Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . When You Are the Brownest White Girl by Emari DiGiorgio Someone will call you spic. And you won’t know what to say because you’re a Ferrucci-DiGiorgio from the region of Molise where olives become oil, and there are slurs for your kind, too: Guinea, WOP, grease ball, so maybe, the sting is being slapped with another’s epithet. When you’re the brownest white ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2020: Two Poems by Luray Gross
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . The Shape of Usefulness by Luray Gross “I try to fit language into the shape of usefulness.” - Claudia Rankine The shape of a salt crystal, for example, or a needle, a wedge, a bolt. I try to fit language into the curve of a chalice or cupped hand, or the flat dry rock just big enough to step on before you leap to the far bank. Fit language into the waterwheel’s ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2020: A piece by Paul Lisicky
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . The Ways We Tried To Erase Each Other by Paul Lisicky My husband, my home, our dog, my best friend, my mother — who was left to lose? It had all taken place in 16 months, and I suppose it’s better to get it all over with than to have it happen over time, sanding you down little by little. I picked the building because its ornate surface reminded me of ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2020: A short story by Joe Costal
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . The First Thanksgiving by Joe Costal You call him Uncle Bobby. The whole family calls him Uncle Bobby, but he‘s a second-cousin. On your father’s side. Uncle Bobby has Dracula hair, 70s Dracula, high and poofy in the middle, but peaked and gray-streaked up front. He loves old country music and older rock ‘n’ roll. He is a United States veteran. ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2020: A personal essay by Lisa Romeo
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . Upstairs Love by Lisa Romeo When I was a small girl in the 1960s living in the leafy New Jersey suburb of Cedar Grove, I spent a chunk of every Sunday afternoon visiting my beloved Noni, my mother’s mother, at the Paterson apartment she shared with spinstered Aunt Mary. Theirs was a $40 a month fourth-floor two-bedroom walk-up with linoleum floors, concrete yard, and ... Read More...
Getaway Reads 2020: A personal essay by Anndee Hochman
Murphy Writing of Stockton University Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. . On Yom Kippur, I think of my grandmother and the sweaters I didn't love enough by Anndee Hochman My Bubbie, my mother's mother, was always chasing me with a flexible yellow tapeline in her hand. “Shayna punim. Shayna maidele.” Beautiful face, she said, even if I’d dabbed the wrong shade of cover-up over a huge, pubescent zit. Beautiful girl, even in ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. If You Are Absolutely Certain, I Get Suspicious by Mimi Schwartz Unreliable narrators are everywhere: On Fox News or MSNBC, depending on your politics. In film, theater, and of course literature, which was the original focus of a term coined by critic Wayne Booth in 1961 to refer to a fictional ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Excerpt from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. A Murmur of Growing Intensity from Killing the Messenger by Thomas Peele That bright, sunny morning seemed like just another day. I had moved to California seven years earlier and had only recently committed to staying longer, having just turned down a good newspaper job in New Jersey. That summer I was in the throes of finishing a graduate ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Abduction from the Seraglio by Roberta Clipper I met her in London. In my cousin Shawn's favorite black and tan. We're the only cousins the same age. Our mothers are sisters. We were always begging them to fly us to each other's houses—him to visit me in Nairobi, me to spend school holidays with him in London. I was staring at her long, ... Read More...
Getaway Reads: Learning my Place from Nature’s Graveyard
Murphy Writing of Stockton College Presents This entry is part of Getaway Reads, an e-mail series curated by Taylor Coyle that features the writing of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway faculty. Learning my Place from Nature's Graveyard by Amanda Morris Splintered fence. Shattered shrubs. Shredded trunks. And pine needles. Everywhere, pine needles. Destruction with the scent of Christmas. As I made my way into the barely accessible remains of yard, gingerly pulling back heavy pine branches to expose anything left ... Read More...