June 2026: Michael Walker

“the plane”

It was only a short hop flight from Augusta to Columbia, South Carolina, but it was enough to scare me; I didn’t realize it was going to scare the shit out of me. I’m a terrible flyer. I don’t want to throw up—not terrible like that—but I’m positive that every flight is going to be my last. The thing is, I have a fabulous imagination, and I concoct numerous air-borne catastrophes, some of which happen at the same time. My vision of hell is a continuously crashing airplane on fire, filled with spiders.

Not this flight. We took off, and didn’t crash at the end of the runway, so that was good. We climbed and we were getting closer to God which was somewhat of mixed bag.

Michael Walker is a playwright turning novelist. Currently deconstructing a tome about four women meeting, into three novellas (as a collection) and the fourth woman’s story as a novel, tying in and wrapping up the three novellas.

January 2025: Heather Saint

“promises of possibility”

How many times have I told myself I will do it today or soon?  How many times have I not done so?  This is why, in my family that I made, we do not promise lightly. We always keep our promises so we are very careful when we make them.  We taught the children when we promise we keep.  I have made only a few promises in my life.  One was to be with my spouse “until death do us part”.  Another one was to always be there when my children needed or wanted me.  I have never lightly promised to do something that in my heart I knew I wouldn’t or couldn’t do.  Remember the “promise cross my heart”?  Nope to me.  Maybe I am shallow, maybe I am deeper than you think.  But when I tell you, I Promise, you can count on me unless I’m dead.

Heather Saint is a world traveled native Montanan, settling into retirement in NW Montana.

October 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill

“the eggs weren’t real”

The feeling of panic when she first realized she was lost had long since been replaced by quiet desperation. Sh’d leaned she could survive cold nights. She’d found water enough to survive. But, she was sure if she didn’t find food soon, she would die. Food. It’s all she could think of, all that filled her hazy brain. As she plodded down a grassy hill, she spied a large brown nest with the biggest egg she’d ever seen She rushed to it, thinking of how she’d poke a hole in the end and suck out the contents, which would give her strength to go on. But as she reached for the egg, stumbling forward she fell, and the egg was gone. Vanished. A trick of light. She lay her head on the next that was no longer there and cried for the egg that wasn’t real. 

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com

September 2024: Cammie Basseri

“those in our periphery”

It was past my bedtime when momma swung the rifle up onto her shoulder, but to be honest I couldn’t see much with the porch light shining in my face. I was pulling on her arm like a frantic animal, my brother at her other side doing the same. We were all bathed in the buggy beam of light, but momma kept her eyes pointed down the barrel of the gun—it lead straight to the cab of my stepfather’s Chevy pickup as he tried to back down of the driveway just below us. I looked back up at my momma, then the cab, then back up again, and then mid swing of my head I heard a boom that knocked me to the wooden deck, my ears ringing and everything else falling away from me. Gun powder swirled in front of my mother’s swollen face. Stunned, I laid there beneath her and turned my head to see the break of the windshield through the porch railing, glass crumbling out in cubed fragments. I sat back up into the chaos, crawling around my mother’s legs and onto the darkness of the porch steps, recalling the time I sat there once and fed wild raccoons bits of dried cat food from my hand. Those in our periphery—the memories I mean—always find a way to shuffle back into view.

Sometimes to remind us. Sometimes to keep us safe.

Cammie Basseri is a Creative Nonfiction writer who grew up off the grid in the untamed wilderness of Yosemite, where she was immersed in the rhythms of nature and the seasonal flow of tourists from around the globe. Her forthcoming memoir, It Must Have Been Beautiful, draws its title from the phrase most often heard in response when she shares the story of her unconventional childhood. Basseri’s writing has been published across the web and print publications including The Manifest Station, The Woolfer, Half Moon Bay Review, Medium, The Rumpus and East Bay Times. Find out more at: www.cammiebasseri.com Follow at: facebook.com/cammiebasseri

August 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill

“her bell tinkles”

Waking from a dream,  she wondered if the sound was coming from the lovely fairy she’d met in a luscious garden near a bubbling spring. Uh, no. She was awake now, yet the sound persisted. A door bell? In her groggy state she wasn’t even sure she had one. Then she remembered. She didn’t, but she wasn’t home. This bed was not her own, but the narrow one in her daughter’s guest room. Who would be at the door at this hour? Why didn’t her daughter answer it. She looked at the time on her phone, which she had slipped under her pillow. 10 am. Her daughter was at work. She was here by herself. How ironic. Because her daughter had said after the episode that took her to ER, “I don’t want you going home to your house. You’re all alone there.” Well, yeah. She got out of bed, straightened her pajamas and made it to the door. “Hi, I am the nurse your daughter hired to look after you. May I come in.” Oh that girl. She’s forgotten how much I enjoy my solitude.

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com

It can be hard to get going sometimes, and a writing prompt can help! Once a month, I post a five-minute timed writing prompt. You’re given a quote from something I’m reading, and you respond for five minutes. There’s no stopping, correcting, editing, nothing…just write. For five minutes. The prompt does not have to feature in your writing at all, it is simply a springboard. Where does the prompt take you? Write it out.

If you are a paid Patreon supporter, send me your response and your short bio when you’re done for a chance to win the monthly contest. Winners are featured on all my socials/website/newsletter. You never know where five minutes could lead….

For the current monthly writing prompt, please visit Patreon.

July 2024: Heather Saint

“restless in a permanent way”

but I don’t want to…I don’t want to stay here but I just installed a woodstove.  I want to travel but I don’t want to see people.  I want to stay home but I want to see far\flung family.  I am restless, I can’t decide. Wait a year they said, my year is up and I still don’t know what to do.  I want, I don’t want, stay, go, read, sit.  My restless drives me yet I am paralyzed with immobility. Restlessness is just a nagging ping in my brain that says do this, go there, see that.  but I want the quiet, the soft, the safe. there it is – Safe. but safe is boring. I am not wanting boring, but I don’t want frightening.   Safe and not boring? what to do, what to do…

Heather Saint is a world traveled native Montanan, settling into retirement in NW Montana.

June 2024: Stacy Hodo

“my sisters boots”

My sister’s boots have taken her up mountains and through sand,
walked her through a nasty divorce and comforted the loss of a friend.
they’ve walked her through a successful business only to come Crashing Down.
they’ve camped, road bikes, and walked her dog all over town.
my sister’s boots make her tall and Brave. they slip-on mid ankle and are leather made.
They’ve walked her out of relationships and into the arms of her folks.
they’re well loved during the holidays when we sit around telling jokes.
my sister’s boots are sitting over there by the door. maybe it’s the blue door that I’ve mentioned before…

Stacy Hodo has lived in the mountains of San Diego most of her life. She loves being a single mom, teacher, creative dreamer, and spiritual warrior.

May 2024: Kim Pitts

“a smile doused in pity”

Broken I have this lamp. It’s an elephant. I love elephants. I love d this lamp. It’s broken now, but f before today it wasn’t. My parens bought it for me as a hoeswarming gift the first year we moved into our house the very first house that we bought over twenty years ago. That’s how long I have had the lamp. I knew it was broken before I even walked in the room. I heard a crash and I instantly knew what it was. Yous see the lamp gets moved. I keep it tucked between too bookshelves that line my living room wall so it can’t get broken and my Mom who lives with me moves it. She says she moves it for more light but there is a light in the living room so I am not sure if that makes any sense to me. All I know is she moved it and it got nocked over and its borken now, And my therapist says we react to things how we are not how they are and whoever we were and ot how we are or something like that but to me this feels a lot like generational trama. And i would settle for a smile doused in pity but all i have is a broken lamp.

Kim Pitts is a writer and compassionate humorist. Her unique traumasaurus rex sized ability to turn awful situations into beautiful, hilarious stories of pure humanity can be found on Facebook and Instagram as My Life Is The Pitts Family.

March 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill

“to cause pain was a disease”

I didn’t know. I wish I had known. It would have made a difference in my decisions. I wish I had known that the compulsion to inflict pain is a disease. An overpowering disease that is passed from one generation to the next. The person who has this disease will hurt anyone he has contact with, if he can. But most of all he will hurt those closest to him. Those he loves the most. In doing so, he will push away the love he is convinced he does not deserve. He will inflict this pain with all the force of every pain seared into his brain that he suffered as a child. As those who would have cared, those who were responsible for protecting him, for loving him hurt him deeply, teaching him the best ways to cut others deeply, inflicting the most insidious, long-lasting wounds. And by hurting them, he hurts himself, and thinks he takes pleasure in it.

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. http://www.janetmuirheadhill.com