Category: literature

Twisted

By Mishka Fernando


Was asked one day if I thought of murdering my curls,
If I wanted ’em straight and artificial,like most other girls..
Horrified as I was I wondered why I loved them so
Then I realized my curls were me.
How? I’m sure you would like to know.
Stubborn, uptight, impossible to control
Its got moods, attitudes with which no one knows what to do.
It bends sometimes under pressure and strain
But can be messy, really frizzy, a total pain.
It goes wild sometimes or relaxes subdued.
Or will just not do anything, like it’s in some frightful mood.
Hates others messing with it, yet loves a ‘lil praise.
Can look calm, cool and collected yet can burst into craze
My curls are me! My exact personality
Advice all you need, these curls are mine for keeps
You can call me vain but I’ll always love ’em heaps.
Mishka Fernando

Ami Tomay Bhalobashi

Bedford College Magazine (my first short story)

rose

The sound of the bolt seemed to grate loud into the night as he locked the door.? For a fleeting moment he flustered as he imagined every person in the enormous house knowingly smile at hearing the sound. It was her he was more worried about; locking the door when they were the only ones in the room seemed to have sinister implications somehow ? but, surely it was understandable, after all they were now man and wife. Continue reading “Ami Tomay Bhalobashi”

Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World

By Marlene Zuk??Images forwarded by Manzoor
“People are more afraid of insects than they are of dying, at least if you believe a 1973 survey published in?The Book of Lists. Only public speaking and heights exceeded the six-legged as sources of fear … And yet for centuries, some of the greatest minds in science have drawn inspiration from studying some of the smallest minds on earth. From Jean Henri Fabre to Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson, naturalists have been fascinated by the lives of six-legged creatures that seem both frighteningly alien and uncannily familiar. Beetles and earwigs take care of their young, fireflies and crickets flash and chirp for mates, and ants construct elaborate societies, with internal politics that put the U.S. Congress to shame. …
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image019 Continue reading “Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World”

The Gift of Photography

By Joe McNally


Is one that is given, or accepted, freely. As a shooter, you can be the recipient of many gifts over the years: The grace of someone?s time, the whimsy of their expression, the fleeting emotion of their eyes the lens traps, forever.
Behind the lens, you are a gift giver as well. You honor someone?s humanity, beauty, or spirit. You wordlessly transact, and that transaction, fixed in pixels, becomes the stuff of memory. Nobility can be enhanced, or conferred, upon someone who has never been so recognized. If done properly, at least occasionally, what transpires within the mundane mechanics of a shutter clicking or a light flashing becomes a certain kind of poetry, the legend of both the subject and the shooter. When the house is burning down, and all the people and the pets are out safely, what does someone often save? The photo album. Continue reading “The Gift of Photography”

The Dark Side of the Moon

By?Saroop Ijaz?Published: August 31, 2013

The writer is a lawyer and partner at Ijaz and Ijaz Co in Lahore saroop.ijaz@ tribune.com.pk

The passing of the first death anniversary of?Neil Armstrong?last week is an opportunity to reflect on our own connection (admittedly flimsy) with the first man on the moon. Two years before Armstrong landed on the moon, Ghulam Abbas wrote?Dhanak, one of the best satirical short stories (The short story has been ably adapted by Shahid Nadeem into a play named?Hotel Mohenjodaro) of all times, and unnervingly prescient. Written in 1967, the story begins with the first man landing on moon, not Armstrong, but a Pakistani PAF Captain, Adam Khan. Local and international dignitaries gather on the rooftop garden of the 71-storied Hotel Mohenjodaro in Karachi to listen to Adam Khan?s message from the moon. His brief message is, ?I am Captain Adam Khan. I come from the district of Jhang in Punjab ? I have landed safely. All praise to Allah ? Pakistan Zindabad.? Continue reading “The Dark Side of the Moon”

By Chris Heller The Atlantic

A lovely short story.

missed-connections.jpg

Lucas Jackson/Reuters, Chris Heller

Craigslist: that scourge of the newspaper industry, that den of lust, that middleman responsible for an untold number of bedbug crises.
Or, Craigslist: the Internet’s simplest and most ingenious disruptor, a digital equivalent of the neighborhood telephone pole papered from sidewalk to eye line with “HELP WANTED” and “GARAGE SALE: TODAY!” fliers.
How about, Craigslist: accidental publisher of short fiction?
On Tuesday evening, “Missed Connection” appeared as a personal listing on Brooklyn’s corner of the website. It begins like most of these confessions do:

I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.
I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. Continue reading “”

How to quit your job

How to Quit Your Job Like Sherwood Anderson: The Best Resignation Letter Ever Written

by?
?He is a nice fellow. We will let him down easy but let?s can him.?
Like a number of celebrated creators ? including?Dr. Seuss,?F. Scott Fitzgerald, and?Wendy MacNaughton???Sherwood Andersonstarted out in advertising to make ends meet, first as an advertising solicitor, then as an ad salesman and copywriter for farming equipment, and eventually as a copywriter in Chicago-based advertising agency Taylor Critchfield Co. until he became a successful novelist at the age of 41. Though he was man of?timeless, profound insight on the creative life?and the originator of some of?history?s finest fatherly advice, he was also a man of masterful humor and remarkable wit. In 1918, when the time came to free himself from the shackles of the corporate world and plunge wholeheartedly into his craft, Anderson wrote what?s possibly the best letter of resignation ever penned, found in the altogether delightful?Funny Letters from Famous People?(public library): Continue reading “How to quit your job”

Life Without Sex

By?SOPHIE FONTANEL New York Times?

Published: July 20, 2013

PARIS ? FOR a period of my life, from my 27th to my 39th years, I slept alone: I had no sex. I wasn?t unhappy. Or frustrated. In fact, I found no sex preferable to disappointing sex.

Just before giving up, I had a boyfriend. He often said that we were happy sexually, but frankly he was blind to my unhappiness. So that winter, I went skiing without him.

Alone in all that sun and snow, absorbing energy from the sky and mountains, I let my body breathe quietly. The freedom and whiteness of the snow and mountains produced a kind of ecstasy. And the special pleasure I found skiing in this paradise made me think about the possibilities of my body, my sensuality. And I asked myself, ?Sophie, is your sexual life so very stimulating, actually?? And my answer was, ?No.? I realized that even when I took pleasure, I was not ecstatic with my sexual life. In fact, I seemed to be going through the motions of lovemaking because, I thought, that?s what everybody did. I decided to take a break, to recover a true desire. Continue reading “Life Without Sex”

Her Secret Vice

By Arjun Janah (Babui)
?What’s your hobby?? asked her friend.
?You heard me. Speak, and don’t pretend.
I told you mine was postage stamps,
A pastime I acquired from gramps.
But you have never told me. Speak.
I’ve asked you several times this week.?
She could not speak, for quite a while.
But then, she tried to force a smile.
?Your game is up.? She told herself.
?It can’t be kept to just yourself,
This thing you do, your secret shame.
Perhaps she’ll understand, not blame.? Continue reading “Her Secret Vice”

My So-Called 'Post-Feminist' Life in Arts and Letters

Deborah Copaken Kogan?is a novelist whose most recent work, The Red Book (Hyperion), will be out in paperback on May 7. The Nation.

My So-Called Post-Feminist Literary Life
The author’s 2002 book about her career as a war photographer was titled “Shutterbabe”?against her wishes. Illustration by Milton Glaser Incorporated.
My latest novel was just long-listed ?for Britain’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize. I cried when I heard. Then I Googled it. Here are a few things I learned: it was founded in response to the 1991 Booker Prize, whose nominees were all men; it is frequently modified by the adjective “prestigious”; and it is controversial. Why do we need a separate prize for women, ask the columnists, year after year, in one form or another, following the announcement of the nominees. Continue reading “My So-Called 'Post-Feminist' Life in Arts and Letters”