Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments Poetry Artwork The following Creative Commons artwork (Attribution Licence) appear on our Spring 2013 issue index page: All other artwork is credited on the page in which it appears.
Read MoreFrom the Editor
It is with great excitement that the editors and I bring you our long-awaited inaugural issue of Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing! We’ve included a number of special guest contributors alongside some emerging voices, and a variety of pieces to suit every reader. Perhaps on the surface, putting together an online literary journal…
Read MoreAn Interview with Catherine Ryan Hyde
We’ve all heard the saying “writers write,” but today writers often find themselves doing so much more than just writing. Catherine Ryan Hyde is a perfect example of a writer with a well-rounded career. She is the author of 22 novels, including the blockbuster Pay it Forward, which became a Hollywood hit and spawned a…
Read MoreThe Sound of Water
That last summer was full of good water days, no wind, a little cloud, warm enough that even so far north you could stand in sun and heat up fast. Driving over, I’d actually roll the windows up, let light beat the dashboard, let us sweat— me up front, my son in the backseat, shovels…
Read MoreSilver Man
I stand at my usual spot in Jackson Square. People swarm around me like termites, stopping to take my picture or toss a few coins in my bucket. I can see them moving out of the corners of my eyes, and I can hear their voices, loud and slurring from rummy Hurricanes. It’s getting on…
Read MoreWords from the Showerhead | Three Poems
Words from the Showerhead on My Birthday Clearing of the throat: Nagged and pounded,straight down wet.You glistened. You forgot: the meat thawedand red-runspoiled. Hotwater leashed,treated on schedule,a city decree,a birthday trust in purity. You remembered: white, the coconut cake,blue-tipped orange,the candles’ flamesextinguishedthat familiar song. You raked: red maple leavescupping rain. Littlebirthday boats afloat,sunk under bytire…
Read MoreThe Saint of Lost Things
A week before I left to study abroad for the summer in Costa Rica, I stood outside the Pilgrim Circle Nursing Home. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the heavy, wooden door and pulled hard. The lobby was dark in contrast with the bright sun outside, and it smelled of pine. Or ammonia,…
Read MoreWhy Good Writers Sometimes Give Bad Advice
They say that good judgment comes from experience. The catch is that experience tends to come from bad judgment. In other words, we learn from our mistakes. Which is why often the best (not to mention safest) experience to learn from is someone else’s. After all, they’ve been there, and provided they survived, they’ve probably…
Read MoreDouble-Undie Night
Because her husband doesn’t come home until 3 a.m., she shoots him with pepper spray. He is drunk and believes her when she apologizes, saying she thought the bang-crumple-crumple on the screen door was the horrifying sound of an intruder. “Sorry, hon,” she dabs his face with a wet washcloth. He wavers in the bedroom,…
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