NON-NONFICTION // E D I T I O N – SELECTED/CURATED/PRESENTED BY AUGUST 2018 GUEST EDITOR JOHN TREFRY
Burning House Press would like to thank August’s Guest Editor John Trefry for selecting a fantastic theme in // NON-NONFICTION // – and for all of the endeavour and hard work that has gone into selecting/curating/presenting the contributions received over the month – THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, JOHN!!!
Massive thank you also goes to everyone who contributed to John’s theme and who continues to send BHP your writing and art – we are so happy and grateful that you entrust us with your work, thank you!!! xX
Here it is, the NON-NONFICTION edition – every selection in one place for you to read/peruse – enjoy!!! xX
The olfactory bulb feeds directly into the limbic system, the seat of both long-term memory and the emotions. The results of smelling are processed here, and loaded with associations, before they even reach the upper cortex, where language is composed.
NOTES ON SCENT
Adam Jasper and Nadia Wagner Continue reading “The Unrecalled by Rita Hynes”
Unlike Thinprep™, the small white brushes or ‘broom-heads’ associated with Surepath™ preparations just snap right off. They are made to just snap off. Insert the brush into the endocervical canal and rotate it five times in a clockwise direction. Then pull it out and snap it off. Simple. There’s no mystery. It sounds reckless? It isn’t reckless at all. The sole aim is to sample the squamous cells in the transformation zone for it is the cells of the transformation zone that are most in danger of becoming abnormal™. By snapping off the head of the brush inside the vial of ethanol-based preservative fluid there is zero chance of air-drying artefacts and you can be sure that the sample is 100% ‘there’ to be transported to the lab in the same vial. Continue reading “Girl at End at the Algorave by Richard Brammer”
Celestial Bodies
From the garden we look at the stars. Above us the jewel box spills out its contents, an offering. Everything else is invisible; at this hour the cerros are extinguished, and the electric blue is now black. Standing on the hill our bodies are imperceptible in the dark, our hands unseen as they reach for binoculars, our backs concealed to all but the cool touch of the rock, our necks occult as we peer down the tunnel of the telescope. Continue reading “Celestial Bodies by Jessica Sequeira”
When I was younger I wanted my face to have that worn around the eyes lived in look of an old
French actress ( Simone Signoret) who once said that her ‘’ my face bares the scars, tears and
laughter of all of the years’’. I thought that was poetic and glamorous and true. At the age of
fifteen, I wanted the face of a middle-aged actress. At seventeen, I wanted a face that said I’d
lived 50 years, full out: Continue reading “Reverse pirouette by Bertie Marshall”
Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate – here is the final edition of all selections curated by James Pate during the month of June 2018 for his theme of Liminal Spaces – thank you so much to James for all his hard work during the month and for the impeccable way he managed and curated his month’s editorship. To have been avid readers and fans of James’ writing – especially his essays during the days of the incredible and much-missed Montevidayo site – to have James collaborate on BHP for a month has been such a dream experience. Thanks, James! – and Thank You So Much to all who contributed such magic work to the theme – Here it is, June 2018 guest editor James Pate’s Liminal Spaces edition – enjoy! Continue reading “Liminal Spaces – June 2018 Guest Editor James Pate”
Burning House Press are excited to welcome JAMES PATE as our fifth guest editor! James will take over editorship of Burning House Press online for the full month of June – when he will then hand over the reins to our sixth guest editor for the month of July.
Submissions for James are open from today – 1st June and will remain open until 23rd June.
James’ Theme/s for the month are as follows
Liminal Spaces
James has introduced his theme for your guidance:
I’m fascinated by those spaces that are on the threshold between the interior and exterior, the conversational and the unnamable, the recognizable present and the intangible future. Please send work you feel might be too eccentric for other venues—writing with twilight-lit edges, photography that blends the particular with the anonymous, art that is charged with the radically other.
Are there images and phrase that only grow more cryptic the more we think about them? Are there barely audible voices still waiting to be recorded? Alejandra Pizarnik’s poetry, Shirley Jackson’s novels, Sun Ra’s discography, Tarkovsky’s films, Beckett’s plays, Francis Bacon’s humanoid creatures, voices reading the Tarot heard in the static between radio stations, night gardens with metallic-seeming insects…mystic political tracts, literary realism haunted by sci-fi, Gothic verse imagining lunar vistas of paradisiac ruin…Please send work involving liminal spaces that question and invoke.
James Pate is a poet and fiction writer. His books include The Fassbinder Diaries (Civil Coping Mechanisms), Flowers Among the Carrion: Essays on the Gothic in Contemporary Poetry (Action Books Salvo Series), and Speed of Life (Fahrenheit Press). He teaches creative writing at Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, WV.
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For submissions, James is looking for your poetry, short stories, flash fiction, prose poems, art, collage, painting, photography – as well as non-fiction submissions: essays, reviews, commentary, features, interviews – and all hybrids and cross-forms.
Submission Guidelines
All submissions should be sent as attachments to guesteditorbhp@gmail.com
Please state the theme and form of your submission in the subject of the email. For example: LIMINAL SPACES/POETRY
Poetry and Fiction
For poetry submissions, submit no more than three of your best poems. Short stories should be limited to 1,500 words or (preferably) less. We encourage flash fiction submissions, no more than three at a time. Send these in as a .doc or .docx file, along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Art
Submit hi-res images of your works (drawings, paintings, illustrations, collages, photography, etc) with descriptions of the work (Title, Year, Medium, etc) in the body of the email. Files should be in .JPEG unless they are GIFs or videos, and should not exceed 2MB in size for each work. File names should correspond with the work titles. Video submissions can be uploaded onto Youtube or Vimeo for feature on our website. Send these submissions along with a short third-person bio, and (optional) photograph of yourself.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction submissions (essays, reviews, commentary, interviews, etc) should be no more than 1, 500 words and sent as a .doc or .docx file along with your third-person bio/and optional photograph.
Submissions are open from 1st June til 23rd June – and will reopen again on 1st July for our sixth guest editor.
BHP online is now in the capable hands of the amazing JAMES PATE – friends, send him your best!
March 2018
Guest Editor: Amee Nassrene Broumand
4 March
Professional Mermaid by Megan Dunn
After the 10th Date by Sam Frost
gibbous moon waxing by Lewis Ellingham
Three Poems by Jared A. Carnie
Charon’s Amusement Arcade by BR Williams
10 March
Three Poems by Laura Potts
Plastic Eggs by C.B. Auder
Night Photos of Newstead Village & a Poem by Sophie Pitchford*
L’Idole by Laura Izabela
Two Poems by Annette Skade
A Bacon Sandwich by Jim Gibson
Solitaire by Attracta Fahy
17 March
Three Poems by Ivan de Monbrison
Forgotten Astronaut by Spangle McQueen
What Else Can I Do? by Rob True
How to Tell Men Apart by Breslin White
Invitation To Move On by Jonathan Humble
Two Poems by Kate Garrett
Stealing Sleipnir by Alison Lock
The Transformation by Emma McKervey
24 March
Three Poems by Samuel J Fox
Sing a Song of Ever Changing Perception by Michelle Diaz
Photographs of Bristol & a Poem by Jason Jackson*
When Food Goes Bad by Kelly Froh
Two Poems by Anna Wall
7yrs bad luck by Richard Biddle
Jack by Gene Farmer
30 March
Two Pieces by Erin Calabria
genesis by Clark Chatlain
Baroclinic Instability by katillac tweed
A Catalogue of Small Shatterings by Makensi Ceriani
Bear off a Leash by Stephen Lightbown
Photographs of New Orleans by Julia Skop*
Two Poems by Kate Dlugosz
Interminatus by Cory Willingham
The Boyfriend Pinch by Christopher John Eggett
Dissociation in a Museum Café by Belinda Rimmer
Two Poems by Soodabeh Saeidnia
The Linen Man Suite by Lorie Broumand
An Interview with Poet Laura Potts by Amee Nassrene Broumand*
Featured Image: Solar Eclipse from Salem, Oregon 2017 by Amee Nassrene Broumand
Individual featured images by Amee Nassrene Broumand unless marked with an asterisk
The Sale
The linen man was having a sale. The townspeople got up early to buy linens.
The linen man had boasted of his sale for seven years, and the townspeople were driven by a rabid impatience. They’d pressured him to hold it now, and then now, and so on.
On the day of the sale, the town was caught up in a colossal heat. It was uncommon, so early in the summer, and the townspeople swung their limbs in wretchedness. Henny and Ida claimed the temperature had increased daily as the sale neared.
Others noticed this, too; worse, the air took on a density that smelled of flowers. It was clear from the smell these flowers had flourished in the heat, grown large in it, and died. The townspeople chose not to say anything, as it was unpleasant in a variety of ways. They held handkerchiefs over their faces as they walked to the linen sale.
The sun hadn’t come up yet, and all but one of the streetlights along the linen man’s street had gone out. It was too hot to fix them, so no one had, and the solitary light turned the air an uncomfortable green.
“There’s something linen-like about that shade of green,” said Mrs. R.
“It’s not the shade of green you’re noticing, it’s that machine sound,” said Mr. L.
“It’s the smell,” said Ms. X, “which is clearly linen in nature.”
Mr. L and Ms. X were notoriously confident about the superiority of their perceptions.
Townspeople streamed into the linen man’s street. The machine sound was very loud there, and a large object shook under a piece of plastic.
Near the object was a crate of cubes.
The townspeople needed dishcloths, bedclothes, curtains, and shirts. But they saw none of this—merely the cubes, and the density in the air.
Mrs. R drew a line through the air, an involuntary motion.
“Linen sale,” called the linen man. He ushered the townspeople with his hands.
It was a surprise to see the danger red, tango orange, white mottle. All the other shellfish she had seen that day in the rock pools had been dark browns, some black elegant creatures. This was a lobster that looked like it was half-cooked, but alive and well, a naturally appealing dinner invitation.
She felt like a child squatting down next to the rock pool. How had he got washed up here, so beautiful against the wrinkled rocks and sighing sand. The day, sunny but with a wind that ran through her ankles and up her skirt occasionally, should have been about observing. She thought she would spend some time looking at the rock pools, looking at the creatures in them, grey and black and brown—crabs moving amongst the husks and wrappers of their dead comrades. Never take a step back, pick up claw from a fallen brother.
She was going to be detached today, she’d promised. She wasn’t going to get involved with anything, she said the creative writing course was helping, but there needed to be more material, more distraction. She’d been told by the tutor that she was a natural journalist, scornfully. Always ready to get involved and meddle in someone else’s story, rather than secretly skimming off the best bits from a distance.
So she would observe today. It was a bit like when she had been dumped by her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. The idea was to stay single for a while, to observe the others doing the dance and check she knew the steps.
But here, with this orange lobster in the black bowl of a Welsh rock pool, she decided to engage with it. She started by giving it a nudge with a stick to see how active it was. It was beautiful, so could be dead. It moved and whirled around to look at her, pointedly. She was surprised, and didn’t expect it to be so forward, it was a rare thing and therefore should be shy in her world. Continue reading “The Boyfriend Pinch by Christopher John Eggett”
out of the gray afternoon it might begin—the creation of the world. in the sound of a snow shovel scraping on ice and in the slush that remains a kind of ex nihilo is generated. from nothing. certainly from nothing. in the birthing of worlds there are no principles only the appearance of that which did not exist before and that now is. that now irrefutably is. where once the cosmos was simply gray expanse and the waters then below, or even the gathering of all things in one small, great magnitude, there is now the gray afternoon. no diving for worlds in the great sea. no trickster. nothing. a flock of dying geese crosses the new sky in a v that tapers to oblivion. a dog howls to no answer in the distance. his leg is broken and he is looking for a culvert to hide in. surely, they have come. in this world the names are stripped one by one and a first and last lonesome forked creature with twelve fingers and no face ticks off the forgotten. ah, yes. this swirling mass of creation, this pool of dim color that rises in the deep of the gray and seems to nod to the cracked moon above—this is genesis. the names fall off each and each wanders to their glory in a desert of rock and gray sun. a world. a new world.
Ten Sentences
I. Rowing
I am setting out on this water not to drift but to row, since this not loving you has drawn from me almost as much as loving you once did, and nothing is as full as a boat by itself in a sea that does not end.
II. Barn Ruin
We found it at the edge of the woods that August you wouldn’t touch me, just a skeleton of walls and poison ivy climbing all the way to the caved-in roof, triple leaves bigger than hands and glossed to the point of dripping, and it was almost pretty, all those edges hooked against each other, baring back a tessellated light, just as long as we didn’t come close.
III. Tide
I was not afraid you would hurt me, but that you never would, that you would never even peer between these ribs I’ve hinged apart for you, until the wind will do to me what it does to all soft creatures left behind by the tide, and the only sound my throat can make will be the sound of robin nests unraveled in a storm.
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