| Featured Book |
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| Just West of Famous |
| Charles Baxter doesn't pull any punches when he answers Lisa Coutant's questions in this month's author interview.
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| In this issue: |
An encore poem from Gol McAdam
Claire Litton's amazing Authenticity Leads
A collection of poetry from Craig Kirchner
New fiction from Maria Pollack and Josh Stewart
Plus great poetry from Corie Feiner, Gary Wilkins, and Sherry Pasquerello |
| Coming Next Month |
Anne Frasier has some fresh ideas about how to boost her book sales,
Ron Hogan is the ultimate literary insider - and next month he's going to take the Picolata Review into his world for an exclusive look around.
Plus:More great poetry, short fiction, and features. Enough great writing to satisfy any literary palate.
Want to submit to The Picolata Review? Send your submissions and queries to submissions@picolatareview.org
Complete guidelines can be found here. |
| The Picolata Review |
Managing Editor Mark Pettus is a full time journalist in St. Augustine, Florida, and author of the novel, Transit Gloria
Features Editor Lisa Coutant is a consultant, former writer for the Philadelphia Theatre Review, and a fiction writer. She is also Vice President of the professional writing group, Pennwriters.
Poetry Editor Andy H-H., is a poet who lives in the beautiful countryside of West Yorkshire
with his partner and a menagerie of pets (a sheep occasionally stares in through the kitchen window), in a home surrounded by literary history. Ted Hughes was born there, Sylvia Plath is buried nearby, and first Emily Bronte, then Kate
Bush, made a certain stretch of desolate land five minutes' walk away very famous indeed.
Fiction Editor Serenity Banks's day job is as an industry magazine editor. She also writes an online sex-advice column, and is trying to find an agent for her latest horror novel.
The Picolata Review is a monthly online publication, and a place to find emerging writers and poets. We welcome you, and hope we'll see you again. If you forget our address, look for us just a little west of famous. |
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| Volume 1, Number 2 August, 2006 |
| The Question of Laura, Short fiction by Jeff Neale |
They never accused me of her murder, and that is good, because I did not kill her, nor did I cause her disappearance. Honestly, I do not even know if she is dead. I do not know where she is. True, at first I was a suspect because I was the last one with her and to see her alive. However, we were only children; she was ten and I eleven. We were not really boyfriend and girlfriend, we were too young for that, but she was my best friend.
I think not finding her body has been the most difficult thing for her parents. Without a body, there is no closure, and it leaves open the possibility that she may one-day return if she simply ran away. However, I know my friend did not run away. There was nowhere for her to go. There was no way out of the silo.
The silo connects to the barn. It is fifty feet tall, circular, and made out of solid concrete with a sealed and locked metal door at the ground level entrance. At the time of the "accident" this door was securely closed and locked. There is a three-foot square access opening cut in the concrete halfway up on the inside of the barn at the level of the hayloft. When not in use the opening remained covered with an easily removable piece of plywood. Inside, the silo has a metal ladder that spans from top to bottom and used for checking grain levels, moisture content, and cleaning at the times the silo is empty. It was empty on the day we were playing in the barn, and it was through this opening that Laura crawled and started down the ladder and never returned.
Incredible as it sounds, she simply vanished. One minute I heard the echo of her laughter as she began climbing down, and the next minute her scream, followed by a loud sucking sound like the last bit of water draining from a bathtub, and then she was gone. I could do nothing. I was terrified. I yelled her name several times, and even leaned over the opening searching, but I saw and heard nothing, just the empty bottom of the silo. The last thing I remember of that day was running toward the house screaming Laura's name.
The barn, the silo, and the surrounding area were searched for more than a week with no sign of Laura. Tracking hounds were only able to follow her scent as far as the opening in the concrete where she disappeared. Oddly, one of the hounds refused to approach the opening, and instead backed away whinning as though fearful of what lay beyond.
Even now after thirty years, I often lay awake at night and wonder if my fate would have been the same had I followed her down the ladder that day. When I do sleep, I have terrifying nightmares about Laura. I see her continually spiraling downward in total darkness toward a never ending abyss while reaching out frantically for me and screaming my name.
Jeff Neale is the author of several short stories, many of which are available on his blog,
The Write Thing. His hobbies include reading, golf, and music. Jeff is in the process of writing his first novel. |
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