| 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 |
| My Mother's Room, by Gol McAdam |
Though robbed of her spit and polish
the room remains much as she left it.
Her purple housecoat hangs on the door
its folds faded to lilac by sunlight.
The bedside lamp shades a closed book,
an old till receipt marking her page.
The counterpane, lovingly spread, stays
unruffled by the grief of her sleeping.
The wardrobe, closed and full, rises;
a bastion of forgotten fashions.
Shrouded by dust, the dressing table
still spells out her moments -
a trinket box hosting her cameo brooch
and a long since broken string of pearls
a pomander slow to evaporate
tinting the air with her perfume
a silver brush camouflaging
gun-metal hairs in its yellowing bristle -
the misty bloom on the triptych mirrors
waiting for the wayward finger to draw
an arrow-pierced heart of fidelity.
A lone cobweb floats and touches
soft against the cold window pane.
A dead wasp decays on the sill.
Editor's note: The Picolata Review editors use a blind review process - none of the reviewing editors know who the author of any work is until after they've decided to either accept or reject the work. Last month, they chose to publish Gol McAdam's Dipping. The first poem selected for our second issue was this poem. The editors had no idea the same poet had written both. My Mother's Room is the only work submitted thus far to receive top scores from every editor. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Mark Pettus, Managing Editor
 Gol McAdam is a retired Senior Lecturer, living in the UK and dividing her time between Yorkshire and Kent. Her working life was spent in Further and Higher Education, teaching subjects such as Psychology and Women's Studies and, latterly, heading a department of Child Studies. She has always enjoyed writing and has had success with academic and educational texts, short stories, and radio drama. She recently discovered a love of writing poetry, (rather a surprise to her, since she never expected her writing to take off in this direction). She is currently pursuing an MA in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and has had sixteen poems published in a range of magazines and anthologies in UK. |
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