Ladies and gentlemen,
My book of short stories should be out in another month – I’ll have two advance copies to give away.
There will be a very easy one question contest, and then a drawing (done by a third party) from all of the correct answers.
The official announcement and contest will begin in the next few weeks – keep checking back or sign up to receive updates!
Thanks,
Noreen
My grandmother, Ruth, on my father’s side, died before I was born. I never knew her. I’m told she lived in Los Angeles for some time; perhaps that is why I feel so at home here. When I arrived here so many years ago, I felt like I was coming home.
My grandmother, Mary, aka Amelia, passed less than a year ago. A week after she passed, I received the notification from Pilcrow & Dagger they were publishing the poem I’d written years before, inspired by her visit to L.A. My grandmother used to write poetry – she left me her book of poems; it is a treasure!
My mother lives in Ohio. She made the best cookies – still does! Mom – send me some! J
Then there’s me – Not to be cliché, but my life started when I had my daughters. It’s when I got serious about life, when I formed real ideas about priorities, when I started thinking of people other than myself.
My girls and myself
Grandma’s Tour
It’s Christmas day.
She wants to see where she thinks
Marilyn’s body lies.
She doesn’t understand the tomb in a wall,
a name on a plaque.
She wants to touch the same dirt
Marilyn’s body touches.
I show her Jack Lemmon’s
“In” –
She wants to see the thirteen year old
from Poltergeist.
Another plaque on the wall.
Grandma is flustered,
she doesn’t want to be encased in eye-level marble,
an uncertain burial, she wants to rot
in the dirt, she says,
the natural way.
It’s Christmas day and my daughters
want to know why we’re at a graveyard.
My little one is writing down names
and dates,
an attempt to, once again, give the long dead
significance.
The older one won’t come close
She uneases herself along the edges of
the grass, the crypts,
the fresh dirt.
Unwilling to let the dead touch.
She’s taken an impromptu dislike to grandma
who is weeping.
It’s Christmas day and she expected
the movie stars to rot in the dirt,
like she will, she says,
but even in death, they are distinct.
On the heels of my April Fools publication of “Fairly Tale,” I’ve heard from The Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal: They will publish my story titled “$1.00 Stories”!
A homeless man is selling stories for $1.00; will you buy one? C.C. does……
My poem, Fairly Tale, will appear in April Fools’. Here is the Video Preview for April Fools’.
Isn’t the cover great?!
I was asked, recently, if Mike, the character from West End who disappeared as a teenager and reappeared to the narrator was a ghost.
According to Dr. McAndrew, in the article “Why Some People See Ghosts and Other Presences,” people may see spirits when they “have become isolated in an extreme or unusual environment, often when high levels of stress are involved. These individuals report a perception or feeling that another person is there to help them cope…”
The main character in West End is isolated and in an unusual environment when Mike arrives. She’s not certain she saw him with the soldiers, just that there were soldiers and she never looks at faces, so she states.
McAndrew further states: “The loneliness and isolation, coupled with high levels of stress and unchanging sensory stimulation, might very well produce the same biological conditions that could trigger a “visit” from the recently departed.”
The narrator in West End claims to find comfort in this non-existence she has found. She left home because of the stress which she was unable to handle; she is now surrounded by, so it seems, an unchanging environment without stimulation. Then, suddenly, Mike is there.
What do you think – is Mike a ghost?
When I create a character, I take what I know from personal experience, what I’ve observed in other people (I am an avid people watcher), and what I’ve learned from my continued studies.
With the unnamed narrator/character in West End , it is important to understand the primary relationships and their effects.
In West End, the children are nearly parentless. Mom is an alcoholic who dies from the disease and Dad seems to be a workaholic, seemingly unconcerned about his children.
The article, “Unloved Daughters,” written by Peg Streep, lists some of the attributes the character in West End experiences.
Streep’s list is of 7 attributes. These are a few which I believe my character displays:
“The unloved daughter doesn’t know that she is lovable or worthy of attention; she may have grown up feeling ignored or unheard or criticized at every turn” (Streep).
3. Difficulty setting boundaries
“Many daughters, caught between their need for their mother’s attention and its absence, report that they become “pleasers” in adult relationships. Or they are unable to set other boundaries which make for healthy and emotionally sustaining relationships” (Streep).
5. Making avoidance the default position
“Lacking confidence or feeling fearful sometimes puts the unloved daughter in a defensive crouch so that she’s avoiding being hurt by a bad connection rather than being motivated to possibly find a stable and loving one” (Streep).
It seems the reason the narrator in West End avoids life is an overall lack of confidence. She does not set boundaries; she knows what is happening at the trains and with her sister is not leading anywhere productive or good, but she is unable to set the boundaries for herself, let alone for a sister. And avoidance is her default position in everything.
However, it is my wish the reader can see the hope within the novel, the things that change within the character that can create something positive.
As a child, I watched a squirrel crawl along an electrical line, elegant, delicate, like some high wire act, yet gone terribly wrong when it slipped and fell before my eyes.
A motorist passed, hit it. The squirrel screeched human sounds, jumped up on back feet, front paws stretched out, stumbled left, then right.
“It’s a dead end.” Mother’s whispered words lifted with a breeze.
“It’s the West End.” My father leaned away from her.
I held my breath, rooted for the squirrel until the very end, hoped that the car missed and, somehow, the creature might’ve a chance to limp home to recover.
But the squirrel was, life was, inextricably lost.
“Same thing,” mother’s quiet voice floated off with her gaze.
I think of that eye bulging from the squirrel’s body, trying to escape its own death, watching me through the back window of an old Chevy wagon.
Copyright 2016 – Noreen Lace/West End
At night,
silence feels thick in your ears.
The clean air slips easily
into your lungs.
You become sharply aware
of the ocean
and sky
moving with you.
Sleep comes deeply.
This is a found poem. The original inspirational source has been lost. This has been previously published in DAYBREAK: A magazine of Poetry and Conversation. The editor, Virginia, passed away, and the magazine is now defunct. She was a beautiful soul, and she is missed.
Noreen Lace 
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