...in which the sisters do Black Friday

You know all about our BOOKS and ART, but have you seen what we've got at our ONLINE STORE? Mugs and calendars and jewelry boxes and decorative pillows and THIS holiday card made by our mother. In the words of Smokey Robinson, You better shop around !

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Jazz #2" by Janet Snell

"Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night."
- Irving Berlin

New Portrait

Introducing:Cheryl Townsend

Cheryl's Got A Cover!

Introducing the cover to Cheryl's novel, SHIVA'S ARMS. Won't be long now!

Animation

Glimpse from Dustin Grella on Vimeo.

Dustin Grella

Absence


You rise before dawn to begin leaving.
Sounds arrive from varied points of origin:
a rustle of shirts, the shuffle of papers.

All night long, I listened to jumbled words
slip from your dreams of renewal,
your endless leaving and arrival.

With one knee, you open the bedroom door,
a mug in each hand. In a moment, you’ll hold me
as close as if one of us had been lost.

I lift my coffee out of the way, trying not to spill.
You say, The phone is fully charged. Will you be alright?

The front door falls shut, key turning in the lock.
I wait for you to turn back
to retrieve the muffled answer, my lips at your ear
naming everything you missed.

Past Forgetting

Slipping Her Mind


My old aunt, rattling
our teacups, asks
Did you know my brother?

She points to the picture on the wall,
the same one I keep by my bed.

He was my father, I say,
and her hands fly to her face.

Her mind flickers off and on,
braiding past and present
in a loose skein full of absence.

I wonder what she does remember.
My father, she says, shaving his sick son.

So that she cannot see my tears, I turn
toward the window crazed with frost.

Beyond the glass, the world sinks deeper
into winter. Our tea is cold now.
Are we related? she wants to know.

(from Pandora's Box)

Stitched Head

Pulled Face

We don't have a joke for you, but there's this...

Remembering Grace

Pretty Lady

A shout-out and thank you to CHERYL TOWNSEND for the wonderful pictures of our mother.
A few faves above.

Thirteen Myna Birds

Janet's got work up at Juliet Cook's BLOGZINE where Glossy trumps dull. Macabre trumps morbid. We pronounce macabre with three syllables and cryptic wing spans.
Check it out before it flies away...