Posted on by Laura Lee

Coffin Bell Journal, a mini-review

Another interesting site.  This is not my genre, dark literature, but I realize many of my writings contain very dark elements–just not supernatural.  With some editing, they could fit the genre.  In any case, here is a journal that has an interesting premise.  From scary housetheir website:  Coffin Bell

Coffin Bell is a new quarterly online journal of dark literature seeking poetry, flash fiction, short stories, and creative nonfiction exploring dark themes. When we say “dark themes,” we don’t necessarily mean traditional horror. Send us your waking nightmares, dark CNF, dystopian flash, cursed verse. Surprise us. Make us think in a new way. Give us a new fear. Make our skin crawl.

If you write flash fiction or dark verse, read here  and consider submitting.  The site is attractive, the care given to writers evident in their bios.  What an interesting group of writers published there already, from lawyers to ghost writers.

Yesterday I changed the speaker of a poem from human to animal, something I’ve not done before.  Have you considered writing outside of your genre?  If so, what was your experience?

Thanks for reading!

Posted on by Laura Lee

First Lines/ Where do they come from? Where do they go?

First lines–I think of first lines a lot as the day goes on.  Sometimes I imagine an opening scene from fiction.  Often times it’s a first line of a poem.  Something will grab me, a sight, a sound, a smell, a memory.  And then the storytelling starts in my mind.

I grew up with parents who were quite the storytellers.  I didn’t know until I was a teenager than many kids could ask a simple question and get a simple answer; I always got a story, and usually a long, convoluted, probably only partly true story.

All three of my siblings are storytellers.  My students say I tell a LOT of stories.

I love stories.

But it all starts with a few words, a phrase, a line or two.

And these are going through my head, a sort of off fairy tale tale of some sort or a poem?

And the child asked, “It cannot get any worse, can it?” And the big one answered, “Oh, yes, yes it can. It can get colder.”

Who knows where the lines will go.  Often they go nowhere, but they do become  a part of me.  These lines have been popping up for days now, so I think that child and that big one have a story to tell.

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