DEBORAH PRUM

HOPING NOT TO HAVE TO SLEEP NEXT TO MYSELF Jim & Eva’s Sunday School Class Led By Gaetano Boccaccio, Eva’s Father 0:00 / 0:00 Hoping Not to Have to Sleep Next to Myself (This essay was just published by Otherwise Engaged An Literature & Arts Journal. Reprinted with permission.) I watch a herd of disaffected teens ignore a traffic light near the high school. They slow-walk across the busy intersection. Some wear black hoodies, some wear camo hoodies, a few are bare headed in the drizzling rain. Most stare down at cellphones; all grimly cocooned in separate universes.             Later, on a city road, I watch two young teachers stop traffic, then ferry a flock of four-year-olds to safety. Wearing bright rain slickers, laden with backpacks covered with stickers, the children poke each other, giggle, laugh out loud. They wobble, they skip, they gallop, airborne with glee.             Finally, I arrive at Hospice House, a hundred-year-old, three-story Victorian home. I trudge up the winding staircase. My ninety-five-year-old mother is asleep, her expression placid. I choose to believe her mind is filled with moonbeams and music. In truth, though, when she’s awake, sometimes she believes she’s forty and late for work. She’s frantic because she can’t find her keys. No moonbeams. No music.             My mind flashes to some thirty years ago. Late at night, she and I are standing in the dark in the kitchen of our family home in Connecticut. My smart, vibrant, always impeccably dressed mother is about sixty. I am microwaving a cup of Sleepy Time tea. We stare at the bright numbers counting down on the microwave pane. My mother who is neither introspective nor philosophical, says to me, “With the tick of each second, I am that much closer to death.”             A few weeks ago, I’m trying to persuade my granddaughter (four) to stay in bed and go to sleep. She is a genius at stalling: One more book. A bowl of blueberries, please. A glass of water. One more trip to the potty. Her bottom itches. And finally, “Please…. I don’t want to sleep next to myself.”  I sigh.             My parents belonged to the same church when they were children. I have a picture of them together, one row apart, in a Sunday school class. She’s five and he’s nine. My father died over seven years ago. Since right after his death and even now at Hospice House, my mother senses my father’s presence, snuggled next to her at night. Not only that, but in the morning, she reports hearing him in the next room, making coffee. I realize that the tender universe is making sure that my mother is not having to sleep next to herself.             On another day, a sunny one this time, I set up an iPad in front of my mother. She is a person who loves musicals. For years, she and my father watched many shows at the Schubert in New Haven. Today, I position an iPad on the bedside tray. I search for video clips from various productions, then settle on Oklahoma. She harmonizes with Gordon McRae: “Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I have a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way…”             And at this exact moment, which is all we really have, all is well in the world. ### (Note:  My mother, Eva Mazzotta, passed away on December 3, 2025.)   Interested in reading more essays? Check out: *MONKEY BUSINESS *MAISON MAGIQUE *GANGSTER GRANNY (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WATCH? LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO WATCH? Here are four possibilities: Doc: a TV series A life shattering event plunges Dr. Amy Larsen into bitterness and cynicism. Played by Molly Parker, the physician becomes chief of staff at a busy hospital. For the next eight years, her acid tongue and aggressive behavior make everyone’s life hell, colleagues, family members, and even patients. Then, she’s in a car crash that results in a brain injury. The extensive damage erases eight years of her life, including memory of the terrible event. After the crash, Amy Larsen emerges from the accident as her old self, kind and humble. As she re-enters her world, she is bewildered to discover that people hate and fear her. The premise, the screenplay and the acting makes this series worth watching. The writers deliver an insightful portrayal of how our attitudes and actions can affect others for both good and bad.  Unfortunately, to create a hook for season two, writers came up with  an episode that  would have worked better in a soap opera. That decision diminished the power of the preceding nuanced exposition of plot. Despite the telenovella twist, the series is still entertaining. I probably will watch Season Two. One Battle After Another:  A Movie Bruce and I did not like this movie. Critics loved it and so did audiences, so we are probably wrong. We got off to a bad start. My husband and I are not computer geniuses.   We inadvertently rented the movie twice ($14.00) while trying to figure out how to get the captions to work. Then, a heated discussion occurred because had differing opinions as to who was at fault. (Him.) So, we had a grumpy start to the movie. The grumpiness deepened when we realized the movie ran 2 hours and 41 minutes, which included about 41 minutes of chase scenes. Leonardo DiCaprio (who plays Bob) is a splendid actor. He delivered a pitch perfect performance of a whacked-out drug and alcohol addicted ex-revolutionary. The tone of the film is ironic with lots of tongue-in-cheek humor, especially regarding character names: Lockjaw, Toejam, Mae West, Perfidia Beverly Hills, and Ghetto Pat. Despite being on the run and trying to evade the law, DiCaprio spent a lot of the movie dressed in a long, plaid bathrobe. I felt irrationally obsessed by the impracticality and improbability of his continuing to wear the bathrobe during all the crazy events of the last hour of the movie. I kept mentioning the bathrobe to Bruce, which irritated him no end. Later, I realized I’d missed the point; the writers intended for viewers to enjoy the absurdity. My bad. Sean Penn should get an Oscar for playing Colonel Lockjaw, a despicable racist and supremely creepy man who is out to destroy Bob (DiCaprio) and his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Willa is kidnapped by a good guy, then by a couple of bad guys, and later by a bad guy who turns out to be a good-ish guy. Bob remains one step behind the kidnappers. Willa’s simmering intensity keeps the tension high. One hot-tempered decision by Willa’s mother set off a tragic chain of events that badly affected her daughter’s life. By the end of the movie, the violent acts of the revolutionaries hadn’t engendered the change they’d envisioned. However, that didn’t seem to inspire them to change their strategy or behavior. But maybe that was the writer’s point, that we continued to be mired in the mess. On second thought, I like this movie better now that I’ve written the review. Relay: A Movie Reminiscent of John Grisham books and movies, in its first few minutes, this film lets the viewer know where the screenwriter stands regarding corporate greed. Ash, played by Riz Ahmed, is a virtuous man who defends whistleblowers who are hounded by their powerful employers. Sarah Grant (played by Lily James of Downton Abbey fame) is a whistleblower who hires Ash. She tells him she is terrified by the scare tactics of her former employers and wants to return incriminating documents to them. Ash agrees to facilitate the process. There is a tenderness in Ahmed’s portrayal of his character which makes this movie a pleasure to watch. Lily James delivers a great performance of a woman who is running for her life. I didn’t like the curve ball the writers threw at us viewers in the end. For a curve ball to be credible, the writer needs to have incorporated a hint at the onset. Maybe I missed the hint? All in all, I thought the movie was well-acted, kept a nice brisk pace, was not overly violent, and showed the lengths corporations will go to keep making money. Last Christmas:  A Movie             I am not a fan of Christmas movies. That being said, Last Christmas is not your normal Christmas movie. Emma Thompson who co-wrote the screenplay, gave a memorable, but slightly over-the-top performance of Petra, a Slavic mother. I love Emma Thompson and wanted to love this movie. But the emotional landscape did not quite make sense, and the plot made some confusing leaps. However, I admired the commitment of the actors—Emilia Clarke’s rendition of the feisty and erratic Kate, Henry Golding’s portrayal of the compassionate, yet ethereal Tom, and Emma Thompson’s robust delivery of the in-your-face mother, Petra. This movie did support the plot twist at the end. Film critics didn’t like the movie, but audiences were more forgiving of its flaws and gave it an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes and I would agree. ### More viewing possibilities: WICKED LITTLE LETTERS GHOSTLIGHTING TASK LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT SMOKE 0:00 / 0:00 Looking for Something to Watch? (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-MONKEY BUSINESS Photo Courtesy of Jamie Haughton 0:00 / 0:00 Monkey Business (First appeared in Brevity.) I am not a monkey, but sometimes I act like one.             Over the past couple years, I’ve had to put my writing and teaching career on hold as I’ve dealt with non-negotiable demands on my life. Those events knocked the stuffing out of me and trashed my self-esteem. I wondered if I still possessed the confidence, organizational skills, and knowledge I needed to continue in my profession.             Despite being filled with self-doubt, I pitched a creative writing retreat idea to a group I’d worked with in the past. They’d always responded to my proposals with enthusiasm. Within a day, I received a warm email from the director saying she liked the concept but wanted me to expand the description section. I realized she was right. My proposal lacked substance. Normally, I welcome revision suggestions. I’d calmly flesh out the ideas and hit send. However, this reasonable feedback sent my fragile psyche into a death spiral. Had I lost my mojo? Why did I email such an ill-prepared document? I paused to relive many of my past failures, including losing the citywide spelling bee in third grade by misspelling “rhythm.” Once the self-flagellation petered out, I decided to scour the nether regions of my home. I stooped so far as to clean under the bathroom sink in the basement, a space that still contained hygiene artifacts from twenty-five years ago. After my zeal for scrubbing waned, I vowed to craft the perfect revision. But the pursuit of perfection paralyzed me. I stared at a blinking cursor for hours as I wrote and deleted many imperfect drafts. I knew what the director wanted but my self-doubt was messing with my ability to articulate it. While I am not a monkey, the embarrassing truth is that my unhinged behavior bore a striking resemblance to a group of lab monkeys that once flipped out over a banana in a basket. Years ago, researchers had taught these monkeys how to open a straw basket by pulling a latch and lifting the lid. All the monkeys became expert lid-lifters. Next, they divided the monkeys into two groups. Monkeys in one room observed someone putting a banana in each of their baskets. The other group was asked to unlatch and lift the lid but without the bananas—which they did, no problem. However, the banana-in-the-basket monkeys forgot how to open the lids. They jumped on baskets, chewed on baskets, and smashed baskets against the wall. Overwhelmed by their desire for those bananas, not one of them remembered a simple task they’d already mastered. Researchers found that the prospect of an enticing reward had interfered with the brain signals that enabled the monkeys to complete a simple task. Much like those lab monkeys, I felt so desperate for the director’s blessing that I couldn’t form a few simple, descriptive sentences. My fixation on receiving her affirmation made me forget how to unlatch my lid. Disgusted by my lack of progress, I decided to procrastinate in a non-housecleaning way. I took out my trumpet, an instrument I’d stared playing at nine, and practiced the St. Louis Blues, a syncopated tune with grace notes, slurs, and the nemesis of my musical existence, dotted eighth notes. I’ve been butchering this song for years. But this time, I focused on counting beats, remembering the sharps, and making the slurs work, despite my shot lip. I didn’t experience performance anxiety because I didn’t care about anyone’s opinion. I played for the joy of it. As my performance improved, I loosened up and lightened up—and gained the courage needed to go back to revising. St. Louis Blues had distracted me from anxiety and the drive for perfection. I added a little verve to the tone of the proposal and wrote one hundred words of what I hoped approximated a persuasive description.  The upshot? A nightclub owner invited me to perform St. Louis Blues on stage in NYC. Just kidding. However, the director did like the revision and accepted the proposal, which ended my existential crisis.             In retrospect, I wish I could have skipped the drama queen stage. After receiving the revision suggestion, I wish I had poured myself a cup of Good Earth tea, watched the sunset, then calmly written the requisite words. However, my bruised soul didn’t possess the bandwidth for rational thinking and a little self-care. I didn’t realize I had all I needed to complete the task. Like my simian counterparts, my overwhelming desire to achieve a specific outcome interfered with the brain signals that, without fanfare, would have enabled me to complete the simple task.             What reassured me that my brain still worked was picking up an old friend, my trumpet, and mastering St. Louis Blues—a low-stakes, complex task that led to a small success. Music worked for me; maybe painting, solving a puzzle, or practicing a tennis serve would work for you. The lesson I learned: Find a way to stop obsessing about the banana! ### Interested in other writing tips? Check out:   Surviving Rejection All About That Bass Celestial Vault Don’t Arrive Before You Get There (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-TASK-TV SERIES If you’ve read very many of my movie reviews, you’ll know that I love dark movies with redemptive underpinnings. The seven-episode TV series, Task, fits the bill. This crime procedural was written by Brad Inglesby, who also penned Mare of Eastown. Both series do a brilliant job of capturing gritty blue-collar life. Mare of Eastown is a mystery that keeps viewers in suspense, eager to discover the big reveal at season’s finale. The plot of Task is character driven; there’s no mystery to be solved. Instead, Inglesby creates narrative tension by exploration of the inner workings of his characters via back story and dialogue. For me, this worked. By episode one, I felt great empathy for several individuals and cared about what happened to them.             The plot: unknown men commit a string of violent robberies that target drug houses of a fierce and powerful gang. As the violence escalates, police and FBI officials worry that an all-out gang war will ensue, endangering the public. The FBI chief, played by Martha Plimpton, insists that Tom Brandis (Mark Ruffalo) head up a task force comprised of three newbies to find the perps.             In the middle of trying to deal with his own unspeakable tragedy, Tom begs the chief to find someone else. He’d rather be spending his time day drinking and bird watching, his current methods of coping. But the chief prevails. Tom is stuck with organizing a ragtag team of newbies: Grasso (Fabien Frankel), is a brash guy with mobster vibes, not anybody I’d let babysit my goldfish. Alison Oliver plays Stover, a young state trooper who hasn’t gotten over the trauma of a past incident. Her own colleagues ridicule her on a regular basis. The third is Aleah Clinton, played by Thuso Mbedu. This investigator knows what she is doing and is good at it, but is underestimated and unappreciated by just about everyone, including her law enforcement associates and the criminals.             Tom Pelphrey, delivers a powerful performance as Robbie, a man with a good heart who can’t help himself from making awful, terrible, forehead-slappingly bad choices. I found myself yelling, “DON’T DO THAT!” at the screen  quite a few times.             I am a fan of Mark Ruffalo and have watched most of his movies. His nuanced and multi-faceted rendering of Tom Brandis is his best performance to date. Brandis is an ex-priest who went into law enforcement. In addition to fighting his own demons, he’s walked alongside his parishioners and members of the community as they struggle with grief and loss. Brandis is a wounded healer who approaches the world with enormous compassion.             The chemistry among the actors in this ensemble cast is among the best I’ve seen. They portray both intense love and soul-scorching hatred in an understated way. No overacting was allowed on this set. Despite being nuanced, some scenes just plain sizzle.             I wish the movie had spent more time unpacking the character of Maeve (played by Emilia Jones). She is Robbie’s niece, a twenty-something woman who is saddled with the care of Robbie’s small children. All she ever wants to do is live a quiet life. But Robbie’s erratic behavior de-stabilizes and endangers her every day. Albeit damaged, Maeve is the moral compass of the story. She resists Robbie’s pressure to engage in criminal activities, faces down the bad guys who are after Robbie, and puts herself at great risk while trying to protect Robbie’s kids. Her uncle’s chaos lands Maeve in the crosshairs of the FBI investigators, who don’t offer her support or protection, but instead threaten to put her behind bars.             Just a warning, there’s lots of violence in this film. I walked out of the room on several scenes. And, as you might expect, there’s enough profanity to set your hair on fire.             Even though I have difficulty engaging with slower paced movies, one situation captured my heart so completely that I looked forward to each episode to dropping.                   The pace does pick up at the end. There are several plot twists and more gun fights. The tragic beauty of one of the last scenes made me weep. Despite leaving a few issues unresolved, the end felt satisfying. I wonder if there will be a season two. I hope so. I’d love to spend more time with the amazing cast and watch whatever else Brad Inglesby comes up with for them to portray. ### Interested in other movie and TV reviews? Check out:  SMOKE, THE PERFECT COUPLE, or HIGH POTENTIAL. 0:00 / 0:00 TASK (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-JOYRIDE-MOVIE REVIEW I saw a snippet of Joyride on a long airplane flight. I found the film intriguing and always wanted to watch the whole movie, which I did last night with my fellow members of The Quirky Movie Club. The plot: Twelve-year-old Mully (played by Charlie Reid) is singing in a pub to raise money for a charity that benefits cancer patients, the disease that recently has taken his mother. While singing, Mully notices his reprobate father making off with the collected cash. He chases his father, grabs the money, and hops into the driver’s seat of a cab idling outside of the pub. As Mully peels off, he notices Joy, (played by Oliva Colman) and a newborn in the backseat. Clearly inebriated, Joy tells Mully to keep driving. She confesses that she’s going to give her baby to a friend. Mully is horrified. But Joy tells him, “People give babies away all the time! To Romanian orphanages, to child traffickers, to Chinese gymnastic academies.” The two are already familiar with each other. It’s a small town and everyone gathers at the pub. Mully refers to Joy as “Vodka and Tonic” because of her drinking proclivities. Joy knows him as the boy who lost his sweet mother (a schoolmate of hers) to cancer. They start off on a road trip that involves busting through police barriers, stealing two vehicles, and hitching a ride with an offbeat farmer.  At times, the screenplay feels contrived and predictable. To enjoy this movie, you need to suspend your disbelief and relax into the improbable storyline. I encourage you to do so, even if it’s just to see the sparkly chemistry between Colman and Reid. Colman has won an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Golden Globe award and has stayed happily married to the same man for twenty-four years, all admirable achievements. Her acting range is impressive—the queen of England, an intrepid detective, and in this movie, an alcoholic woman who is about to give up her baby. She fully embodies the role of Joy, which made for a great viewing experience. Charlie Reid is mesmerizing on screen. In the opening scene, he sings a very silly song with such conviction and style, I wanted to pause and replay it. His acting is both nuanced and robust, providing a balanced counterpoint for Colman’s portrayal of Joy’s forceful character. The soundtrack complemented the film well. I especially enjoyed some of the upbeat tunes. Shots of the Kerry countryside made me want to hop on a plane and spend a few weeks exploring. I’d love to see Charlie Reid in another movie, but I couldn’t find much about him online, other than his appearing in a few plays. If you want to get to know Olivia Colman better, check Amy Poehler’s interview of her on the podcast, A Good Hang. Near the end of the movie, a street person refers to Mully and Joy as “Reckless Joy and the Half-Orphan,” which is an apt summation of the story. Is the movie worth seeing? My fellow members of The Quirky Movie Club couldn’t quite get past the farfetched plot. However, I loved the acting and the overall spirit of the movie so much I could easily watch it a second time. ### Interested in other movie reviews? Check out:  NINE DAYS, DADDIO, or GHOSTLIGHT. 0:00 / 0:00 Joyride (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-SMOKE-TV SERIES Smoke is a nine-episode Apple TV series based on Dennis Lehane’s book, Firebug. This thriller is dark and gritty, with its main theme being no one can escape the negative effects of a traumatic childhood. All the primary characters have backstories that have left them flawed. The writing is good and is often laced with a cynical and biting humor.             As the story opens, we viewers learn that a serial arsonist has set more than twenty fires in the city. The investigators are under great pressure to find the perpetrator. The plot is comprised of a series of twists and turns, so many, that you can predict another is just about to happen, which is not optimal. That being said, the story kept my interest.             The acting is terrific and that alone makes the show worth watching. Jurnee Smollett does an amazing job capturing the complexity of her character, a detective who’s survived terrible abuse. Taron Eagerton delivers an stellar performance as an arson specialist who seems charismatic and charming in a twitchy and almost maniacal way. I felt a special affection for the character, Ezra Esposito, played convincingly by John Leguizamo. Ezra is a fired cop, despised by everyone because of his past failures. Yet, this guy, whose behavior can be described as amoral at best, is the one person who wants to find the truth, whatever the cost. This skilled ensemble has great chemistry. In fact, I might call it phenomenal negative chemistry, in that many of the characters have contempt for one another or histories that entangle them in unhealthy ways. Their interactions felt genuine, and the dialogue felt authentic. This thought-provoking series would be great to discuss with others.             Writers included a subplot that I found riveting—true to life and thoroughly moving. Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine’s performance as Freddy is amazing. I don’t want to say any more about this, except that the segment is worthy of your close attention.             The pacing felt slow at times. I think the narrative tension would have been higher if they’d condensed the series into six episodes. My husband lost interest at episode three, but I hung in through episode nine. I found the last episode annoying. Lehane decided that he wanted to “go big or go home.” Up until that point, I appreciated the nuance of the material. The choices the main character made at the end strained credulity and did not fit with her street-smart way of handling crisises. At the very end, they portrayed an unrelated fire, maybe to entice viewers to show up for a possible season two? I found this confusing and thought that it diluted the intensity of emotion viewers might have felt at the conclusion of the series.             If you like watching flames, little fires and big conflagrations, this movie is for you. The ethereal shots of collapsing buildings and blazing forests are mesmerizing. All these gorgeous scenes are complemented by a topnotch soundtrack.             What I liked most about this series is the complex portrayal of each of the main characters, how we can’t escape our pasts and how no one is completely good nor completely evil. This show may be too grim for some viewers. However, I feel it’s worth watching based on the superb acting, engaging soundtrack, and beautiful (but terrifying) cinematography. ### Interested in watching other TV series? Check out: THE PERFECT COUPLE and HIGH POTENTIAL . 0:00 / 0:00 SMOKE (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-NINE DAYS MOVIE REVIEW I watched Nine Days a week ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Written and directed by Edson Oda, this surreal film is set in a clapboard house in the middle of a bleak desert. In this house, over the span of nine days, Will (Winston Duke) decides if a soul will be given the gift of life. If the answer is yes, that soul will be born on Earth with all the attributes they already possess. If they are not chosen, they cease to exist. The souls traverse the desert in batches of five, arriving one after the other. Will interviews the individuals separately, sometimes with the aid of Kyo (Benedict Wong). Will’s questions differ for each candidate; his interrogation style ranges from tender to shockingly aggressive. All along, Will insists there are no right or wrong answers. But it’s clear that some answers will lead to the gift of life and others to permanent extinction. Once souls are born on Earth, Will observes each of their lives on a 1950’s style TV, a separate screen for each person. A small room contains a bank of televisions running concurrently. The entirety of each life is recorded on a VCR tape(!) and stored in file cabinet (!)—all of which adds to the quirkiness of the film. As the story opens, Will is dressed in a bow tie and suit jacket. He and Kyo are looking forward to watching one of their charges experience a celebratory milestone in her life. Instead, something shocking happens to this person whom they deeply value. This shakes Will to the core and makes him second guess his ability to accurately choose a soul who can thrive on earth. Soon after the unsettling event, one by one, members from a new cohort arrive. They are a diverse group, differing in appearance, responses to the questions, and attitudes about the selection process and their prospects. The actors include Tony Hale, Bill Skarsgard, Ariana Ortiz, David Rhysdal and Zazie Beetz. Beetz plays Emma, a vibrant soul who doesn’t play by the rules. She answers Will’s questions with her own questions and surreptitiously observes what happens to the other candidates. Emma’s behavior challenges Will’s rigid perspective on life. Nine Days is a visual treat. I loved the grim desert shots, which were filmed at Bonneville Flats in Utah. I also like the stuffy, claustrophobic interview scenes that take place in a house that my grandma might have furnished. Both spaces contrasted with the grainy, yet gloriously sensual scenes on earth that are portrayed on the televisions. The cinematographer’s use of color creates a dreamy, intense tone evocative of the tone Edward Hopper achieves with his painting, Nighthawks, a depiction of late-night clientele at a city diner. The film moves in a non-linear fashion. Oda builds his story slowly, with every detail laden with significance. The structure is much like a hawk circling over its prey, at each turn swooping closer, until a final dive toward its target. Narrative tension builds as the viewer becomes emotionally invested in each character and at the same time realizes only one of them will receive the gift of life. Will offers a consolation prize to those souls who are not chosen. He creates a simulation of an experience  they would have liked to have had on earth. Of course, it is an imperfect facsimile. Oda’s superb storytelling and directing led me to feel deep empathy for each character, even the ones I didn’t like that much. Viewing these consolation scenes just about eviscerated me emotionally. The film leaves many questions unanswered. Will describes himself as “only a cog in the machine.” We never find out who operates the machine or why they put Will in charge, a man who is so damaged by his own past life on earth. Oda intentionally leaves the questions unanswered, which he says reflects “the gaps” we experience in our lives.  Oda is a Japanese Brazilian man who grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil and later received a master’s degree film in California. In an interview he says that he wrote the script himself, despite English not being his first language. I found his writing to be nuanced and poetic.  The story is autobiographical. When Oda was twelve, his fifty-year-old uncle died by suicide. As a young adult, Oda identified with his uncle’s depression. He says that this film rose out of his fear of following his uncle’s path. Drawing on his experience with his uncle, Oda explores these themes: To ensure survival on Earth, must you become a self-protective and cynical person? Given that life is inevitably filled with pain and suffering, is it worth living? Oda slowly and skillfully builds toward an end that is both tragic and redemptive. The last scene puts Winston Duke’s prodigious acting skills on full display. Will’s riveting speech brought me to tears. Although, I wanted this movie to resolve differently, the ending Oda wrote helped me change my perspective on how to survive the hard patches in my life. ### Interested in other movie and series reviews? Check out:  DADDIO, GHOSTLIGHT, or HIS THREE DAUGHTERS. 0:00 / 0:00 NINE DAYS (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-SLOW WALKING OUT OF BABYLON *This originally appeared in Literally Stories, an international literary journal. One day, I meet Beelzebub standing ahead of me in line at the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. Bathed in the glare of the fluorescent lights that flicker above us, the man glistens. Shards of hard white light reflect off his glimmering jacket, obscuring my view. But that one glimpse gives me the shivers. Our line inches closer to the table and away from the dazzle-splattering tubes. I notice the expanse of him, almost seven feet stretching toward the ceiling. Tuxedo jacket with wide lapels, crisp white shirt with tiny black buttons, tux pants with a satin stripe and the crease ironed in, patent leather shoes. Pretty glamorous for a soup kitchen. Looking closer, I notice the too shiny jacket, frayed shirtsleeves, a missing onyx cufflink, highwater pants, and significant lifts on the heels of his shoes. I hear a familiar whisper. “Run, child!”  It’s the same voice I sense when I attend a Sing Loud and Pray Hard meeting at the soup kitchen. My heart, that duplicitous muscle, quivers. Shall I run? If so, in which direction? Toward or away? I lean my ear toward God’s lips, waiting for instruction. But the man steps between me and God, catching my eye. He sparkles in my direction, reeling me in. I lower my gaze. Why? Am I flirting or terrified? Inches between us now.  I inhale. I smell sulfur and bug spray with notes of Old Spice and cookies baking. You wouldn’t know it now, but I used to be a sommelier of men, not that I ever had the willpower to heed warnings. I don’t lift my head. He turns back to the full table. After he piles food onto his plate, the glittery guy whips around. With a warm smile, or maybe a hot leer, he says, “Join me for lunch.”  A command more than an invitation. I freeze. I gasp. Usually, when people get a full look at my face, they turn away in horror. I realize that he’s not repulsed. I barely tip my chin in assent. Beelzebub beams and bows. Like a magnificent prince of darkness, he takes my elbow. He leads me, his damaged princess to a rickety card table onto which he slides his paper plate. With a flourish, he pulls out the folding chair, “For you, my lady.” Of late, I’ve been called Whatever Your Name Is, Hey You, and Girlie plenty of times, but never anything like, “my lady.” At least not since the beginning of my ending. Now, hand on my shoulder, he guides me into the seat. At his light touch, the hair on my neck bristles. He removes his jacket, rolls his sleeves and tucks into his heaping plate. We talk. Specifically, he talks. Beelzebub comes at me all end times and Armageddon and the beauty of a Texas cactus and swing dancing in a barn, the benefits of ivermectin and the perils of vaccines. Now and then, he lures me into his word tornado with an alluring image, like the sweet taste of that first ear of summer corn, especially when you pick it straight from the stalk then toss it into boiling water. He spouts paragraphs without taking a breath. All the while he’s inching his arm along the back of my chair, until the flesh of his arm rests heavy on the flesh of my neck. I feel hard muscles, icy knots.  At first, I edge away from his intrusion.  But then the rush of his words beguiles me, entices me into his world. I re-frame my experience. I give new labels to these feelings I’m not even sure I’m feeling. I relax into his protection, enjoy being surrounded by his strength. We dine on juicy franks, dripping with mustard, ketchup and relish, heaps of sugary brown beans, crisp Doritos that cover our fingers with orange dust, and a dessert of Mott’s Applesauce in a foil cup. He proposes a cranberry juice toast. We raise our plastic ups, touch rims. He declares, “You are special, my dear. Let no man, no misplaced morals, no selfless thoughts impede your path to the pursuit of pleasure, no matter who or what must be set on fire along the way.” I don’t know what he means or what he intends, but I am luxuriating in the attention, the visibility. I believe he sees me, embraces me. His pronouncements offer me a palace, unlike the hovel I live in now. We lean in toward each other on our loveseat of rusty metal chairs. So close, I let myself believe that Beelzebub smells more like Old Spice and cookies than sulfur and bug spray. He smooth talks me into a date, dinner out on Saturday, the next night.  I walk home to my one-room studio apartment, a grubby dump with a fold-out couch, a microwave, a sink, a shared hall bathroom, and roaches for roommates. As I drift off to sleep, I realize that Beelzebub never asked my name. Saturday night, we meet out front of the To God Be the Glory Soup Kitchen. He pulls up in a swirling cloud of smoke, engine backfiring, muffler rattling. To my hopeful ears, the rhythms sound like fanfare, a drum roll announcing his regal entrance rather than a death rattle. The air clears, the setting sun creates a warm red glow on his Cadillac.             Beelzebub unfolds himself from the driver’s seat, gangly, long arms and legs, leaps onto the sidewalk and opens the car door for me. He’s all zippity doo dah. Barely corporeal, bordering on surreal. A vibrating string of energy. Close to the car now, I see that the passenger side is crushed, partially repaired with Bondo and painted the shade of an orange emergency cone. Should I worry about what happened to the last passenger? I dismiss the thought. Instead, the words, royal coach enter my mind.             As my dark prince opens the door, it creaks or sighs or possibly groans. I perch on the gray vinyl seat, trying to avoid the glue on the curling duct tape that crisscrosses the torn fabric.             A pine tree air freshener hangs from his rearview mirror. The scent doesn’t cover the stench of sorrow that fills the interior–notes of sour milk, old shoes, not quite empty cartons of Chinese food. Perhaps I am a sommelier of cars now.  I try to lower my window, but it doesn’t budge.  He smiles, beneficence oozing from his pores. “No worries. I’ll turn up the air.” He does and the car fills with the odor of wet cardboard. “Ready?” “Where are we going?” “Olympia Diner on the Babylon Turnpike.” “Don’t you mean Berlin Turnpike?” “Ha! Broaden your mind.”  He shifts gears then smashes the gas pedal. We go from zero to sixty as we cruise onto the entrance ramp of the turnpike.  I stare at the rusted floorboard beneath my feet. Through giant holes, I view my bleak life rushing past:  My dad dying of kidney failure when I was five. Losing my twenty-year-old twin brother to an IED in Fallujah. MBA in hand, starting my dream job in marketing at twenty-four—my new boss saying I would be the face of the company. A head-on collision with a drunk driver at twenty-five that killed my mother but left me alive with a re-arranged face and blinding headaches. Losing my job, the family home and now scraping by with money earned by walking dogs. We’re on the throughway now, flying past the brick tenements and old factories. He revs the engine and yells, “This baby’s got power. I’m going to take you places.”  He darts around cars, forcing his way through the middle of two lanes. I grip the armrest, panicking, re-living the accident that changed my life. The man opens his mouth and out floats glowing word bubbles that wrap around my soul, “You’re safe with me, Babe. Trust me.” I take a deep breath, tamp down my fear, dare to dream. I envision exchanging my space heater for the sun’s warmth, snuggled in a comfy beach chair, waves dancing along a white, sandy beach.             But then, I look ahead at the road on which he is careening. Fear ripples down my neck, spine and out my arms, until I feel tingling to my fingertips. “Please slow down.” Sweet voice, dripping with the promise of pleasure, Beelzebub oozes, “Stick with me, dearest and you’ll never feel the ache of hunger. I’ll feed you sweet cinnamon rolls straight out of a blazing oven.”             I am starving, my stomach hollow and aching, my spirit spirals into an abyss.  His nostrils flare and his smile widens, exposing his incisors, teeth that can cut through flesh. “We’ll get us a house. Make babies. Live off the fat of the land.” I see now we are inches from rear-ending a tractor-trailer. Louder, I yell, “Slow down!” The man accelerates. We barely miss the truck, but now we are taking a sharp curve on two wheels. I scream.             He screams back. Only louder and wilder.             I hear sirens. Wonk, wonk, wonk. Oooeeee. Oooeeee! I look through the rear window and see no one coming to my rescue.             We ascend into space or maybe we descend. We are surrounded by color, red, orange, black. Shafts of cobalt-blue lightning rip through the space. I am suffocated by the heat, yet my heart and limbs feel icy, numb. Time passes. Hours, maybe decades. Engulfed in the chaos, I lose my sense of self. I struggle to remember anything. Who am I? What is my name? Finally, I sigh the words, oh god. I take four deep breaths, wait, then take another four breaths, then I lean my ear toward God’s lips and listen. From everywhere and nowhere, a light breeze sweeps through, causing the pine tree freshener to flutter. Barely audible, as if spoken from a great distance, I hear a whisper. “That creature will suck the joy out of your soul then spit out your dreams, one by one.” I turn to Beelzebub. “Stop the car!” “We are almost there, my dear. Why stop now?” He reaches to pat my shoulder. I push away his hand which I now see is scaly.              “What is my name? Do you even know my name?” I am crying now.             Silence.             I see a neon sign ahead, OLYMPIA in pink and DINER in orange.             I ask again, “WHAT AM I CALLED?”             Beelzebub leans back, “To me, you are food for thought, a trifle to be consumed. You are an extinguished star. You are yellow snow. You are dead meat, literally and figuratively.” He laugh

PODCAST-DON’T ARRIVE BEFORE YOU GET THERE You can read this essay in Streetlight Magazine where it first appeared or down below. *** My writing mantra used to be, Fine is good enough. I made sure whatever I sent out was the best it could be. However, I worked fulltime and was the primary caretaker for three children. When I finished a manuscript, I checked for issues, then hit “send” before anyone came down with croup, required a ride to music lessons, or needed four zillion forms signed. I never lingered at the finish line, which meant some manuscripts went out not quite fully polished. You’ve heard of the tyranny of the urgent? Those years, I happened to be the tyrant’s loyal subject. The process worked, sort of. It may have taken up to thirty submissions, but most of my stories and essays found a home. When my children were young, a scarcity mentality fueled my anxiety. I felt driven to send out my work as quickly as possible. Given my tenuous circumstances, this strategy seemed both practical and reasonable. Now, that the kids are grown, I’ve learned to let my writing simmer. My mantra has changed to, “Don’t arrive before you get there.”   It helps that I’ve created a Repository of Random Ideas notebook. In it, I record character sketches, story concepts, essay topics, weird phrases, silly words that tickle my ears.  When I first jot down an idea, I’m convinced that it’s hysterically funny and/or amazingly brilliant. I wind up using about 10 percent of these “amazingly brilliant ideas.” However, just knowing this resource exists tamps down my drive to send out a project before it’s fully ready.             Here’s an example of how the repository works. One hot afternoon, as I walked up a steep hill in my neighborhood, I experienced significant chest pain. A normal person would have called for help. But my mind went to how dying by the side of the road might an interesting way to start a story.  Back home, I swallowed antacids, took out the notebook, then dashed off thoughts about a young woman who experiences chest pain followed by a heart attack. She’s a quirky accountant who’s led a solitary and quiet life. That’s as far as I got. A year later, an extremely cautious 65-year-old friend of mine went sky diving. My friend’s surprising decision inspired the second half to my quirky accountant story. After my character’s heart attack, the young woman throws caution to the wind, goes skydiving, then experiences an epiphany. Called Gravity, the story appeared in Across the Margin.             When I take the time to record the world around me— parent-child interactions in an airport, glimpsing a shooting star, an elderly woman struggling to put on an earring—any of these observations could be material for a story or essay. The trick is to relax and trust that the whole piece will ultimately materialize.             Currently, I am waiting for the rest of a short story to arrive. So far, I only have the title, Slow Walking Out of Babylon and the first line, “He comes at me all Jesus and pancake breakfasts and pine tree air fresheners….” Beyond that, I find myself peering at the edge of a black abyss. As fog swirls around me, I glimpse a flicker of light in the distance. My space is not yet illuminated, but I know it will be, and I will wait. ### Note: Slow Walking Out of Babylon was just accepted by Literally Stories and will be published in June 2025. 0:00 / 0:00 Don't Arrive Before You Get There Photo appears  courtesy of Alessio Lin. INTERESTED IN MORE CRAFT ESSAYS? CHECK OUT: THE CELESTIAL VAULT EFFECT OF FORGIVENESS ON CREATIVITY ALL ABOUT THAT BASS WHEN TO CARE AND WHEN NOT TO (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-INSTANT FAMILY-MOVIE REVIEW Straight out of college, I took a job that gave me a year to “de-institutionalize” a group of 17-year-old kids who had spent their lives bouncing from one placement to another. My task was to equip them with the survival skills they hadn’t learned during their formative years. I was supposed to accomplish this before they turned 18, at which point the state would dump them on the curb.             These kids had heartbreaking histories. Angie lost her parents and siblings in a car crash. Lenny spent his early childhood chained to a radiator. My favorite was Jimmy, a lanky man-child with unkempt shoulder-length hair and the saddest face you could imagine. All he wanted was a two-hour home visit with his family. I spent weeks arranging the trip. I helped Jimmy practice how to how to interact with his family. I found clean clothes that fit him. I made sure he showered on the day of the trip. Giddy with excitement, Jimmy could barely sit still during the one-hour drive. No one came to the door of the apartment when we knocked. A neighbor told us the family had left for the day. Jimmy cried all the way home. I could barely keep from crying myself. To this day get weepy when I think about the depth of his grief. At the end of that year, I felt so distraught about the plight of my charges, I wrote a grant asking for funds to finance a halfway house that I wanted to establish. I didn’t find a single donor.             Because of that experience, I was interested in seeing Instant Family, a movie about the foster care system and adoption. The film is based on a true story about a couple who decide to adopt three siblings.             The main characters in the movie, Pete and Ellie, had never thought much about whether to have children. Even when they join a foster care discussion/training group, they seem ambivalent about proceeding with the process. However, they do wind up taking in three siblings, two elementary-aged children and a feisty teen. Early on, they seem to regret their decision, not quite anticipating all the challenges the traumatized kids would present. Later, when the bio mother of the children is released from jail and re-enters her children’s lives, they also weren’t prepared for the heart wrenching situation they found themselves in.             You couldn’t ask for a better cast and good performances overall. Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play the adoptive parents. Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro portray case workers, who act more like a comedy duo, with Spencer interjecting unfiltered opinions and Notaro trying to keep her colleague in check. About halfway into the movie, Grandma Sandy (played by Margo Martindale) shows up and adds a burst of energy to the plot as she expresses lavish love and plenty of no-nonsense direction for her new grandkids.             The film seems mostly true to life, not that my one year of post-college work makes me a big expert. They don’t cover up the flaws in the foster system nor do they sugarcoat difficulties in caring for traumatized children. I’m glad they include plenty of laughs in the depiction of daily life. This is a difficult topic, and we viewers need the comedic breaks. But I would have appreciated less slapstick and more nuanced humor. Some of the over-the-top scenes (similar in style to Cheaper by the Dozen) did not seem authentic and detracted from the film. One example is the scene where Pete and Ellie arrive at their teen’s high school and start threatening and chasing various people. If you are interested in viewing a slightly different take on foster kids, check out Short Term-12 which stars Brie Larsen. I like this movie, although it’s not for everyone, especially not for a friend I invited over to watch it one time. He felt it was too grim and hated it.             All in all, I’m glad I watched Instant Family. I especially loved seeing all the real-life photos of adoptive families at the end of the movie—they made me cry. I hope the film will persuade more folks to consider fostering and adoption. ### Interested in more movie reviews? Check out: Ghostlight, Wicked Little Letters, or The Last Repair Shop.           0:00 / 0:00 Instant Family Movie Review (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-PISTOL PACKIN’ MAMA Photo Courtesy of Taylor Brandon 0:00 / 0:00 Pistol Packin' Mama   Ninety-five years ago, my grandfather, Gaetano Boccaccio named my mother after his favorite Longfellow poem, Evangeline. Despite raising five children on a barber’s salary during the Great Depression, Gaetano made sure my mother took ballet, tap, and had French horn lessons. In high school, she played the French horn so well that she won a place in the All New England Orchestra. Eva loved classical music, over the years becoming an expert of sorts. After listening to a few measures of even the most obscure work, she usually could identify the genre, composer and name of the piece. My parents shared a love for musical theater and were devoted attendees of all the latest productions at the Schubert Theater in New Haven, CT. Back home in our tiny apartment, they’d gather with friends and sing show tunes: The Bells are Ringing, Summertime, Some Enchanted Evening. After my father died seven years ago, Eva moved to a retirement community near us in Charlottesville. She took full advantage of the place: exercising three times weekly, reading to her heart’s content, and blasting her classical music like a teenager. Often, I could hear it from the hallway as I approached her apartment. This winter, my mother’s Parkinson’s symptoms worsened, causing memory issues and several falls, resulting in her entering hospice care at her retirement community. In January, Covid and another bad fall put her into Hospice House, an eight-bed facility in a lovely old Victorian home. My mother is in her fourth month at Hospice House and is continuing to fade, experiencing many indignities of old age which I will not enumerate. Suffice it to say, she is enduring them without complaint. (I did not inherit that attribute. Recently, I had minor foot surgery for a hangnail and have been whining about it ever since.) These days are hard on my mother. They are also hard on all of us family members who are watching a once vibrant person suffer and slowly disappear before our eyes. On a whim, I picked up a collection of 1,000 old show tunes at a library book sale. I read song titles to her. Whenever she recognized a title, she accurately sang the first verse and chorus of each song, which is remarkable, given that she’s now forgotten much of the past fifteen years. Now, a week later, she’s confusing some of the tunes, but one song has stuck with her, Pistol Packin’ Mama I find this fascinating because the song is neither classical nor from a musical but instead is based on the true-life experience of Al Dexter who saw a pistol-packin’ woman chase her philandering husband through his tavern. My respectable, tee-totaling mother sings the song in a deadpan manner and will perform for aides on cue. Here are the illustrious lyrics: Drinkin’ beer in a cabaret, And, I was havin’ fun! Until one night she caught me right, And now I’m on the run. Lay that pistol down, Babe, Lay that pistol down. PISTOL PACKIN’ MAMA, Lay that pistol down!             At the end of the ditty, Eva always pauses dramatically to hit the low “D” note on the word “down”, which makes me giggle every time. Despite her anguish and all her terrible losses, I believe my pistol packin’ Mama is telling me that her pistol packin’ self is somehow still in there, alive and well.  And furthermore, she’s letting me know that she has no intention of going gently into her good night but will continue to make music, perhaps a little raucously, at the dying of the light. ###   Check out Bing Crosby’s rendition of PISTOL PACKIN’ MAMA. Want to read another essay? Check out CODE RED. (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-THE GOD OF THE WOODS BOOK REVIEW Liz Moore’s literary mystery is set in 1975 at a prestigious summer camp in the Adirondacks. This place requires coed campers (aged eight through teens) to participate in a minimally supervised survival exercise. They are placed in small groups, given scant supplies, then are sent into the deep forest overnight to fend for themselves. The last instructions they hear are, “Do not get in touch unless someone is dying.” What possibly could go wrong?             In this case, the campers capture and roast a squirrel for supper. Prior to the gruesome dinner, a stabbing wound occurs. Within a few hours, the situation becomes bad enough to legitimately call for help.             This camp attracts bad luck. Soon after the squirrel supper and knife wound debacle, back at the cabin, a camper goes missing. Not any camper, but 13-year-old Barbara Van Laar, rebellious daughter of Peter and Alice Van Laar, fabulously wealthy owners of Camp Emerson (named for Ralph Waldo).  Furthermore, the Van Laar’s 8-year-old son had disappeared from the campground fourteen years before.             Despite the Van Laars being blessed with vast generational wealth, the family is not one to envy: two missing children, a least one unhappy marriage, one grumpy grandfather, a person with serious addiction issues, and a collection of family secrets that figuratively and literally destroy lives.             The first Peter Van Laars founded the camp decades before. He intended to welcome children of all backgrounds, giving them an appreciation for nature and teaching them outdoor survival skills. By the time Peter III (father of Barbara and Bear) becomes director of the camp, most attendees are from rich, well-connected families. Workers from town manage the camp. Since area factories shut down, these folks depend on camp work to survive, barely scraping by. Each summer, Peter III and Alice leave their mansion in Albany, New York to live on grounds in large house which Peter I named, Self-Reliance. Of course, the current inhabitants are anything but self-reliant. In fact, the ill-paid townies perform all the menial labor and are expected rally at a moment’s notice to do additional work.             A prominent theme in this book is the ongoing tension between the elite flatlanders and the downtrodden townies. We readers learn that no matter who commits the crime and no matter how irrational the logic, the townspeople are the first to be blamed. For the most part, law enforcement is complicit in this process, letting the imperious ruling class off the hook and detaining and blaming poor folks based on little or no evidence.             Another theme in the book is sexism/chauvinism, both of which are prevalent in 1961 and sadly still in 1975. The Van Laars family treats Alice like a complete idiot, barely concealing their contempt. When disturbing events occur, they lie to her, over medicate her, and hide her away. Another example of sexism is how everyone treats, twenty-six-year-old Judyta Luptack, the first female investigator in the state of New York. Despite her achievements and multiple awards, Judyta contends with disrespectful, condescending treatment from all but one of her colleagues. They dismiss her suggestions, take credit for her successes, and consign her to meaningless tasks. Her family provides zero support, her own brother mocking her on a regular basis. However, Judyta is my hero. Throughout the investigation, Judyta resists the braindead allegiance her law enforcement superiors have pledged to the Van Laar family.             The God of the Woods is well-worth reading, however, the structure of this book is daunting. Moore told her tale via several points of view, which required me frequently required me to re-read prior sections in order to figure out what was happening. Also, she switched between two time periods, Bear’s disappearance in 1961, and Barbara’s disappearance in 1975, and not necessarily in chronological order. Along the way, Moore tosses the reader barrels of red herrings, which is great, but also muddies the water.             I’m not complaining. Only a skilled writer could pull off this complex structure. Moore does so masterfully. However, I recommend creating a character/event chart from the start. I did not and regret it. By mid-novel, when I became fully oriented in space and time, I flew through the pages, eager to see what would happen next.             Moore made me care about each of her point of view characters. I especially loved Judyta, the moral compass of this story. Despite the lack of support and even ridicule from colleagues and strong pressure to blame a townie, any townie, Judyta stayed true to her goal—to find the culprit or culprits.             Remember those red herrings I mentioned? They worked. The conclusion of this whodunnit surprised me, which I love. Moore came up with an ending I hadn’t anticipated. Yet, the resolution made sense considering the clues Moore had snuck into the story. This was a good tale, well told. Moore delivers an excellent depiction of class struggle, sexism, the destructive nature of generational secrets, and how one lowly person can make a difference. ### Interested in reading more book reviews? Check out:  The Caretaker, Time of the Child, and Without You Here. 0:00 / 0:00 The God of the Woods (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-CODE RED Photo courtesy of Jason Leung 0:00 / 0:00 Code Red Have you ever seen Das Boot (1981), the movie about a German submarine? I don’t recommend it. I don’t remember much about it except a terrifying few moments of sirens blaring, lights flashing, and Germans screaming, “ALARM!” This scene convinced me I’d never want to set foot on a submarine.             Sad to say, I feel as if I am in a Code Red Das Boot moment every time I turn on the news. So, these days I’ve been searching for ways to lower my level of stress and increase my emotional wellbeing. I read that the scent of lavender is calming so I bought a three-pound bag of lavender-scented Epsom salts. One evening, I dimmed the lights and drew a warm bath. I poured half the bag into the water, figuring I’d use an amount lavender proportionate to my gloom. More lavender less existential despair, right?             After five minutes, my head ached as waves of nausea hit me. I felt faint and dizzy as I struggled to haul myself out of the tub. The sad truth: I had lavender-poisoned my body, which in no way decreased my feeling of angst.             When my life feels out of control, I de-clutter. Right now, my life feels out of control. So, I organized my desk, kitchen, and car. Next, I non-gently persuaded my husband to clean out his study, an 8” by 10” room filled floor to ceiling with books, papers, photographs, and doodads from all eras of his life. My spouse is not one to throw anything out. He tossed only .01% of the items in the room. Then, he boxed the remaining books and papers, pulled down the rickety ceiling ladder, and began lugging them up into the attic.  My fear of heights and the sketchy ladder had dissuaded me from ever checking out what my husband had been squirreling away over the past twenty years. However, my feeling of dread overtook my fear of heights. So, I white-knuckled my way up the ladder and joined my husband. I discovered hundreds of household goods I’d believed we’d tossed but still existed in various states of disfunction. At the center, I saw three disintegrating cot mattresses made of foam. A giant military-style board game sat atop them. Both the game and mattresses looked as if they’d had been eaten by attic trolls and/or mice. I pushed the mattresses toward the open stairwell, which jostled the broken-down cardboard box. Tiny pieces scattered everywhere, including into the insulation below. As I tried to catch the box, I lost my balance. I grabbed hold of the edge of the rotting mattress, which was anchored to nothing. As I slid toward the eaves, pulling the grody mattress with me, I realized no floor existed beneath the insulation. I screamed for help, although not loudly because my husband stood only eight feet away, watching my ill-conceived efforts. My significant other didn’t budge, instead he fixated on small bits of plastic. A stickler for keeping belongings intact, he yelled, “Oh no, you’ve lost the game pieces. We’ll never be able to find them!” Trying to inspire my hubby to enter rescue mode, I shouted motivational words that involved swearing. Lucky for him, my husband chose me over the game parts, walked the eight feet, then yanked me away from the mounds of insulation. My conclusion: both the lavender and the de-cluttering proved ineffectual in ushering me out of CODE RED status. This is the current plan:  I am taking life slowly, trying not to borrow trouble from each day ahead. I am a planner, so staying in the present is challenging but I am attempting to build resilience for the long haul. My goal is to remain in my lane, figuring out what is mine to do. Right now, additional coping strategies include having dinner with dear friends, filling my house with the orderly sounds of Bach, and trying not to squirm while listening to mindfulness clips on YouTube. So far, those activities have not resulted in life-threatening events, so maybe I’m on a roll. Dear friends: good luck and godspeed. See you on the other side. Let me re-word that: I’m hoping there will be another side to see you on. Blessings all around. ### Interested in reading more essays? Check out, GRANNY GANGSTER, MY BRIEF LIFE OF CRIME or IRRESPONSIBLY GROWN POTATOES.   (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-TIME OF THE CHILD-BOOK REVIEW The first half of Time of the Child by Niall Williams moves ever so slowly, taking its time to build a solid framework for the captivating events of the second half. By the middle of this novel, we readers are intimately acquainted with the village of Faha, its topography, history, climate, culture, spiritual leanings, its people and the fascinating ways they are connected.             Even though there’s not a lot of action for the first 130 pages, Williams builds narrative tension by making sure we readers care about the characters, both main and minor. He writes about the villagers with such humor and affection that as a reader I felt drawn in, eager to hear what life had in store for them. Another way Williams bumps up narrative tension is to make liberal use of foreshadowing. The book starts out, “This is what happened in Faha over the Christmas of 1962, in what was known in the parish as the time of the child….To those who lived there, Faha was perhaps the last place on earth to expect a miracle.” Then, just in case the child slipped our minds, the beginning of chapter three starts, “Before dawn on the day Jude Quinlan would find the child, a rough hand shook him awake.” That line alone kept me reading through the next sixty or so pages until Jude finally discovers the infant. Normally, I stay away for slow books and movies. It’s a flaw, I know. However, the writing in this book is so mesmerizingly gorgeous, I forgot about the plot. I loved the syntax, the clever humor, the descriptions of setting, and the sage observations about humanity and God. Regarding word choices, I saw words I hadn’t read since SAT prep years ago: lumpen, perspicacious, wodge, susurrus, and many more. The author’s writing is elegant without being pretentious. E.B. White would be proud. There are many well-drawn characters in the book, but for me three stand out. Dr. Jack Troy is the physician who serves the villagers, people show up at his house at all hours with all sorts of ailments, some of which are pretty gross. If a patient is not mobile, he drives to their homes in the countryside, no small feat. His work is more of a mission than a business, with payment often being in the form of cabbages and piles of wood. Jack experiences two great losses, his wife and a woman he loved after his wife’s death. He emerges from these losses with his faith battered, doubting God’s love, and often, God’s existence.  Jack’s daughter, Ronnie, is the only one of his three children who chose to remain in Faha. She is his faithful assistant in the clinic, but otherwise keeps to herself, conversations between them rarely straying beyond the superficial. Yet, we readers learner that she is a writer who thinks deep thoughts, not that anyone seems to care.  All this changes quickly once twelve-year-old Jude Quinlan finds the infant. Jude lives in harsh circumstances and has endured terrible suffering, but his response is to behave tenderly toward others. Jude Quinlan is the heart of the story and is by far my favorite character. The last half of the book is a page turner. I felt so invested in the characters that I couldn’t wait to see what happened. Williams did a great job of throwing curve balls into the plot. I found myself arguing with Williams over what I thought were some bad plot choices, but then as I read on, I realized that rascally author had tricked me.  I wept through the last few pages of the book, all the way to the redemptive, but unexpected (by me) ending. It was wonderful. Do yourself a favor and read this book. ###     0:00 / 0:00 TIME OF THE CHILD (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-HIGH POTENTIAL-TV SERIES Lately, I’ve been seeking low key, stress-free entertainment to keep my mind off reality. The television series High Potential fits the bill. Single mom, Morgan Gillory (played by Kaitlin Olson), is an exuberantly inappropriate savant whose antics get her in trouble with employers, past husbands, and the law, most specifically the LAPD, where she works as a janitor. The opening episode shows Morgan, music blasting into her air buds, wielding a dust brush, and dancing through empty offices. As she prances around swinging cleaning tools, she upends a stack of papers that are part of a murder case. Morgan possesses a photographic memory and can read a dense document at a glance. So, as she re-stacks the files, she gleans the salient info, and writes her opinion about a suspect on the case board, “Victim, not suspect,” she declares. Apparently, messing with the board is a crime, which the LAPD catches on film. When she arrives at work the next morning, they promptly arrest Morgan. Uncowed by her precarious legal situation, Morgan is mouthy and disrespectful as she describes her theory about the case to police officers. They throw her into a cell, while they check out her ideas, all of which turn out to be true. When they release her, her attitude is still so insolent that she is almost re-arrested. However, the chief (Judy Reyes, from Scrubs) recognizes that Morgan made headway on a case that had stumped her officers, so she hires the cleaning lady as a consultant, which is a good move, because Morgan goes on to solve the case. Lots of elements make this TV series fun. Kaitlin Olson’s high-energy portrayal of Morgan’s zany character is a joy to watch. If you love trivia, this show provides plenty of opportunities to learn about esoteric subjects like why many churches face in a specific direction, what kind of gun powder flashes white, and what direction the wind blows in during each season in LA. Both the presentation of trivia and Morgan’s theories are portrayed in amusing asides with cool graphics. Morgan Gillory is a multidimensional character. At work, despite her brashness, she has a soft spot for underdogs she encounters. At home, she is a wise and tender mother and a kind ex-wife. Daniel Sunjata plays Adam Karadec, the lead detective who is appalled by Morgan’s lack of regard for the actual law and is undone by her quirkiness. Although there is tension in their relationship, it’s nuanced, not cartoonish. I like that the two develop respect for one another over time. If you are a true crime aficionado, you will spend time muttering, “That would never, ever happen.” Yep, the show strains credulity. I do not have a background in police work, yet, several times, I found myself shouting at the screen: “Put gloves on before you touch that evidence!” Fun fact:  the show is based on a popular French series called, Haut Potentiel Intellectual. Apparently, you can stream the show on Hulu. Kaitlin Olson is no stranger to comedy. She performed with The Groundlings Theater in Hollywood. You might recognize her from Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Drew Carey Show, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The cast members have wonderful chemistry with Olson serving as the rug that pulls the room together. If you want to take a break from reality, I highly recommend this show. ### 0:00 / 0:00 High Potential (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-IF I EVER DIE My father often started his sentences with the phrase, “If I ever die…”             I never corrected him. I didn’t say, “Don’t you mean, when you die? You understand that dying is inevitable, right?” Instead, I wondered how he thought his life might play out. Did he believe he’d be carried off to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah in the Bible? Probably not. My father’s pronouncement didn’t seem to be influenced by any theological theories. The man simply disregarded his mortality, which resulted in his making risky choices, choices that evidenced questionable judgment. A man of irrational optimism and mesmerizing confidence, my father possessed great skills of persuasion. In his eighties, he convinced seven fellow octogenarians to help him detach then carry a wrought iron porch from our home to the back of our one-acre lot. He wanted to create a clubhouse for his horseshoe buddies. So, during a raging thunderstorm, as lightning crisscrossed the sky, these old guys with shoulder, knee, and heart problems, staggered down the yard with the intact porch. All I could think about was how many ambulances we’d need to call and the lawsuits the stunt would engender.             Another time, my father visited me in Virginia the week before he was scheduled for cardiac bypass surgery. Our neighbor invited us to go to a horse stable to pick up manure for her garden. We were to follow her truck, then help her shovel. She wanted the freshest manure, so she steered into a steaming mountain of droppings. Her pick-up sank several inches. As she spun her wheels, horse poo splattered in all directions. Despite my protests, Dad stepped into the equine doody, leaned his shoulder against the two-ton truck and pushed hard, to no avail. Fearing my father’s heart would fail, I flagged down a farmer who used a tractor to haul the pick-up out of the pit.             When my father was ninety-one, I flew to Florida for a visit. I hadn’t been a passenger in his car for a while. As he drove down a highway in Ocala, Dad looked at an overhead sign. “What do you think that says?” The tone of his query indicated that he believed there could be more than one correct answer.             I gasped. The letters were about the same size as that HOLLYWOOD sign in California. I told my father he needed to give up driving. After three attempts, my mom finally hid the keys in a place my father couldn’t find. So, my dad used his golf cart to get around, a cart with faulty brakes and a broken headlight. After a couple mishaps, my mother hid those keys. One night, my father hot wired the cart, then headed for a neighborhood pinochle game. Soon after, my cousins made the golf cart disappear.             At ninety-two, my father’s health declined rapidly. He asked to come to Virginia, where I live. He felt too ill to fly. So, my intrepid cousins decided to drive my parents to Charlottesville. We wondered if we might find ourselves in a Little Miss Sunshine situation—the movie where on a family road trip, the feisty grandpa quietly passes to the Great Beyond in the back seat of a van. We discussed what to do if my dad died on the way. We all agreed—they’d just keep driving. Sick as he was, right before they left, my father tried to convince my cousins to bring him to one last neighborhood pinochle game.             Upon arrival in Charlottesville, my father entered hospice care and passed away two weeks later. Even though, he’d been ill for months and I watched him become weak and disoriented, I felt shocked when he died. He had spent his life taking risks and beating the odds.  At a subconscious level, I’d bought into his, “IF I ever die…” perspective. To this day, I still expect a phone call from him, telling me about his latest ridiculous exploit. I do feel relieved that I no longer have to worry about him endangering himself or some innocent bystander. But the truth is, I miss him. That wild man brought life to every party.             Not long ago, when discussing the future with a friend, I inadvertently said, “IF I ever die…”  She looked surprised. I’ll admit, I’d surprised myself.             Why did I say that? Clearly, I am aware that I will die someday.             Perhaps, six years after my father’s death, I am finally realizing the unspoken sentiment underlying that phrase he often used. Regardless how his body failed him, the man intended to pursue joy right to the end. These days, our nation feels as if it’s on fire. And, come January, our country will re-visit the chaos created by our past and future president.  I’ll admit, after the election, my inclination was to retreat to a cozy bunker for four years.  But, why waste this precious life?  Despite my despondency being deep and wide, I hope to channel my father and Dylan Thomas by raging against the dying of the light. (Above photo is of my father, Jimmy Mazzotta, in his Model T car.) 0:00 / 0:00 If I Ever Die (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW Daddio is shot in the interior of a yellow taxicab on its way from JFK Airport to an apartment in Manhattan, a trip that normally takes forty minutes, with traffic. However, on this late night, the trip stretches to one hour and forty minutes because of a car accident. Not only does the movie take place in the cab, but most of the shots are of Clark (Sean Penn) and his passenger whom he calls Girlie, (Dakota Johnson).  A few times, Clark turns to address Girlie, however, for the most part, viewers see their faces side-by-side, both looking forward.             You might think this is the set up for a boring movie. Not so. I never felt claustrophobic or bored. The chemistry between the two performers was mesmerizing because of their great acting skills, and because of the talented Christy Hall who is both the writer and director of the movie. Against all odds, narrative tension is high throughout the film. Hall builds tension in three ways: by the micro expressions and gestures of the two actors, by building anxiety as to whether Clark presents an imminent danger to Girlie, and by the dialogue Hall has written, which starts out with mundane exchanges but slowly intensifies into more intimate revelations.  Hall shot the scenes in chronological order, which is unusual. The film unfolds in a way that feels like real time, with no flashbacks, no inclusion of other settings–nothing except for what we see and hear right before us in that tiny cab.  Initially, Clark and Girlie share gripes about cell phone use, credit cards, and self-driving cars. But soon, crusty and foulmouthed Clark is making crude comments about past wives and is asking Girlie intrusive questions. Listening to him made the dials on my creep-o-meter start spinning. What are Clark’s intentions toward Girlie? At one point, Clark states Girlie seems like a person who can take care of herself. In fact, she says so herself. She doesn’t wilt when he makes his crass remarks. Girlie names them for what they are, responding with appropriate disgust. Interestingly, she doesn’t retreat from engaging with him. Their conversation morphs into a truth or dare game, each person taking turns one upping each other with true stories. The revelations become surprising and intense, dispelling any assumptions viewers might have held about Clark or Girlie. Christy Hall’s impressive writing and directing is on full display in this film. Her prose is sharp and economical, each word of the dialogue hits its mark. Both characters shift regarding vulnerability and world view. The tone of the dialogue modifies to reflect that shift, which makes the character changes both credible and deeply moving. In the hands of an inept director, this movie would have been unbearably dull. Fortunately, Hall conveys volumes with nuanced facial expressions, hand motions, (like Clark incessantly drumming on the steering wheel), and perfectly timed texts from Girlie’s yucky boyfriend. Even the occasional shots of the exterior of the car, especially the car crash scene, complements what’s happening inside the cab. This movie contains rough language and some gross texts from Girlie’s reprobate boyfriend. So, it’s probably not the best choice for family movie night. I had hoped for a different ending. However, what I had envisioned wouldn’t have been as true and deeply satisfying as the ending that Hall wrote.  All in all, this movie turned out to be 140 minutes well spent. ### Check out more reviews:  His Three Daughters, The Perfect Couple, Presumed Innocent.   0:00 / 0:00 DADDIO MOVIE REVIEW (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-IRRESPONSIBLY GROWN POTATOES 0:00 / 0:00 Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes Recently, as I walked through the produce section of a grocery store, I passed a sign that said, “Responsibly Grown Potatoes.” Naturally, I began to imagine “Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes.” Would they be grown by a chain-smoking farmer, one who flicks his carcinogenic ashes on the crop? Or, maybe they’d be raised by a tipsy fellow who stashes a hip flask in his farmer jeans. Every day, he’d stagger around the fields dousing the nascent plants with a little hooch. Worse yet, that same man might drink and drive. All at once, my brain was flooded with disturbing images of cows, chickens and goats fleeing for their lives from the Irresponsible Farmer rampaging on his tractor. These thoughts rattled me, so I let my mind drift. What about irresponsibly grown children? What would those parents look like? Had we ever been irresponsible parents? Oh yeah…that time when Ian was eight. Our youngest child, Ian, was born seven years after his older brothers. And by the time Ian was eight, we’d been child wrangling for eighteen years. We felt worn down and mildly confused. Ian happened to be an easy-going, quiet child. So, we relaxed our parenting style. One Saturday morning, my husband, Bruce, and I met at Ian’s basketball game. We arrived in two cars, then gathered up Ian and headed, separately, to an electronics store to shop for a television. Bored, I went home after five minutes of shopping. Bruce, on the other hand, spent the next two hours checking out TVs in that store and other places. When Bruce returned home, I didn’t see him walk in. A few minutes later, a friend phoned asking if Ian wanted to go to a production of Peter and the Wolf. I asked Bruce where Ian was. He looked at me blankly. “I thought you had him.” Remember, Ian is eight, old enough to know his name, address and phone number, old enough to ask for help when left or lost. It’s been over two hours since we’ve seen him. We began dialing stores. At the first, a man answered. “Nope, no small boy here.” We received the same response at the second, third and fourth store. By this point, I stood in the driveway, hysterical. Then I heard a still small sexist voice in my panicking brain, “Wait. A man answered at that first store. That guy responded so fast, he probably didn’t even look.” So I called back that first place and asked for a woman, any woman. After I described our situation, she checked a side lounge of the store where she found Ian snoozing on a couch in front of a television that was looping The Pirates of the Caribbean. When we asked Ian if he’d been worried, he said no because he knew that “Dad was a very slow shopper.” Back to those potatoes. I’m not sure how Irresponsibly Grown Potatoes turn out. To be honest, I’m all for eating healthy food and protecting the environment. So, thank you to farmers who care enough to grow potatoes responsibly. I’m also for responsibly grown children, but sometimes raising a child is more of an art than a science. And, years later, as we now have discovered, a somewhat irresponsibly raised child can turn out just fine. (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-WHEN TO CARE AND WHEN NOT TO Photo Courtesy of Omar Salom 0:00 / 0:00 When to Care and When Not To (This essay originally appeared in Brevity.) My vocation is writing, but my avocation is painting, mostly portraits. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to showing the work of artists who are trying to create loose watercolor paintings. Members range from people whose pieces could be displayed at a prestigious museum to beginners who are asking for comments and helpful tips on their first attempts. A self-avowed beginner posted several portraits online. Using vivid colors and bold strokes, her paintings portrayed purple bruises, blood flowing, and anguished expressions. Each portrait revealed the artist’s compassion for the difficult lives of her subjects, but not in a gratuitous way. Her work evoked a strong, affirming response from group members, except one person. That member found the work disturbing and said so in an unkind way. She demanded the woman’s entries be banned from the forum. The novice artist felt crushed and expressed her distress online. She received many responses, including mine, which was something like, “Don’t accept harsh criticism from anyone you wouldn’t normally choose to go to for advice, someone who doesn’t necessarily care about you or understand your work.” I wish I’d included, don’t let her comments break your creative heart. My advice received lots of “likes,” clearly striking a chord among group members. It harkened back to a lesson I’d learned the hard way, when, early in my writing life, an esteemed author had delivered a withering and global assessment of my work—before rejecting me from her writing workshop. My first two years of writing, I had enjoyed beginner’s luck. Without much effort, I placed several essays and three short stories. One story won first prize in a statewide contest. Those small successes cheered me, but at my core, I felt like an imposter.  Despite my self-doubt, I gathered the courage to apply to a ten-session fiction workshop led by the well-known author. She had a stellar publishing history that included novels, short story collections, and individual stories landing in impressive places, like The New Yorker. As requested, I submitted a writing sample, a short story that just had been published by a literary journal at a local university. The workshop was limited to five participants. Given my lack of experience, I expected to be rejected. What I didn’t expect was a phone call from the writer saying that not only was I not accepted, but also that I didn’t grasp the basics of short story writing. She delivered her pronouncement in a neutral tone, then hung up. I cried for a couple days, so devastated by her assessment that I vowed to give up writing entirely.  A week later, the writer phoned again. Cool as ever, she invited me to join the workshop. I found the call so stunning that I cannot remember the reason she gave for changing her mind. I was terrified but said yes anyway. Turned out, I enjoyed the weekly sessions and my fellow attendees, who were warm and welcoming. They gave kind and beneficial insights on my work and on one another’s work. Our teacher facilitated the workshop well and gave good guidance. At the last session, she took me aside and said, “You have the most publishable writing that’s come through this workshop in a while.” She gave no further explanation. I accepted her words as a compliment. But later, I wondered if she meant them as a passive-aggressive dig, that my work had commercial but not literary appeal. (For the record, I am happy producing work that has both commercial and literary appeal.)  I decided I didn’t care.  My life’s calling is to write. I couldn’t stop myself from writing if I tried–evident by the random thoughts jotted on old envelopes, on the backs of grocery receipts, and in the margins of crumpled newspapers strewn in my car, in my gym locker, and on my bedside table.  It is my clear sense of calling, of knowing why I write, that gives me the fortitude to face both rejection and the rare harsh comments from individuals who don’t care about me or the body of my work. Of course, this quiet assurance can be rattled—the truth is I’ve just barely survived some brutal knockdowns—but my central conviction remains constant.  I’m also grateful for the kind of feedback from colleagues and professionals that helps me shape and polish my work and enjoy a happy and productive writing life. As for that writing teacher from years ago? I appreciate all she taught me, including the hard lesson, the one that helped me gain the confidence to embrace my vocation, no matter what. Blessings all around! P.S. To read other essays or listen to other podcasts about the craft of writing, check out THE KEY TO FINDING INSPIRATION, ALL ABOUT THAT BASS—PERFECTIONISM IS ENEMY OF CREATIVITY, POINT OF VIEW, WHERE DOES ART EXIST BEFORE YOU CREATE IT?, or THE VALUE OF A GOOD CRITIQUE GROUP. (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST

PODCAST-GHOSTLIGHT-MOVIE REVIEW On the recommendation of my friend, I watched the Sundance, indie film, Ghostlight. Released in the summer of 2024, this movie hasn’t enjoyed a lot of buzz, which is unfortunate because it’s a gem.             I’m not going to say much about the plot because it unfolds in a nuanced way. I don’t want to reveal anything that would spoil the process. The film is an excellent depiction of a family processing a difficult loss. However, it’s not a downer. One of the characters, the dad, gets lured into a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet, a plot point that introduces plenty of comic relief into the movie.             The screenwriting feels raw and authentic. The plot unfolds slowly, but in a thoroughly engaging way. The director creates an emotional landscape around the three family members that is deeply moving.             The community theater piece of the story provides an excellent vehicle for working through difficult issues in a meaningful way. The themes in Romeo and Juliet happen to coincide with much of what the family is enduring.             After I watched the film, I learned two interesting facts. The actors who play the construction worker (father), the elementary school teacher, (mother) and the rebellious teenage daughter, are in fact related. Keith Kupferer and and Katherine Mallen Kupferer are parents to Tara Mallen. In addition, writer and director, Kelly O’Sullivan is married to co-director Alex Thompson.             I wept through the ending, in a good way. Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a 99% critic score. And, I’ll have to say, I agree.   0:00 / 0:00 Ghostlight Movie Review (Photo by Jen Fariello)Deborah Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, Streetlight and other outlets. Her essays air on NPR member stations and have appeared in The Washington Post, Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living, as well as many other places. Check out her WEBSITE. Check out her DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING SERVICES. Check out her PAINTINGS.  APPLE PODCAST SPOTIFY PODCAST