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My knees wobbled. "Hey, buddy, get away from the painting." A guard dressed in gray approached. I looked down. I already had stepped over the velvet rope, the stanchions still rocking. My right hand was ready to the touch, it suspended inches from Starry Night. I nodded toward the guard, stepped back over the rope, and stared. The swirling lines of Van Gogh's brush strokes created a world that I had lived in for almost two decades, a twirling world of temporary darkness illuminated by magnificent lights of hope. This was art, not the painting, but an ingenious manner of engaging an individual's imagination. Joyce recreated another moment when I read The Dead. In these early moments of my life when I finally understood why my parents dragged me to museums and encouraged me to read. I always wished to recreate those moments. I tried for years in magazine journalism. Then I "retired" for fiction. I wrote and wrote. I' published. I' talked with writers. I' read their work. I've admired some of it. I wanted more outlets for writers whose work I admired. It never seemed possible until I understood the concept of file transfer protocol sites. Suddenly an ezine was possible. I have been at it since 1999. Our format has changed over that time. Our viewership has increased annually. Writers should read our guidelines. They are simple, but they must be followed. The most important guideline: Engage our imaginations with new ideas in old story lines, new story lines with old ideas, new story lines with new ideas, or whatever. One more significant point: All material presented is copyrighted by their authors. Any reproduction, other than for private personal use, without written permission from the author is prohibited by Federal law. To put it simply: Authors work, they work hard, and they are entitled to the courtesy of being asked about the reproduction of their work. Joseph Conlin |
The
wall was white, stark, snowy, cold. The frame gold. The light
harsh. It sat on that wall, waiting for me, to touch the brush
strokes, to smell the dried oils, the long ago evaporated breathe
of Van Gogh, the dusk of rural France.