousin when he had to pick me up from school “guys don’t like fat girls.” I would not continue to be fat; I could control it. I could and I would!
Track lasted one year. I was horrible at it. Besides that, I was eating way too much to keep at it. Vomiting was part of the game, but running track didn’t allow for that much vomiting. I had to keep up my energy. I wasn’t going to letter in a sport that I was too tired to do well in, that was certain, so I turned my interest to other things.
Some things are easier to throw up than others. Spaghetti is probably the hardest, because it swells and feels like it is growing in your stomach, and that’s all you can think about while it’s coming
53 out. You also have to be careful to cut it up on your plate. One false move and you could have a long noodle coming out your nose, which would really make you sick, losing control of the entire situation at hand. Ice cream is easy. Buffalo wings burn like fire going down, but coming up is ten times worse! You feel like they’re causing your insides to bleed and that you’re surely going to die. I only made that mistake once—the other two times, I decided to try again, to see if I could control it better. Some things cannot be controlled.
Vomiting took skills. You had to be quiet. No one could hear you. You had to control the volume. The intensity. The duration of each session. How often you did it. Finding the right air freshener to cover up the smell of whatever you had just purged. And, let me assure you, of all of my eating disorders, gorge-and-purge was the worst: with it came an acute sense of guilt.
54 Anorexia? No big deal. It was sheer willpower. Control on every level. And as Janet Jackson proclaimed, I echoed silently, “I wanna be the one in control!” I could control the numbers on the scale. The number of peas I put in my mouth. What size pants I wore at any given time, within just a few weeks. Until someone forced me to eat at a family get-together or during the holidays (which were always treacherous for any anorexic), I was in full control of the numbers. Then, if necessary, I relinquished a little control and slipped into purge mode.
Yes, spending time in the bathroom vomiting had definite risks. Although, admittedly, being a teenage girl, you can spend a lot of time in the bathroom without anyone thinking much about it. You’ve gotta fix your make-up, your hair . . . And that’s when the next big idea hit me.
I decided that I would enter the pageant circle. I loved the elegance of those dresses, even if (maybe, especially if) I had to apply some TLC
55 through stitchery and lace and sequins of my own. Control. And the questions from the judges, so predictable. Our area wasn’t much concerned with social issues at that time. It was a small farming community. There were cows to be fed. Crops to be harvested. Football games to go to. Dances to attend. Their questions were a goldmine for someone like me. What would I do to make mine a better community, to demonstrate more school spirit, to try to bring about world peace… What would I do? Ah, how would I control things around me to make everything better. Yes, pageants were definitely more fun than track!
I would cave and eat on the days of pageants, just enough to make sure that I didn’t pass out. I knew girls who starved themselves for a week ahead of them, though, because the dresses were bought a size or two too small, and they had to fit into them, even with girdles and corsets. I waited anxiously each pageant hoping that none of them passed out, yet, simultaneously, kinda hoping that they did. Less competition. I never did anything to help
56 them either way. There’s a difference between control and responsibility.
No one knew about my secrets. I think that everyone was probably too busy trying to keep secrets of their own or resolve other people’s perceived “bigger” problems than paying attention to me. I think back to those sweater dresses we wore. I always thought that you could probably hide another person in there. But maybe there was just room for that other self you already had and didn’t show to anyone else.
Another of my favorite fat-loss secrets was a little unusual, I’ll admit. And not everyone could have done this. It was rather ingenious, if I do say so myself. At night, before bed, I wrapped myself in plastic trash bags and horse leg wraps to sweat off fat while I slept. Ah, yes! The luxuries of living on a farm! Yes, it was extreme. But I was a pretty extreme person. A smart person. I always do things to the best of my ability, thus the need to be in control.
57 A couple more examples of how I went undetected in my endeavors for so long. If you move food around on a plate long enough and carefully enough, you really can make it look like you ate something. Especially when there are chores and homework and other things to be done. No one is really watching or paying much attention. Also, you can crush up a pop tart into tiny enough pieces that a dog licks up every crumb; voila, you ate breakfast and can throw away the wrapper! Then there’s the all-too-common grab-and-go. “Gotta run, Momma; I’ll eat it on the way.” There’s always someone at school who didn’t have breakfast and will happily have yours. Or your lunch, too.
In late August after I had graduated in June, Momma and I were sitting together at Hardee’s one day. She commented that I didn’t look well, that I looked too skinny, that I needed a hamburger. I must have rolled my eyes, because she let into me. “Listen here, young lady! I know that you’re eighteen now, but you’ll still abide by
58 my rules and do what I say!” Everyone in Hardee’s turned to look at them. Fortunately, it was the just the daytime, not the morning or late- night crowds. “When was the last time you ate, Brooke?”
I hadn’t eaten since the end of June. Except for a biscuit with apple butter practically force-fed to me by a friend’s grandmother that sent my stomach into spasms, 10 Skittles at the movies one night, and a bite of baked potato and a bite of spinach at her aunt’s house for dinner one night. Yes, still counting to feel some sort of control before it all went spiraling.
By then, Momma had it all figured out and made me eat a hamburger, loudly threatening that, if I didn’t, she’d take me up the road to the community hospital where they would hook me up to an IV and keep me until I ate, or maybe even send me somewhere else until I could learn to be part of society again. She screamed at me for how stupid I was, like I was a child, not an actual adult
59 with a problem. “People are starving in Africa, Brooke!” she yelled. “You’re so skinny; people are gonna think that you have AIDS or something! How’s that going to make the rest of your family look?”
I don’t know if I’d ever felt so unloved or discarded. There was not even any pretense of caring. Just anger. Anger because of what other people might think about her. Her and the rest of the family.
I would start college the next month and move out on my own. Welcome back, binge-eating, yo-yo- dieting, and whatever else I needed to do. I wanna be the one in control.
60 Creative Non-fiction/Memoir
Never Enough Hugs
By Chrissie Anderson Peters
Traveling home to my husband’s family in Chicago for Thanksgiving, we had a two-hour layover in Atlanta, which suited me better than a layover of under an hour; those were the connections we always missed. We were waiting for a gate agent for our seat assignments, when my husband put his arm around me, and apologized immediately. He had inadvertently touched the arm of a waiting male passenger seated in the row of seats behind us. The kind voice made me turn around.
“Never enough hugs to go around,” the stranger joked.
I laughed. “Well, isn’t that the truth!” I extended my hand. “I’m Chrissie.”
61 “Carter Simms. Where do you and your husband hail from?” And we struck up a conversation, wherein I learned a lot about the amazing man sitting on the other side of my row of seats.
Carter Simms was 78, but didn’t look a day over 50. (He thought that I was 32 and I was 48, so I guess we both must have had good genes.) He was dressed impeccably in a gray silk suit, silver fedora with white feathers down the left side, and a magnificent mauve silk scarf that he made sure I knew was “unisex” from World Market. He mentioned going there after having had lunch with his ex-wife and his oldest daughter, age 54, a few days earlier.
I asked how many kids he had. “Eighteen,” he answered proudly. “Oldest 56, youngest 11. Six boys and twelve girls. One of my boys has worked for Delta for twenty-three years, so I can go anywhere I want for free. I left Austin this morning. I’m heading back to Chicago where I live with the youngest one. She’s eleven, speaks
62 five languages; she’s a model. You can’t tell her nothing.”
“Eighteen kids,” I marveled.
“Eighty-seven grandkids,” he answered, before I asked. “And I know all of them by name!”
He went on to tell me that he had been in the Austin area for five weeks. He was from there. Graduated from down there in 1962. While he was there, he had been to school reunions and sports ceremonies. “Back when I went to school,” he explained, “we weren’t allowed to have special teams or get special recognition. ‘Cos we were black. Our schools were all black.”
I did the math in my head. “It took--”
He nodded with a victorious smile. “It took this long, yes, ma’am. In a way, that’s a real shame, but oh, it tasted so sweet after waiting so long!” He had been inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame for football, baseball, basketball, and track.
63 Having gone to a small school myself, I was familiar with that pattern of playing every sport possible, one per season, never being idle, and smiled. “What position did you play in football?”
He guffawed. “Whatever Coach told me to! Quarterback, center, running back… See, back then, we only had fourteen or fifteen people on the team. You didn’t have the luxury of sitting on the bench. If someone got hurt, you took their place. When defense switched to offense, you took a different role. Same with every sport.” He continued. “Nowadays, a professional player gets $120 million and can sit out half the season, wouldn’t dream of doing something that’s not his job,” he shook his head, laughing. “How many kids you and your husband got?” he asked, as he watched the standby board, where his name was still listed.
“None. We have cats. You don’t have to take them on trips. Someone can just stop in and feed them
64 every day. Social services doesn’t smile on doing that with kids,” I joked.
“Not the same as having kids,” he said with a wink and a nod. “Get rid of those cats; have babies.”
Now we were both looking at the board. “Think you’ll get on this flight? How long have you been waiting for a Chicago flight?”
“This is the second. There’s another in an hour. If I don’t make this one, probably that one. I’m always thinking positive, though. Someone won’t show up for this one. It shows it’s full, but I think I’ll get on.” He shrugged. “Either way . . . I always leave a day early for my trips.” He changed the subject. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a writer.”
“I’m gonna write a book someday. Some of my kids think I’m crazy—course, some of them think I’m about two steps from a nursing home, anyway, most days. Down in Austin, I went to see some of
65 the guys from school in a nursing home—about thirty of them. Everyone remembered my name. I didn’t remember theirs.” I could tell that this fact bothered him. “They asked if I still played saxophone. I’d forgotten I used to.” He paused. “My ex-wife has dementia and Alzheimer’s. Never knew they came together. She and my oldest girl argue all the time. I asked my daughter, ‘What’s the harm? Let her be right!’” Another pause. “What’s your husband do?”
“RN.”
“Good job. You need kids.”
I laughed. Just then, we started boarding. “Are you still on standby? I hate to leave you.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll get on there. Or the next one.”
I reached over to shake his hand, but instead, I hugged him. “Never enough hugs.”
66 Royalty To Russell County
By Oscar L. Price
Waves splash on the hull of a departing ship as it leaves the port of Liverpool, England. The mist from a salty sea puts a chill in the air as the sails catch the wind that powers the ship carrying passengers to a new world, to an untamed wildness. It is a place to own land, a place to educate their children, and a place to be free to teach their religion.
The ship's cargo was made up of trunks filled with clothes, blankets woven from wool and other valuables. Wax sealed crocks were filled with foodstuffs, salt-cured meat and barrels of salted down fish, and there were a few kegs of the Welshmen's favorite alcoholic drink, bourbon.
The ship was carrying its passengers to the William Penn Welsh Track in Pennsylvania, to a place near Philadelphia, to form The Society of Friends. The land was bought from the Delaware
67 Indians. It was between the Delaware River and Neshaminy Creek. This was before people had set forth the laws of a democratic republic, over a hundred years before George Washington drew his sword from the scabbard to fight the British in the Revolutionary War.
After weeks at sea, the ship Lyon, with its Master John Compton, arrived with its passengers at the mouth of the Delaware River on the 13th day of June. Some of the passengers were Edward ap Rhys Rees, Prees (Price), an educated Welshman born in Tydden Tyfod, Bala, Merionethshire, Wales, with his wife Mably Owen, the daughter of Owen ap Hugh. Both Edward Rees and Mably were descended from royalty. They arrived in America with their son Rees Rees and one daughter, Catherine, who died two months after arriving here. They owned books and Bibles written in Welsh and English and were considered quite wealthy.
68 In 1682, Edward Rees (Price) was one of the first to obtain a warrant for 75 acres, and later 250 acres, on the Schuylkill River. Dr. Edward Jones and a few other companions who came over together on the Lyon from Bala, Merionethshire, Wales also bought large amounts of land. The settlers named their town Marioneth, which was soon changed to plain Marion. The town Marion was in Lower Marion County, Pennsylvania, now Lancaster County. Edward Rees' (Price) homestead stood near the Marion Meeting House and near what was known as The Brookhurst Inn.
The Track had plenty of good stone to build homes, a forest for wood, coal to burn in their fireplaces, plenty of clear water to drink from cool springs which also made cool places to keep their milk and butter. There was good fishing in the rivers and creeks and good grazing land for the livestock.
They built grist mills along the creeks to grind Indian corn into meal. The blacksmiths built
69 wheels for wagons and carts that were pulled by oxen. They made their own horseshoes and bought salt from mercantile stores in Philadelphia to cure their meats once the weather turned cool enough.
Their favorite foods were boiled mutton and venison. They hung their pots on stands with hooks made by the skilled hands of the blacksmiths. They had iron skillets to bake their corn pone in. Most of their cooking was done with smoldering hot embers piled on and around cast iron pots.
Life was difficult back then for the settlers, and the farmers didn't have enough sharecroppers to work their farms and help guard their livestock at night. At night, the gray wolves' howling could be heard in the woodlands of Pennsylvania. The farmers' livestock was an easy kill for them. Finally, some of the Quakers changed their religion to Methodist and Baptist and other religions that allowed them to own slaves. Then
70 they could buy slaves to help guard their livestock at night and harvest their crops.
But, the people living there had other serious problems to deal with. They died of alcoholism, bilious fever, cholera, consumption, diabetes, smallpox, lockjaw, "white swelling" and other diseases. They passed these diseases on to the Indians.
Shortly after Edward Rees built his home in Marion, he wrote to an old friend back in Merionethshire, Wales for some intelligence on his pedigree, which he received about 1700. The Quakers always kept good records of their pedigrees. His friend in Wales, John ap Thomas, wrote back to Edward and said the parchment paper his pedigree was written on was yellowed and brittle and parts were broken off, but he would send back as much of Edward's father Richard's pedigree as he could. The paper his friend sent back to Edward showed Edward's grandfather as Griffith ap Rhys (1598-1626); his
71 wife was Gwenillan Koran. He was shown as a King of Tydden Tyfod. Griffith's father was Rhys ap Richard of Tydden Tyfod, and his father before him was Richard Rhys of Tydden Tyfod. Mably, Edward Rees' first wife, was a descendant of Owen Glendower. Other names listed as ancestors for Edward (Rees) Price were Rhys Goch ap Tudor, Tudor ap Rhys, and Rhys ap Levan Goch, who fought on the battlefield with Henry V in 1415.
Richard ap Rees (Price) told his son Edward that their people were warriors and had come from royalty for many years. He told Edward about the savage wars and war songs they used to sing. Edward's grandfather said he could still recall the clanging of armor and the clank of shield on shield, the tramp of the gathering tribesmen, and the Welshman's "furious call to arms." Many years have passed since the "War of the Roses." Edward Rees's (Price) father Richard died in Wales in 1682.
72 Edward Rees and Mably had another daughter after Catherine's passing. Edward married twice after his first wife, Mably, died but didn't have any more children. Edward Rees died in 1729 and was buried beside his young daughter Catherine and his first wife Mably in the graveyard on land he had given for the Marion Friends Meeting House. Indians, slaves, and strangers were all welcome to be buried there.
Edward Rees's only son Rees Rees married Sarah Meredith; they had two sons. John Earnest Prees (Price) and the oldest son Thomas Prees (Price) were born in Hanover, Lancaster County. Thomas married Mary Cawood.
Thomas Prees became a soldier in the colonial military and held the rank of Col. Col. (Colonial Colonel). In 1736, he was one of the militiamen assigned to The Creek Nation North Carolina/South Carolina, United States, to protect the Scots-Irish and other settlers who were coming to North Carolina. Thomas Prees's
73 daughter Hanna was born in 1736 in The Creek Nation NC/SC US. Hannah's brother Richard was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania the same year. Her oldest brother, Thomas Price, was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania in 1730. Thomas Price of Elk Garden (the son of Thomas Prees) was five years old when Col. Col. Thomas Prees (Price ) was assigned to the Creek Nation. Col. Col. Price died in Derry, Pennsylvania in 1759.
In 1763, Thomas Price at the age of 29 married Jane Laughlin age 23 in Hanover Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Shortly afterwards, Thomas and Jane, with some of her brothers, moved to Carvins Cove on Carvins Creek, north of Roanoke, Virginia. Later, Thomas's brother Richard married Priscilla Crabtree of Bedford County, Virginia.
Both Thomas and his brother Richard Price fought against the Indians in the Dunsmore War near Fincastle, north of Roanoke, and later were assigned to the Elk Garden Fort in Russell
74 County. Thomas held the rank of Lieutenant; his brother was a Sergeant at the Elk Garden Fort. For their bravery and service, they were each given warrants for land grants near Elk Garden by Colonial Governor Patrick Henry.
Some of the land was located along Clinch Mountain along Loop Creek and Cedar Creek and on both sides of what is now County Road 80. Between them, Thomas and Richard Price, before their passing, owned over 27 thousand acres of land in Russell County, Virginia and Knox County, Tennessee, including land at Rosedale.
Richard Price is known best for establishing the First Methodist Church of Elk Garden in the Loop. A placard honoring his service and generosity has been placed on the Church grounds.
The Thomas Price Mansion, known by some as #4, has been restored by The Ratcliff Foundation. Some claim it was built by the Thomas Family on
75 land passed down to one of Richard Price's granddaughters. There is no record of who built the mansion.
One of Richard Price's sons, William Crabtree Price, was a justice in Russell County for 20 years before moving to Missouri. Richard Price's grandson William Cecil Price became a prominent lawyer and judge and Treasurer of the United States under President James Buchanan. William C. Price fought as a Lt. Col. in the Confederate army. He was offered the U.S. Treasurer position by President Lincoln but turned it down.
After the Civil War, some of the prominent people living in Russell County were bankrupt, and some became sharecroppers in order to feed their families. They walked behind a hillside plow pulled by a mule. Many had to leave Russell County to make a living. Some never knew their ancestors were descended from the royal houses of France, England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Surnames such as Adams, Smith, Jones,
76 Hendricks, Buchanan, McFarlin, Fields, Ferguson, Van Hood and Prees (Price), and so many others. These are just a few who were the first to build log cabins that later became large plantations on land along the Clinch River and the Indian Trails along Loop Creek near Elk Garden.
Today, some only know the ancestor names found in the old, worn, family Bible—their grandparents' names and their children. The parchments with their pedigrees were so old and yellowed that they crumbled and disappeared like dust in the wind. The houses they lived in became their castles, and the sweat-stained hats they wore were their crowns.
Be proud, Russell County. You have a most distinguished history and heritage. You are descended from royalty.
77 Ten Years Too Late
By Linda Hoagland
There were five of them, which was two more than I’d been expecting. In actuality, it was four more vehicles than I had been expecting. I could have easily handled two car loads, but as it turned out on that day, instead of five people stopping to visit my ailing husband and me, twenty-five people including infants entered my house and expected a warm welcome.
They all appeared in my driveway and front yard parking everywhere they could fit their vehicles. I know they weren’t packed in five bodies to each car, but it was easier to think that was how it happened.
***
“My daughter said there would be five of them,” said my husband.
78 “That’s fine,” I said as I racked my brain trying to find a sleeping place for each of them.
“When will they get here?” I asked knowing I had to vacuum, sweep, and clean everything before they arrived.
“Tomorrow,” he answered with a smile. He truly wanted to see them, but I was afraid all of the excitement would add to his heart problems.
I worked and worked making our home presentable and inviting.
I looked into my freezer and noted that I had enough food to feed five additional mouths for the weekend.
When they arrived, I was in total shock. I didn’t know what I was going to do as far as sleeping arrangements and eating arrangements were concerned.
79 I didn’t know everyone’s name, so I listened to my husband greet each one of them so I could get a hint about who had entered my home.
After all of the greetings, I checked my freezer again. This was Friday evening, and I had to feed the crowd Saturday and Sunday before they left to go back home to Ohio.
Thankfully, all of them were going to stay in the local motel, and I wouldn’t have to find bed space for them.
Feeding twenty-five visitors, my husband, and me was going to be a formidable task. Although I worked full-time and my husband received a small Social Security disability check, our grocery money was limited because I had to use most of my extra income on medical and driving expenses because we had to travel to Roanoke from our small town in southwest Virginia at least once a month.
80 There were happy, cheerful conversations going on, and I tried to take part, but I wasn’t an actual member of their family.
I was the interloper who had taken their father away from their mother, and I was to be ignored. I did not break up the family group. It was already broken when I met their father; but, because I had entered the picture, there was no hope of reuniting their mother and father.
They all finally cleared out to go to the motel around nine o’clock, and I chased my tired husband to bed. He was fading rapidly healthwise, and I knew he needed the restful night of sleep.
Saturday morning they arrived early and started their visit again while I tried to feed about half of them. The rest of the group had gone to McDonald’s, and that helped me out a bit. Eggs, bacon, and toast were on the morning menu, and that kept me busy while the rest of the crowd visited with my husband.
81 When I had finished feeding those who were hungry and after I washed the dishes, I walked into the living room to join into the conversation. When I entered, the visitors all stood up and went outside leaving me alone with my husband.
This little stunt happened each time I entered a room where they were congregated. All I wanted to do was join in the conversation. So—in order to keep them in the room and near my husband, I would go to my bedroom and close my door.
My husband finally noticed what was happening and came looking for me.
“Please don’t give them more reasons to hate me. Don’t say anything, honey,” I told him. “They hate me enough already.”
“I will talk to them,” he said.
“Please don’t. You can tell them that when they come to visit again to come in one car. Let them
82 know your health will not allow you to handle a huge crowd like this one.”
“Okay, they are making me so tired, but I am happy to see them, just not all of them at one time.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“I will tell them over the telephone after they leave not to ever treat you so disrespectfully again.”
“That’s okay. They hate me anyway.”
Through the twenty-five years we were married, I was hoping things would improve with the family relationship, but they never did.
When my husband passed away and the ensemble returned for the funeral, again, I was shunned.
Ten more years passed, and I was scanning through Facebook where I found members of my deceased husband’s family who were trying to be friendly with me.
83 My thought was: You’re, at least, ten years too late!
84 Contributors’ Notes
During this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, B. Chelsea Adams’ bath tub, woods and garden, and, of course, just writing have been powerful sources which bring calm. Adams’ novel, Organic Matter, was published this year and is available on Amazon. B. Chelsea Adams taught Creative Writing at Radford University for over twenty years, received a master’s degree in Creative Writing from Hollins University in 1996, and had two poetry chapbooks published, At Last Light by Finishing Line Press in 2012 and Looking for a Landing by Sow’s Ear Press in 2000. Adams’ poetry has appeared in journals including Artemis, California State Poetry Quarterly, Poet Lore, Thin Air, Connecticut River Review, Common Ground, and Rhino. In 2013, Adams was the featured poet in Floyd County Moonshine. Adams’ short stories have appeared in BlackWater Review, Clinch Mountain Review, Potato Eyes, Huckleberry Magazine, Voices of Appalachia, and Floyd County Moonshine.
R. R. Beach is the author of two novels: The Number of Things (130 Ink) and Discobulated (unpublished). His poems have appeared in Wildwood, Diptych, Lyric, and Valley Voices; and he annually attends the Highland Summer Conference at Selu and Radford University. He lives in Southwest Virginia and travels through Southwest Virginia commuting to East Tennessee State University where he teaches economics and finance.
Kohava Blount, a dedicated and enthusiastic author and poet, has had her work published in newspapers, literary journals, and magazines since the age of eleven. Having won numerous writing contests, she passionately seeks to inspire and to uplift. In addition to writing, she enjoys composing and performing music, playing sports, speaking foreign languages, creating artwork, and volunteering.
Katherine Chantal is walking into her elder years with wonder and curiosity. Some of her time has been spent as an herbalist, spiritual guide, priestess and life ceremonialist; she
85 has offered ways and means to experience life’s sacred passages. As a passionate writer, a philosopher after a fashion, she spends her time playing with all the above, as well as, exploring and navigating the days yet remaining, particularly through her writing. Her published books are: A Tea Poet’s Journey, The Seven Gateways To Kindness, and Poetic Memoir of a Nascent Senescent, Musing From My Sixties
C. Macon Clement studies meteorology at VA Tech. In her spare time, she likes to explore new places, play guitar, read, and write poems. Her poetry is a mixed collection of works about finding the light in the dark to inspirational compositions.
Piper Durrell has been living, working, observing and writing in the New River Valley for over 40 years. The past year has given her more time to work in her garden and enjoy the surprises of nature.
Les Epstein is a poet, playwright and opera librettist. His work has appeared in journals in the United States, Philippines, India and the U.K. Recent credits include Eyedrum Periodically, Interstice, Mojave River Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Clinch Mountain Review and Jelly Bucket as well as two recent anthologies: Heat Up the Grease (Gnashing Teeth Publishing) and Pain and Renewal (Vita Brevis Press). A collection of his short plays and libretti (Seven) was published by Cyberwit in 2018. His poems were featured in the podcast, “Sunflower Sutras,” broadcast out of Washburn University. He teaches in Roanoke, VA.
Three volumes of Louis Gallo’s poetry, Archaeology, Scherzo Furiant and Clearing the Attic, are now available. Three forthcoming volumes, Crash, Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? and Leeway & Advent, will be published in the near future. His work will appear in Best Short Fiction 2020 forthcoming. A novella, “The Art Deco Lung,” will be published in Storylandia. His work has appeared or will shortly appear in Wide Awake in the Pelican State (LSU anthology), Southern Literary Review, Fiction Fix, Glimmer
86 Train, Hollins Critic, Rattle, Southern Quarterly, Litro, New Orleans Review, Xavier Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Missouri Review, Mississippi Review, Texas Review, Baltimore Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ledge, storySouth, Houston Literary Review, Tampa Review, Raving Dove, The Journal (Ohio), Greensboro Review, and many others. Chapbooks include The Truth Changes, The Abomination of Fascination, Status Updates and The Ten Most Important Questions. He is the founding editor of the now defunct journals, The Barataria Review and Books: A New Orleans Review. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize several times. He is the recipient of an NEA grant for fiction. He teaches at Radford University in Radford, Virginia.
Originally from Carroll County, Virginia, David Wayne Hampton teaches high school English and currently lives in the foothills of Morganton, North Carolina, with his wife and two children. He has previously published works in Appalachian Heritage and Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, among others.
Linda Hudson Hoagland of Tazewell, Virginia, has won acclaim for her mystery novels that include the recent Dangerous Shadow, Onward & Upward, Missing Sammy, An Unjust Court, Snooping Can Be Helpful – Sometimes, Snooping Can Be Uncomfortable, and Snooping Can Be Scary. She is also the author of works of nonfiction, including the 3 volume set of Ellen Chronicles, 3 collections of short writings along with 3 volumes of poems. Hoagland has won numerous awards for her work, including first place for the Pearl S. Buck Award for Social Change and the Sherwood Anderson Short Story Contest. Recently won: First Place in Short Story, Essay, and Poetry from the 2020 Chautauqua Creative Writing Contest.
Craig Kurtz has composed poems since 1979. His recent work has been featured in Blue Unicorn, Penumbra and The Wax Paper. More content is available at: wortleyclutterbuck.blogspot.com.
87 Chrissie Anderson Peters grew up in Tazewell, VA, and has lived in Bristol, TN, since 2000. She resides with her husband Russ and their 5 feline children. She holds a BA in English/Education from Emory & Henry College, and an MSIS from The University of Tennessee. In addition to CMR, her work has appeared in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, the Mildred Haun Review, Still: The Journal, and other publications. She has proudly placed work with contests sponsored by Tennessee Mountain Writers, Mountain Heritage Literary Festival, and the Poetry Society of Virginia, among others. She is the author of the three books: Dog Days and Dragonflies (2012); Running From Crazy (2013); and Blue Ridge Christmas (2019); and a fourth, in-progress, Chasing After Rainbows. Her other passions include traveling and 80's music.
Oscar L. Price has published several times in the CMR as well as other publications in Russell County, VA and Colorado Springs, CO.
Ben Ranic has four published collections of poetry--Artifacts and Legends, Puppet and Synchronicity available from Amazon and The Eleventh Month which is no longer in print.
Frank Shortt was born in 1942 at Shortt Gap, Virginia in a coal mining family. He joined the USAF in 1960 during the Cold War/Vietnam Crisis. He retired from the San Jose, California school department as a Chief of Operations in 2000. Since then, he has attended college, writes for a San Jose newspaper, three college journals, for an online magazine The Spectator, has contributed to the Virginia Mountaineer in Grundy, Virginia, and The Voice newspaper in Buchanan County, Va. He has two daughters, four grandchildren, and one great-grandson living in Texas. His hobby is, of all things, writing!
Matthew J. Spireng’s book What Focus Is was published in 2011 by WordTech Communications. His book Out of Body won the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award and was published in 2006 by Bluestem Press at Emporia State
88 University. His published chapbooks are: Clear Cut; Young Farmer; Encounters; Inspiration Point, winner of the 2000 Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Competition; and Just This. Since 1990, Matthew J. Spireng’s poems have appeared in publications across the United States in addition to The Clinch Mountain Review in such places as North American Review, Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Louisiana Literature, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner and Poet Lore. He is a 10-time Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of The MacGuffin’s 23rd Annual Poet Hunt Contest in 2018 and the 2015 Common Ground Review poetry contest. Spireng holds an M.A. from Hollins College (now Hollins University).
Joe Womack has degrees from Baylor University, The School of Law of the University of Texas, and The Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. He has taught English literature at Stetson University, was an attorney for twenty years with the U.S. House of Representatives, and before retirement, served as an ordained minister for three churches. He and his wife, Cynthia, make their home in Floyd, Virginia.
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