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Metallic Thud
By Cheryl J. Fish
for the Davids
World Trade Center and Mount St. Helens
"Step by step, breath by breath—no rush, no pain." –Gary Snyder
1.
David Burns, insurance man hears a metallic thud
just after morning coffee, September 11, 2001.
A crushing noise a windy void.
He peers out his north-facing view
sees windows blown out eye-level
windows, no crater.
Shouts to anyone who will listen
shouts to the wind.
Some co-workers flee
to floor 78 express car
Liberty Street in a matter of seconds
before number two's crash.
2.
Column of steam, ash, rises 7,000 feet.
Ice and rock, wind a wild ride.
Cracks merge and become the "bulge."
Volcano souvenir business flourishes.
USGS scientist David Johnston measures the bulge on the north flank.
His observation point Coldwater II six miles northeast of St. Helens peak.
Sightseers press towards the steaming crater for closer view and photos.
3.
Bystanders and students watch as captives plummet from the towers,
missiles of grief. This is not television. Yes, it is.
"Go home," I shout. "Look away." Snails and stomachs and tails.
You know nothing of what's to come. Metallic thud.
Dave Burns and his pal Paul rush onto the waiting Staten Island Ferry
Engine ramps ramps ramps into the blue and black.
Life jackets all around in case of an aerial attack
It's not the engine, no, but a hulking dust cloud,
Time-made matter, a dirge.
4.
A 13,000 foot eruption of ash and steam
harmonic tremor signaling. Hot
seismic chart blot May 12 a 5.0 earthquake
underneath the north flank of St. Helens
triggers a small debris avalanche half a mile down.
Many people come out with cameras and binoculars.
Last chance for Spirit Lake landowners to evacuate.
5.
David Johnston perishes; David Burns survives.
Bones cut the wind.
More towers rise.
Metanoia
By David Holper
The plane ticket,
the train ride, the shuttle
the taxi, even the first step,
onto the gravel, into the dirt,
the dust, your boots whispering
against the dry grass,
these are just dust motes dancing
over the surface: the real journey calls you
deeper into the soul's secret country
where all such journeys
must lead you beyond expectations,
beyond these hazy dreamings,
if you are to finally set right
what you have long known was broken from the beginning.
*Metanoia (Greek, noun): The journey of transforming
your mind, heart, self, or way of life.
Metonymy Press
Based in Montreal, Metonymy Press specializes in queer, feminist, and social justice literature. They seek to promote literary fiction and nonfiction authors with underrepresented perspectives. Their motto: "We want to keep gay book lovers satisfied." See their contact page for submission guidelines.
MetPublications: Free Art Books Online
MetPublications, the book and catalog shop of New York's famed Metropolitan Museum of Art, has made over 600 books available to read online or download, with full text and illustrations.
MiblArt Book Cover Design
MiblArt offers affordable custom cover designs for self-published books in print and digital formats (e-book or audiobook). They will work in all genres, but their portfolio thus far is mainly commercial nonfiction and genre fiction, especially fantasy and thriller.
Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing
The Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan publishes this annual journal to showcase the talent and diversity of Michigan's incarcerated writers.
Microcosm Publishing
Microcosm Press specializes in nonfiction DIY (Do-It-Yourself) goods that focus on the reader and teach self-empowerment. They publish books from people with both expertise and lived experience, on topics such as magic and herbalism, punk music and culture, queer erotica, travel, self-care, comics journalism, and "the bicycle revolution". Illustrated work is strongly encouraged. Browse sample titles on their website and send them a pitch that follows their detailed guidelines. Editors say, "We do not publish books that would primarily be described as poetry, fiction, travel stories, or memoirs, unless the work is more substantially about a nonfiction topic than the author's life and experiences. If your book contains more than 20% personal stories, we are not the right publisher for you."
Midst
Midst is an online journal that showcases the creative process by publishing poems as an interactive time-lapse from first draft to the author's preferred final version. Editors hope to make poetry more accessible by demystifying the process of its creation.
Midwest Book Review
Established in 1976, the Midwest Book Review is an organization committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. Reviews are posted monthly on their affiliated websites and distributed to libraries, literary websites, databases, and online discussion groups. MBR welcomes small press and self-published authors.
Midwest Book Review’s List of Review Sites
Midwest Book Review is a monthly online publication that reviews self-published, small press, and mainstream books in a variety of genres. Their site includes additional resources for author marketing, such as this vetted list of other review organizations and publications that are open to indie books.
Midwest Writing Center
Founded in 1979, the Midwest Writing Center offers literary awards, conferences, workshops, book groups, and readings. Their publishing arm, MWC Press, publishes the winners of their poetry chapbook conference, the young writers' literary journal The Atlas, and literary novels and memoirs.
Miles from Standing Rock, tonight,
By Leah Angstman
over this snowdrift land fires light into the expanse—
a joke, it seems, the ice melting into puddles of fresh water
beneath throngs sending signals upward: rain down.
Our bodies are water, in and on,
at heartbeats of what we must think and drink—
You know when you've gone dry,
to go without breath and skin,
roots to your earth.
What is water to us, and how do we own it?
Broken at the base of Ash Coulee,
spill under vitality herded through fist,
uncontained. Make the point drawn from wells of irony:
we'll claim what soaks in our soles,
but it could be anything, oil-thick or water-wet,
what rains up.
Military Experience and the Arts
This organization's mission is to bridge the gap between military and civilian cultures through creative expression and scholarship. The site includes resources to help veterans write their personal stories. MEA publishes three magazines: The Blue Falcon, a journal of military fiction; Blue Streak, a journal of military poetry; and the Journal of Military Experience, an interdisciplinary scholarly periodical. See website for their calls for submissions.
Military Writers Society of America
Association of writers and artists who honor the military through their creative works. Most of the 500+ members are active-duty or veterans, but civilians may also join. The MWSA offers annual awards for published books in a variety of genres including nonfiction (scholarly and popular), children's literature, poetry, fiction, memoirs, spiritual/religious, and science fiction. The site also features many book reviews.
Milk Candy Review
Milk Candy Review is an online journal of "beautifully weird, lyrical" flash fiction up to 750 words. They publish new work weekly, and include a two-question author interview with each selected piece. Send one unpublished story by email as a Word document or pasted into the message. Contributors have included Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, Thomas Kearnes, Kathryn Kulpa, and Margaret Roach.
Milkweed Editions: Multiverse Literary Series
An imprint of Milkweed Editions, a well-regarded literary press, the Multiverse series publishes neurodivergent poets. Its creator, Chris Martin, says that Multiverse is "devoted to different ways of languaging" and seeks innovative literary styles that "emerge from the practices and creativity of neurodivergent, autistic, neuroqueer, mad, nonspeaking, and disabled cultures." Poets in their catalog include Hannah Emerson and Adam Wolfond. Read Brian Gresko's article about Multiverse in the July/August 2022 Poets & Writers.
Miller, Reiter & Robbins: Three New Poets
Miller, Reiter & Robbins were all discovered by Hanging Loose magazine. "Distinctive voices even in their earliest efforts." Order from Amazon or directly from Jendi Reiter for $9.
Misfit Magazine
Edited by poet Alan Catlin, Misfit Magazine is an online poetry journal that publishes gritty and energetic free verse. They value authentic narrative poetry inspired by "down in the dirt, real life experience". Submission periods are Jan. 2-Feb. 28 for Spring Issue, April 1-May 31 for Summer Issue, Sept. 1-Oct. 30 for Fall/Winter Issue.
Missouri Review
We especially enjoy MR's fiction selections.
Mobile Poets.org
The Academy of American Poets has made their entire collection of over 2,500 poems on Poets.org, as well as hundreds of biographies and essays, available in a mobile format for your Palm Pilot or iPhone.
Model
There's more to this teen memoir than meets the eye. Beautiful, blonde Cheryl has a wise old head on her shoulders, which helps her survive encounters with all sorts of human predators as she tenaciously builds a career as a fashion model in New York City. She's also a sharp, funny writer.
Modern American Poetry
A large, collaborative collection of critical essays. Background and analysis of many of today's most interesting American poems and poets. Submissions welcome. Click here for information.
Modern Haiku
Publishes original poetry in Japanese forms, book reviews, and essays. Also sponsors the Robert Spiess Memorial Award ($100), annual deadline in March.
Modern Haiku
An independent journal of haiku and haiku studies. Publishes original poetry in Japanese forms, book reviews, and essays. Also sponsors the Robert Spiess Memorial Award ($100), annual deadline in March.
Modern Manuscript Format Guide
Speculative fiction writer William Shunn (An Alternate History of the 21st Century: Stories) demonstrates the elements of a professional-looking manuscript submission. Mouse over the highlighted text sections of his template for an explanation of each element and why it's needed.
Momma, Did You Hear the News?
By Sanya Whittaker Gragg, with illustrations by Kim Holt. This sensitive picture book features a Black family giving their two young sons "the Talk" about how to avoid being shot by the police. The book manages children's fears about current events in an age-appropriate way, and also conveys a nuanced message that many police officers are good people doing a dangerous job.
Monsters and Other Lovers
Raw, sensual, touched with bittersweet humor, Glatt's poems take an unflinching look at women's bodies experiencing love and death.
Months to Years
Founded in 2017, Months to Years is an attractively designed online journal of poetry, essays, and artwork about terminal illness and mortality. See website for submission periods and suggested topics.
Montreal Pantoum I
By Isobel Cunningham
My island city bathed in the river's wet embrace
Her bridges, strands of a silver web, span shore to shore
A dormered house, a balcony, a curved staircase
Come, stroll along marshy banks where rapids roar.
Her bridges, strands of a silver web, span shore to shore
Sweltering summer then brilliant leaves of autumn fall to bless
Come, stroll along marshy banks where rapids roar
Hear the hum of commerce, traffic and excess.
Sweltering summer then brilliant leaves of autumn fall to bless
The empty churches, spires that decorate the town
Hear the hum of commerce, traffic and excess
Short triumph of the blizzard and the plow's soft growl
The empty churches, spires that decorate the town
Sidewalk cafes sacred to l'apero, le flirt
Short triumph of the blizzard and the plow's soft growl
Sweet spring of lilac, gangsters and le cirque
Sidewalk cafes sacred to l'apero, le flirt
A dormered house, a balcony, a curved staircase
Sweet spring of lilac, gangsters and le cirque
My island city bathed in the river's wet embrace.
Morbid Anatomy Library
Located in Brooklyn, this research library and private collection surveys the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture. It makes available a collection of books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and mortality, memorial practice, art and natural history, arcane media, and more. The accompanying website includes links to other resources on these topics. (Photographs on the site may disturb the squeamish.)
More Odds Than Ends
More Odds Than Ends is an online community for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Weekly blog posts offer a selection of quirky photos and one-sentence prompts, some provided by the site editors and others submitted by members.
Morning in the Burned House
By Margaret Atwood. This mature poetry collection considers history and warfare from women's perspectives. A father's death prompts a more personal turn to poems exploring memory and loss. The style is straightforward, declarative, assured. Yet the multi-layered meanings of these poems complicate our conventional wisdom and lead us into mysteries that can only be experienced, not mastered, through language.
Mosaic of the Dark
By Lisa Dordal. A Christian girl wondering where her emerging lesbian-feminist consciousness fits into her faith. A woman grappling with the legacy of her alcoholic, possibly closeted mother. In her debut collection from Black Lawrence Press, Dordal makes these "confessional" themes fresh and strange again by centering her poems on a tangential detail which, after careful rereading, telescopes out into a larger narrative. The technique is reminiscent of those close-up photo puzzles in science magazines, where you must guess the whole animal from an abstract shimmer of scales or feathers.
MosaicMusings
Online forums to post your poetry and prose, as well as several contests per year for the best work on the site.
MotionPoems
MotionPoems features short, evocative, professionally produced videos that dramatize the poems being read on the soundtrack. Featured authors include Robert Bly, Todd Boss, Jane Hirshfield, and Freya Manfred. At present, they are not accepting unsolicited submissions.
Mount Island
Mount Island, a print and digital annual journal, accepts creative writing and art from authors who identify as LGBTQ+ and/or POC and who currently live in or hail from a rural area.
Moves in Contemporary Poetry
In this 2010 essay in the online journal HTMLgiant, Mike Young comes up with a list of 41 rhetorical and syntactical techniques that have become popular in 21st-century poetry. Examples are drawn from critically acclaimed authors such as Heather Christle, Alice Fulton, Jack Gilbert, D.A. Powell, and Dean Young. The list can help new writers think twice about stylistic choices that may have become academic clichés.
MovieBytes: Screenwriting Contests & Markets Online
Frequently updated links page for screenwriting contests and markets. Complete the brief, free registration to access Contest Report Cards. Includes contest advice, news of recent script deals and interviews with entrants about their experiences with various contests.
Mr. Africa
Site focusing on poetry by African-Americans includes general-interest and Christian-themed poetry forums, as well as profiles of notable black poets.
Museum of Bad Art
Located in a theatre basement in Massachusetts, the Museum of Bad Art is the world's only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms. Why study bad art? Because art that is sincerely meant, yet unintentionally awful, can teach us what pitfalls to avoid in our own work. It can also be very funny, and (to quote the literary journal Ploughshares) "convey a distinctive and strange vision" that lifts it above banal badness. Better to fail ambitiously than succeed and be boring.
My Dim Aviary
By Gillian Cummings. This collection of sensual prose-poems is an imagined autobiography of the model Fernande, the subject of French photographer Jean Agélou's erotic postcards in the early 20th century. Slipping gracefully between English and French, her wordplay is as elusive as a woman desired by all, understood by none.
My Favorite Apocalypse
The enticing title says it all: this author embraces all the joys and sorrows of the body, flamboyant as a rock musician yet wryly wise as a philosopher. Unusual juxtapositions abound, but her words always discover that they enjoy each other's company.
My First Book of Haiku Poems
Translated by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, illustrated by Tracy Gallup. This artistically designed, bilingual picture book features 20 poems by Japanese haiku masters such as Issa and Basho. Each poem has breathing room in its own two-page spread featuring the original Japanese verse (in script and Romaji), Ramirez-Christensen's translation, a dreamy painting reminiscent of Magritte's surreal images, and a prompt for imaginative reflection on the pairing of art and text.
My God Is This a Man
By Laura Sims. The author's third collection from Fence Books is a haunting collage of fragments from writing by and about serial killers, juxtaposed with lyric passages and stark abstract visual elements such as square frames and all-black pages. There are no gruesome details here. Sims is interested in the philosophy of self-expression through crime, an exploration that is no less chilling for being primarily cerebral. The mind-field we enter in this book is fragmented, grandiose, and claustrophobic.
My Machberet
This blog by Erika Dreifus, who also runs the writers' resource site The Practicing Writer, focuses on Jewish literary news and commentary. Machberet is the Hebrew word for notebook.
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales
Dark, innovative, beautiful, strange variations on classic fairy tales from around the world. Some stories remain within the fantasy-horror genre, while others reenact the fairy tale's psychological themes in a contemporary realist setting. Each story is followed by the author's reflections on the source material and how it inspired them. Notable contributors include playwright Neil LaBute, poets Joyelle McSweeney, Kim Addonizio, and Sabrina Orah Mark, and fiction writers Michael Cunningham and Gregory Maguire. This book is not appropriate for normal children.
Mystery Versus Confusion in Fiction
Holding things back from readers can be a good way to inspire curiosity, but too much mystery can lead to confusion. This article describes the underlying dynamics and gives strategies to keep readers turning pages.
—Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
"When the reader finds out ____x____, it's going to blow their mind!"
That thought is truly delightful. What could be more satisfying than astonishing a reader with an amazing reveal? But proceed with caution: by withholding "x" now, you might be setting the reader up for confusion—maybe even for losing faith in your narrative.
The possibility of reader confusion can be hard to imagine in the throes of creation. Surely the reader can't help but be as excited about your plan as you are. The truth is, though, that readers need a certain amount of information to feel immersed and interested right off the bat: material that will give them expectations about the nature of the book, as well as questions that will keep them turning pages.
The nature of the printed word is that we read one word at a time. No reader can know everything right away. But they'll do what it takes to find out, as long as they're properly anchored in the text and feel there's something to look forward to.
Our team recently judged three books that strayed from intrigue into confusion:
Case 1 is an atmospheric literary novel that changes first-person perspectives five times within the first two chapters. Names distinguish the characters, but the style of thought is identical, so I couldn't distinguish between characters through the tenor of their narration. There is little physical description to help us feel the differences between the characters. I imagine the author's goal was to make me curious about each of the five characters, but I just felt confused about who was who.
Case 2 is an 80,000-word speculative novel that uses twenty intersecting plotlines to tell the story of twenty different characters. All twenty plotlines must proceed at record pace in order to meet the goal word count. Any plotline is liable to be picked up on any page. Ostensibly, there is a main character, but their plotline is quickly lost because equal emphasis is given to each of the twenty plotlines. The idea might have been to keep me looking forward to an ending where essential information from each one of the plotlines would come together in a mind-blowing whole, but instead, I was confused about why I was supposed to care about any of the threads.
Case 3 is a literary memoir that begins with a lengthy, detailed description of the country (history, major figures, economy, physical characteristics, and more) in which the story takes place. The description takes up the first 50 pages. Perhaps the goal was to deepen my curiosity about the upcoming story by giving me the ingredients to become as invested in the context as the author was, but I became lost in the wealth of detail and confused about what to focus on.
While the nature of each book's problem might seem quite different, they all shared three faults:
1. They did not build patterns that would let me develop expectations for later in the book. I lost faith that my reading efforts would be rewarded with satisfying, timely revelations.
2. They did not introduce questions to excite my anticipation for what I might learn later.
3. The material they provided was not absorbing: I did not find myself drawn in to the point where I began to forget the outside world.
Maybe you're planning a mysterious book at this very moment. Let's see how to avoid the pitfalls.
Give readers accurate expectations
Some authors try to build curiosity by delaying the introduction of their main characters or main plotlines until a few chapters in. That can certainly work in some cases. However, it's important to use that space to fully anchor the reader in the world you're creating: anchoring them in material designed to help them set accurate expectations about the style, themes, and plot concerns in the rest of the book.
Don't: Introduce a nameless character of no description, in a nameless place of no description, doing something but it's not clear what, until the details are revealed 75 pages in.
Do: Use your first pages or chapters to absorb readers in scenes that set up the book to come.
Example: In Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, the main character, Wang Miao, is not introduced until Chapter 4. The first three chapters create anticipation for the book's main plotline by vividly describing the Cultural Revolution experiences of a secondary character, Ye Wenjie. These chapters set up important style points, themes, and imagery that come in handy again and again after Wang Miao is introduced. Meanwhile, they're so substantive, unique, and vivid that they are not only free of confusion, they draw us into Liu's world, fulfilling the most important requirement of any commercial novel's beginning.
Orient readers within a single point of view before widening the perspective
Sometimes the author withholds information about a character or characters to try and make us curious about them. To this end, they switch perspectives often in the early chapters, hoping that getting a "taste" of a character will make us feel interested and invested.
Risky!
Intimacy is hard to build if the reader has to keep switching gears so drastically. It's often better to get readers intimately settled within just one point of view before adding others to the mix.
Don't: Speed-run character introductions or trust that "inner access" (first-person narration) will automatically grant familiarity. First-person can be the most opaque of all if the "who, what, when, where, why, how" aren't given.
Do: Build one point of view so that the reader feels fully anchored in it. It doesn't have to be a lengthy process. Choosing key details (who, what, when, where, why, how) can take mere sentences.
Example: George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series has a famously sprawling cast. But the Prologue of the first book gives us an intimate understanding of the point of view of a character we'll never see alive again: Will, a young member of the Night's Watch. Relating to Will draws us into the entire series.
Then, once he's gone, he's not missed: first, because the way Martin handles the Prologue sets our expectation that Will is a tertiary character who doesn't matter much and will not survive into the book proper; second, because the chapters that follow are so absorbing; and third, because so much of the rest of Will's scene is still with us. Chapter 1 onwards build on the knowledge Will gave us about the setting, the White Walkers, the Night's Watch, the book's atmosphere, the series' genre features, and more. Long after the expendable character is gone, the context he brought with him is still preventing us from becoming confused.
Anchor readers in an intense closeup before zooming out
So many North Street entries assume that I'll develop a strong investment in their world if I'm 1,000% acquainted with their worldbuilding before the end of Chapter 1. That's a recipe for overwhelm. It's often more effective to start with a blown-up view of something very small that reflects an important aspect of the wider premise. Orient the reader in that one thing fully before moving on to the big picture.
Don't: Try to give exhaustive context in the first chapters.
Do: Start by taking a close look at something on the micro-scale, then zooming out and applying the same concept to the macro.
Example: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams has rich worldbuilding, but the first image in the book is a detailed portrait of a man, Arthur, lying in a puddle. It "zooms out" a bit to show that the puddle is in front of his house, and he's blocking a bulldozer. To give readers time to see every detail and thoroughly digest the scenario, there's an entire scene in which the man speaks with the bulldozer operator who's charged with razing the house so a new highway can run through the area. Then, once readers have become properly oriented in the premise, the concepts of eminent domain and demolition are applied to Earth itself, which is about to be destroyed for the sake of a cosmic through-way.
The synecdochal relationship between Arthur's hapless wallowing and the larger plight of Earth means that readers' knowledge of the smaller-scale problem is effortlessly transferred to the larger, preventing the confusion and boredom that might result were the introduction of the book's main plot delayed by a bulkier, "tell-ier" method of context delivery.
Write more than one book
Many authors have a lot of stories to tell. Forcing them all into one book is possibly the quickest way to turn suspense into confusion. If you're writing a new book and keep thinking up ideas for new plotlines, it could mean you have a series on your hands. Not sure? Read my article on whether it might be time to turn your one book into more than one.
Conclusion
Readers need something to go on, no matter where in the book they are. You might not be showing them the main "what, when, where, how, why" right away—but they need a "what, when, where, how, why" to help them set expectations, develop questions about what might happen next, and engage with the narrative.
Professional authors know how to use these "in between" spots to help develop motifs, hide exposition or back story, insert synecdoche, raise tension in a B plot, or plant ideas to call back later: in short, to cultivate the juxtapositional density that feels truly absorbing to readers. If you find you're having trouble doing that, you might not yet be fully acquainted with your book's key themes, symbols, or main plotline, or the scope of your book might simply be too wide. Mind-mapping the core characteristics of your book might help bring to light the information readers require to feel anchored in the world you're creating.
Mystery Writers Forum
This free online forum for mystery writers includes boards for writing advice, the publishing business (agents, conferences, and trends), and crowdsourced research about how crimes are committed and solved. Wondering about courtroom procedure, legal ethics, or how various weapons and poisons work? Ask the forum.
Mythcreants
Mythcreants is a comprehensive and lively collection of blog posts and podcast episodes with craft advice for fantasy and sci-fi storytelling. Topics range from worldbuilding and story structure to avoidance of oppressive tropes.
Mythogyny: The Lives and Times of Women Elders in B.C.
This anthology of oral histories by senior citizens in British Columbia, Canada, paints a collective portrait of resourceful working-class women who survived poverty, sexism, and the failure of their illusions about marriage and family security.
