90 percent of my writing is drivel—this putting pen to paper is the calisthenics I’ve been doing since I discovered the sport about 20 years ago. But here's the thing, I think some of it is really good.

If I feel something when I write, isn’t there a chance someone else will too? Frost famously said no tears for the writer, no tears for the reader. But, the truth is no writing has universal appeal.

My ‘maginings are stories I’ve conjured up from whole cloth…or from fairy dust. I don’t actually know where they come from.

My musings are reflections on things I bump into, like my reaction to contracting for our cremations. Crazytown!

I’ve also recorded a couple selections of other people’s writing, including those of my daughter and mother. Apple tree: trunk, branches, and fruit are we.

Enjoy!

This story, entitled Slither, is the first ‘magining I’m recording for this podcast. There’s a reason for that.

I wrote it in a class I took with Maureen Ryan Griffin in 2007. It was one of my earliest conjuring.

When Ruth Moose, a professor of Creative Writing at UNC Chapel Hill, sponsored a Flash Fiction Contest through the Charlotte Writer’s Club in 2012, I shaped and edited Slither and submitted it.

Ruth judged my story to be the first place winner. This contest spurred me to continue dreaming and writing and since then I’ve won the contest three other times, twice more as first place, once in third. (You’ll hear those other stories down the road.)

Thank you Ruth for the acknowledgment, and thank you Maureen for being my writing coach and teacher for the past fifteen luscious years.

After my mother, Esther Struble, retired from a career in health care, she took up the hobby of writing. There certainly is some apple and tree stuff going on with this family. The photo you see of her was snapped at a book release party my brother arranged for her in Austin, Texas. I’m sure her holding the big fat book in the picture was their idea of a joke. Her book was only 54 pages long.

Because she never was published, beyond this self-printed collection of her stories and poems, I’d like to include some of her writings as part of this podcast. This poem, entitled “Landlocked”, inspired the name of her collection: The Stars As My Compass.

We lost her in 2008 at the age of 93. May her bright spirit live on in this release of one of her ‘maginings and musings.

One of my favorite resources for writing prompts is the Writer’s Digest’s “Your Story” contest. Every other issue, the magazine displays a photo prompt, or sometimes a phrase, and asks for stories based on the prompt, 650 words or less. There is no entry fee, and the deadline is long allowing plenty of time for the seed to germinate, and grow into a fully formed story.

This story is based on this Writer’s Digest provided photo of balloons packed into a Volkswagen, coupled with my friend Wendy’s mother’s input. She lives in this fictional retirement home along with many retired clowns – this is Sarasota after all. All this was the inspiration for the next story you’ll hear: Flimsy.

In 2007 and before, WFAE invited writers in the community to submit opinion essays that, if accepted, the submitter would read on the air. I was very lucky to have had four of those accepted and air. These have since been broomed from the WFAE archives, but luckily my son, Brian, helped me save them on Soundcloud before they disappeared into thin air.

This first one, which I call Life’s Toys, was written while I was on a writer’s retreat at Sunset Beach with Maureen Ryan Griffin. She still offers these retreats, so if you’re interested, track her down. I hope you enjoy my reflections on the importance of toys.

For a number of years, our daughter, Cailin, came up with a daily email treat through the month of December. It was a beautiful, and thoughtful online Advent Calendar. This posting, the last one in the year 2019, was about a cassette tape I’d unearthed. She had recorded many ditties on the tape (which was intended for entertainment on the road) but this particular song is her original work, and about cats, so is a winner. It’s also a little clunky -- a seven year old was doing the engineering after all -- but it’s positively darling. (And here’s a warning: it’s very earwormy.)

The following is her written message from the Advent Calendar posting. Imagine this is Cailin’s voice:

I can't believe I'm voluntarily sharing this, but I'm feeling generous, and if you enjoy this - even at the expense of my vanity - I'm okay with that.

When I was little, I loved recording and re-recording little musings, stories and songs on cassette tapes, just saying (or singing) whatever half-baked thought crossed my mind. These little 'radio' shows were recently rediscovered by my parents and after a deep dive into the stack, they found this particular recording. I was about seven-years-old in the recording. I know this because we only had our cat, Panda, for about two years. Panda (in the photo here) gets a little shout-out in this hit single, "Cats, cats, cats."

Cats are apparently all I thought about (honestly, they basically still are all I think about). I love my little Chicago accent when I first talk about 'ceyats'; the Daniel Johnston-y talk about Toby (the mult-i-colored cat); and my genius idea of incorporating that cough into a short loop. Also the end *jazz hands* "Caaaaaats!" *jazz hands*

My closest friends all know that I continue to be a cat lady. I like to say (and believe!) I'm an equal opportunity cat and dog person, but we all know better.

Here’s Cailin’s song: Cats, Cats, Cats

An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.

This poem and the song that follows are about the train that washed off a railroad bridge in Belmont, North Carolina – the result of a catastrophic flood that happened over one hundred years ago – on July 17, 1916.

I heard about this devastating flood and the train plunging into the river and thought it might make a good song. So I decided to learn all about it. I nearly went blind reading the 100 year old Charlotte Observers in the Carolina Room at the public library. The bottom right hand corner of the pages had disintegrated before being preserved on microfiche from people reading the physical paper. The story about this devastating flood even knocked WW1 off the front pages of the paper. I visited the Catawba Indian Reservation that had been wiped out by the flood. I went to the accident site looking for the train, and found even more stories.

This flood, whose waters rose as high as 50 feet above the normal river level washed out all but one of the highway and railroad bridges along the Catawba River. In an attempt to save the Belmont railway bridge, officials positioning train cars loaded with coal on the tracks directly over the river. They miscalculated. The flood washed the train off the bridge and into the river. Scores of railway workers and onlookers died at the site that day. Today, when the river is low, boaters still run into the train that  lies on the river floor.

Using the poem I wrote about the incident, David Childers, a musical icon, wrote and recorded a song commemorating the event. The song called Belmont Ford and is on his album Run, Skeleton, Run. Stay tuned, the song will play immediately after my reading of the poem.

In 2014 the alternative press newspaper, Creative Loafing, ran a short story contest. The prompt was “I forgot to pay my heat bill”. That was the genesis for this tale. It didn’t win then. It needed lots of work.

Over the past 8 years, I edited and edited the story, one adjustment was to make it “media res”….so when the story opens it’s Ed discovering that the snakes he was planning to sell to regional churches had frozen because someone didn’t pay the heat bill.

I had a brother who was a naturalist and was smitten by snakes. Thanks to big brother Mike, serpents show up in lots of my stories. I remember him coming home with 4 rattlers in a pillow case, much to our mother’s chagrin. This background helped me shape the character of Eddie, who as a youngster lobbied to take care of his church’s snakes.

It was fascinating to learn about the world of snake handling and incorporate that into the story. How snakes were, and in some places still are, a big part of religious traditions.

Gordon Smith, a fellow Charlotte Writer’s Clubber, introduced me to a voice actor, Neil Boone. He recorded the story “Snakes On Demand” that you’re about to hear.

He was almost four years old for god’s sake. A bit late for a weaning party, I thought. But, Julie is an earthy, touchy feely mother – in fact president of the La Leche League -- so who was I to tell her when to quit breast feeding?