Literary Agents

I don't have a literary agent because I write short pieces. Generally, agents deal with book-length work. Most legitimate agents earn their money by deducting commissions from the manuscripts they sell. Most legitimate agents do not take any money from the writers up front. They depend on the the actual sales of the books.

Writing is hard work, and many writers, although their hearts and souls are in it, will not get published. There are shadowy agents who demand fees from the writer every step of the way. If I ever get the ambition to write a book, I would never go to this kind of agent. Of course they'll say your book is great; their money is made from the uninformed writer, even if the writer never sells a single copy.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's List of the Top Twenty Worst Literary Agents That They Know Of

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children’s Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency, formerly Sydra-Techniques)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michele Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency, Simply Nonfiction, and Michele Glance Rooney Literary Agency)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Bagels And The Sunday Paper

Besides our dog I’m the only male in our house, and since he hasn’t caught on to the intricacies of words I’m the only male in our house who gets confused. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. My wife and twelve-year-old daughter don’t go out of their way to befuddle me. It just happens—it’s a gender thing.

The most recent example of this occurred last Sunday morning when all I wanted to do was pick up bagels and the Sunday paper. It was 7:30 A.M., and I was about to leave. My wife had just fluffed her pillow for another half-hour’s sleep. If I had had any sense, I’d have gone about my errand without asking. “What kind of bagels do you want?”

“Where are you going?”

I thought that was self-explanatory, “To get bagels.”

“Don’t go to Marty’s, go to The Bagel Barn. Get me sesame.”

As I turned to leave, my daughter shouted from her bedroom, “Ma, Marty’s is better. The Bagel Barn puts the sesame seeds on just one side; Marty sprinkles the whole bagel.”

My wife, shouting passed me and into my daughter’s room, explained, “The Bagel Barn cooks them too much. You can break your teeth on them.”

“Dad,” my daughter yelled, “Just go to Marty’s and ask them for light ones.”

“Sure,” my wife replied, “They’ll whip up a batch just for your father.”

I don’t have a favorite bagel place, unless you consider that, to me, the nearest store to purchase something would be my favorite store. Especially in this case, since it wasn’t as though I was shopping for a new Jeep Cherokee and needed to consider a whole lot more than a sesame seed count.

I moved out into the hallway and placed myself at an equal distance between the bedrooms. Truly, all I really wanted out of these negotiations was the Sunday paper. I know I’m not allowed to do serious food shopping. My wife won’t permit it, and rightly so since, among other things it’s too much of a hassle for me to clip coupons, ponder food groups and wait on lines—so I gladly relinquished that responsibility years ago. However, now I’m down to bagels and the Sunday paper and still don’t have much of a say.

The next voice was my wife’s. “Honey, where are you?”

“I’m right here in the hall,” I said, “waiting to find out where I’m going.”

“Ma,” my daughter yelled, “how about doughnuts?”

“What are you trying to do, confuse your father?”

At this point the dog lumbered up the stairs and joined me in the hallway. Apparently he had become curious about our loud conversation. He gave a lick to my dangling hand as if to say “Whasup?”—not that he expected an answer, mind you, nor that he had decided to give his two cents on what I should buy. However, if he could voice an opinion he would probably have had about as much say as I did.

Doughnuts or bagels, I didn’t care. I had already made up my mind that I could’ve lived with stale, liver-flavored dog biscuits. It’s the waiting thing, I thought. Males don’t like the waiting thing.

I believe this is why nature chose females to carry babies. If males got pregnant science would’ve long ago figured a way to push a fully developed kid out a week or two after conception. With women, it must be that extra ‘X’ chromosome they possess—I think it gives them more patience. I’m stuck with that ‘Y’ chromosome, and whatever it was once good for, it doesn’t mean a thing when dealing with double-X’s.

PeaJay either became bored with my company, or figured he’d hang around his food bowl till somebody came down to fill it. He gave me another lick on the hand and lumbered back down the stairs. I watched with envy as he descended, his carefree tail swinging lazily with each step.

“Now that I think about it,” said my wife, “doughnuts do sound better.”

That was okay by me, but I knew I wouldn’t get full closure just yet.

“Go to Kate’s at the mall, dad. They’re fresher.”

Since there are at least three bakeries within a ten-block radius of home, I waited for a counter-suggestion from my wife. I could not help thinking that my daughter was now in the tutoring stage of this male-female, yin-yang activity and she was now practicing the wearing down process on me, her own father.

Was the gender gap always like this? I’m sure. I wondered about how this situation would have played out back when civilization began. I pictured a male squinting at dawns early light as he leans against the cave wall, his spear in hand, about to go out to hunt down some food. His wife, half awake, is fumbling with the bear hides, taking advantage of the warm covers he just vacated. She says, “No wild boar this time Honey, a plump rabbit will due nicely.”

“Okay,” says the male, his spear drawing circles in the dirt as he awaits further orders. I’m sure he’d be thinking, As long as I can find one close by. His teenaged daughter, still with her eyes closed, the toes of her right foot playfully climbing up a stalagmite as she reminds her father, “With white fur, dad. I could use a hat that really stands out.”

His wife perks up a bit, “Good idea…see if you can get two, dear.”

He leaves the cave, and in no time at all he’s confused: was it a white boar or a brown rabbit?…or….? His dog follows him, gleefully snapping at some weird looking flying bug. He’s sure that the two at home either went back to sleep or were up, planning on other ways to confuse him.

My musing took a full two minutes to pass—I know because during my stay in the hall my watch hand involuntarily moved to my face every few seconds. Somewhat antsy, I walked into our bedroom and found my wife’s head buried in her pillow. She looked up puzzled and said, “I thought you went for doughnuts?”

My daughter’s door was cracked open just enough for me to see her curled up on top of the covers, sleeping. Her cat was curled up in front of her, the two of them forming a living parenthesis. I deduced that somehow, without my knowledge, there was a settlement.

On the way downstairs I pondered the two women and the tacit agreement that decided the course of my journey. It was disturbing for me to realize that the long exchange no longer bothered me, since I was now free to run out and get doughnuts and the Sunday paper. The dog was sprawled out in the living room. He looked up at me as I opened the front door, and, in blissful ignorance, drowsily rubbed his jowls on the rug.

I entered the crowded bakery with my newspaper securely tucked under my arm and tore off a number just inside the door. As I turned toward the counter a thought popped up: Did they want jelly…Cream…Crullers?

- end -

Published in The Front POrch Syndicate (copyrighted)

Appointed Hounds

I've never believed that dogs bark at mail carriers because they wear uniforms. I've yet to see a dog get upset over a marine, or a Girl Scout - so why mail carriers? The reason, I believe, is that dogs have no idea what a mail carrier is up to. A carrier drops mail into a box outside the front door. Since dogs seldom get mail, all they know is that this person brazenly walks up to their door, jiggles a box outside, and leaves without even a "Hey, boy, how ya' doin' today?"

Sharing the canine consensus of carrier aversion is my dog, PeaJay. He's a brown and black mongrel whose ears stand straight up when he knows the mail carrier is nearby, although at all other times he's as dog-eared as The Dead Sea Scrolls. He weighs 32 pounds and resembles a short, reasonably groomed junkyard dog.

The ruckus begins the instant our carrier's foot touches our block. All the dogs up the street begin to bark. As the carrier approaches our house, PeaJay begins with low, intermittent snarls. When the carrier is two doors away, the snarls are replaced with a staccato of barks that crack across the living room. Each series of barks ends with a howl that tapers off as his lungs collapse like spent balloons.

"Quiet," I yell. "Quiet!"

For a moment he heeds me, just long enough to give me this odd look that I interpret loosely as, "Please, Master - fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly..."

By the time the carrier reaches my door, PeaJay's state is frenzied. He wants to charge the window, but he'd have to leap on the couch to do that. But he's not allowed on furniture, so he hurls his expletives at the door. When the carrier is a few doors past us, PeaJay calms down somewhat, pacing the living room as he grumbles and grunts, "...and you better keep on movin'!"

The ritual ends when the barking outside diminishes, signifying that the carrier has turned the corner. PeaJay, with a sense of accomplishment, stiff-legs it to the middle of the living room, executes a few turns in place and plops down heavily-asleep in a fraction of a second.

A variation of this scenario occurs wherever dogs cross paths with 'appointed rounds.' What really ticks off a dog is that a mail carrier never allows an opportunity for even one quick sniff of a pant leg. This, to a dog, is the height of bad manners. For to a canine, permitting a cursory sniff is akin to being handed a diary. The floating molecules snatched by his nose tell him if you're friend or foe. A more thorough olfactory inspection reveals the species and gender of the pets you have, plus megabytes of other data that our inept proboscises can't begin to fathom.

I've toyed with the idea of testing my theory by opening the door and introducing my dog to the carrier. I feel that after a few sniffs, PeaJay would wonder why he's treated mail carriers with such contempt for all these years. But I hesitate...I fear that the intensity of the moment might cause PeaJay to skip the sniffing protocol, placing my theory, and the carrier, in an embarrassing position. With this in mind, I let sleeping dogs lie.

© 2002 ASPCA

ASPCA Animal Watch

Sharing

I like shared moments as well as anybody, but I don’t always know when one is coming my way. Last week I missed a rather minor one, and I should’ve seen it coming.

I was in the kitchen looking out at the backyard, convincing myself that it didn’t need mowing. My wife was in the living room watching the news and called to me, “Honey, c’mere, take a look at this.”

Since TV news items are short, I thought it would end before I got to the living room, “Won’t it be over by the time I get there?” I shouted.

There was a long pause, then, “I don’t know, Sweetheart,” she replied, “I don’t write the news.”

I thought maybe I should’ve just gone in, but it was too late. I mistook her beckoning to be more of an ‘I-think-you-might-be-interested,' but hindsight told me it was a ‘you-gotta-see-this!' My window of opportunity not only closed, it slammed glass-rattling shut. There was little else to do but to play this out as best I could.

“Sorry, Honey,” I yelled softly, “You can tell me what happened.”

“It’s audio and visual, Sweetheart,” she shot back, “You know my sketching is not that great.”

It’s amazing how the word ‘Sweetheart’ can be as soothing as a warm breeze or as biting as a blizzard.

My memory, with no help from me, began combing those debris ridden areas where dormant neurons held similar slights. I’m sure that her memory was dredging the same locales. We’ve been together for many years, and I’ve always felt, on these occasions, it was unfair of her to review each and every slight.

I heard the weather on. Long gone was the news item she had thought I’d find interesting.

“So, what was it all about?” I asked while still in the kitchen.

No answer.

I tried again, this time for any kind of response, “What’s the weather look like, Honey?”

Other than the squealing sounds of a Kix commercial, nothing. Something told me she was adding up slights. The weather came back on--Sunny? Little did they know. I walked into the living room and found her leafing through a magazine -- each page snapping as she leafed. I sat staring at the TV, as though it would give me some clue to what her news item was all about. She continued whipping pages, blocking out some of the TV audio: “The gross national SNAP is only slightly SNAP this month, up SNAP SNAP percent.”

“So c’mon, what was on the news?” I asked, “I couldn’t come right away. I was checking the leaky faucet.” I lied.

She looked up pretending she had just become aware of my presence, “Ah, you found the living room. See? It wasn’t that difficult was it?”

Well, I thought, at least she’s talking. Now if I can only get her to talk about the news item, we could put this little episode behind us.

“Was it funny?” I asked.

“What was funny?” She asked.

“The news, the news.”

Still snapping, she replied, “Something about a huge asteroid heading our way. If you’re gonna fix the leak you got about ten minutes.”

I walked back to the kitchen and out the back door. The mower started with just one pull.


- END -




Published in America West Magazine (Copyrighted)

Grand Expectations

Dear Editor:

Enclosed is my manuscript, “A Brief History of Wicker.” Although your writers’ guidelines prefer that I query you first and enclose clips, I hope you will make an exception. You see, I have taken early retirement for the sole purpose of making my mark in the literary world, and since I am fast approaching senior citizenry, I am in kind of a hurry.

In lieu of published clips, however, I have prepared the following synopses of some of my earlier works, which I will send you upon request-- neatly typed if you deem it absolutely necessary. However, I have a strong suspicion that once you peruse my manuscript, you will deem it unnecessary.



“My First Time,” September, 1958:

For a homework assignment from my senior high school year, I present a true and vivid account of my entry into manhood. It all takes place on a green Naugahyde La-Z-Boy in my living room at a time when my parents were in the city enjoying Tennessee Williams’ play, “Suddenly Last Summer”-- which, by the way, was my working title. My reading was extremely popular with the class-- a standing ovation no less. Even Susan C. (who had been “the wind beneath my wings” so to speak), although failing to applaud, grudgingly admitted to the piece’s vivid imagery.



“Dear Patricia,” May, 1961:

A searing, passionate letter mailed to my steady, Patricia D., while I was a private stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, which I penned immediately after discovering she was secretly dating Salvatore G. I have recently found her phone number and called to see if she was still in possession of that particular correspondence. Although she couldn’t quite recall me, she promised to look around for it right after she returned from Missoula, Montana where her son, Salvatore G, Jr., lives. I called her a few weeks later, but her number was no longer in service. I had, however, tracked down her new number and called her a multitude of times. I am confident I will be in possession of that letter as soon as her restraining order is lifted.



Note: The following synopsis of a letter is one I have indeed published, dear editor, in my local paper. My wife, however, foolishly relegated the original clipping to our trash bin some years ago-- a reprehensible act for which to this very day I cannot help but bring to her attention.


“Letter to the editor of The Oceanside Herald,” June, 1980:

An eloquent dissertation rebuking the Oceanside Junior Soccer League for taking sides with the referee who banned me from all my daughter’s soccer games. In this letter I expound on how one must take into account the emotional intensity of a parent whose loving offspring has been denied a goal through the lack of vigilance on the part of the referee. The language I used while addressing the referee, while admittedly strong, was succinct and easily grasped. Had I employed euphemism-- a coward’s ploy-- I would have called him a sight-deprived individual with dubious lineage.



Subject: “Mental Deficiencies during Menstrual Cycles,” July 1998:

An insightful, well documented memorandum to my then-boss, outlining obvious errors in his choice of Susan H. for a promotion in which I was the more qualified. It is for all intents and purposes an essay that virtually raises the mundane-ness of the business letter to an art form. Moreover, you will marvel at my scathing analysis of how feminism was destroying the business world. The letter was so forceful and so germane that a meeting of all department heads ensued for no other reason than to discuss its merits. Apparently, the clarity and purposefulness of my arguments posed such a threat to the integrity of the entire senior staff that I was given a bonus to take early retirement.


The above works are but the tip of the literary iceberg. I, therefore, cannot possibly see how you can pass up gracing your magazine with my offering without risking a haunting rebuke from the great writers who have come before me. I will patiently wait out the required two months for your response. However, if I do not find your letter favorable, I will have no other choice but to follow up such an egregious act with a letter to your publisher.



Your comrade in words,

R. Rabelais Krakowski


>Published in Absolute Write (copyrighted)

Light Verse Anyone?

The Saturday Evening Post


OASIS


The courts will judge this sorry case

How two men squared off face to face

How words could not control their pace

How both men rolled in harsh embrace

How two good citizens fell from grace

And neither got the parking space.







The New York Times



HANDY MAN SPECIAL


The staircase creaks

When walked upon

The plumbing leaks

From basement on.

Roof shingles roam

Row by row

They built this home

Two months ago






The New York Times


ALARMING MEALS


On some jets I've dined on great steaks

And various drinks, (like nectar!)

And at other times wondered how the meals

Got passed the metal detector.


The New York Times


PERSONAL FOUL


Had he but only rested

At that time between the halves

When the players, unmolested,

Relieved their aching calves


No, he left the warmth of his TV set

Leaving beers and smokes bestrewn

And with shovel he ran out and met

That snowy afternoon


But before the snow-filled walk diminished

His words foretold his epitaph,

"If I rush," he huffed, "I should be finished

Before they start the second half."

(Aside: I used to write a lot of light verse--now, only sometimes. My problem is tracking it. I have a hard enough time keeping track of my short prose.)

HOUSE WEAR

Just after we moved from an apartment to our own home, I developed something of an identity crises. Upon discovering a leaky faucet, my first thought was to call the building superintendent, but then I realized, hey, I'm the building superintendent. I didn't know anything about maintaining a house. Prior to owning one I remember having to set aside a good portion of a weekend just to hang a picture.

The tools I possessed were just not adequate: a Swiss army knife, a pair of scissors and a toenail clipper. I could've had more if my wife hadn't been so stubborn about her eyebrow tweezers.

Somehow, the hardware man knew I was a babe in the woods.

"So," he repeated my request, "you're looking for a leaky-faucet fixer?"

Since then, I've become his best customer. My wife thinks I spend more time tool shopping than she does food shopping. The plain truth is, although you buy a house for more comfort and space, the house believes you're there only to keep it groomed and in good repair. Your living room is really a waiting room--a place where you sit until your furnace stops, or the paint on the walls begins to look drab. You don't have to look for things to fix--you hear water pipes gurgling when they should be quiet, or you don't hear down spouts that are quiet when they should be gurgling.

My wife, on the other hand, looks for trouble. She combs the house not unlike a wary scout just before the Custer fiasco. Her eagle eyes can spot a loose wall panel nail at 20 paces. Most times she saves her findings until we're in bed. "Honey, what does a termite look like?"

After a while I realized that my wife and I--like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers--were not on the same side. I used to think that it was just the two of us pitted against the house's demands, but then one day she asked, "Don't you think we should make the kitchen bigger?" That's when it hit me: She's on the house's side.

The seasons passed: winter caulking, spring painting, summer screening, fall raking. In no time I had accumulated many tools--so many that my hardware man called me when his stock got low.

Although we were still slaves to the house, there came a time when it did not totally overwhelm us, and we were able to squeeze in some moments of leisure. Unfortunately, those flashes of freedom must've made us lightheaded--we decided to buy a bigger house.

Before we bought the new house, however, we needed to sell the old one. We dressed the exterior with two coats of robin's egg blue paint. All squeaks in the house were either nailed mute or Three-In-Oned to death. Our grass was pampered into a lush blue green, and so closely cropped and manicured that an ant on its hind legs could see every blade tip in the front yard.

In no time, a young couple was smitten--lucky for us; for one more day of house grooming would've had the grim reaper at our newly stained front door. At the closing, I gave the house away with tears running down my cheeks, caused by irritated eyes from installing Fiberglas insulation.

It turned out that the new owners had been apartment dwellers. As far as being prepared to nurture a house, they were clueless--and tool-less. I wisely didn't include any of my tools as part of the house purchase. Since we were moving into an even bigger house I'd have to add to my existing stores.

On the day we moved, the new owners were at the house measuring rooms, their shiny ruler still sporting a price tag. As they sat on the living room floor they appeared flushed with thoughts of a happy, comforting future. I wanted to set them straight, but didn't have the heart.

Halting one of the movers struggling with one of my tool boxes, I extracted an adjustable wrench and quietly placed it next to the kitchen faucet. With that done, my wife and I drove off, ready to serve our new master.


- END -


Published in America West Magazine (Copyrighted)

Reader's Digest Stuff

All Published in The Reader's Digest


VIRTUAL HILARITY


Each year several giant computer expos at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center attract mobs of people. I ran into a friend the day after she had gone to one, and asked her about it.

"By the time I got there," she said, "it was so crowded you couldn't get a nerd in edgewise."


CAMPUS COMEDY


I was helping my daughter move into her dorm at State University of New York College at Oneonta when her roommate showed up with her father and an amazing load of belongings to carry up to the third floor. As the last trunk was dropped next to her bed, the roommate's father, still huffing, looked his daughter in the eye. "If you need anything else while you're here," he advised, "rent it."




TOWARD MORE PICTURESQUE SPEECH


Thanksgiving: when one species ceases to gobble and another begins.



NO PARKING


In the Lamaze method of childbirth, the husband is trained to coach his wife, staying with her at all times, if possible even in the delivery room. One such husband was forced to abandon his wife at the hospital reception desk in order to park the car and, by the time he returned, a baby girl had been delivered. After admiring his new daughter, he turned to his wife and said reproachfully, "Next time, you park the car."


LIFE IN THESE UNITED STATES


The phone woke me at 3 in the morning, but instead of a voice I heard the notes from Mary Had A Little Lamb played by somebody with a touch-tone phone. Annoyed, I hung up, thinking that some drunk or some bored insomniac was entertaining himself. Then it came to me that my brother would do such a thing. I lay there wondering how his wife puts up with him, especially now, while Mary's pregnant.

Pregnant?

I called him, it was a girl.

(copyrighted)

(Interesting aside: when a short piece is accepted by Reader's Digest they send you a check. On the back where you sign it reads that once you sign the check you're also relinquishing all world rights to the piece. This is fine with me since Reader's Digest pays very well. Depending on which department accepts it, and how many words you've submitted, it can come to more than five bucks a word. So, you might think, how can I put these on my blog? The Digest provides an email avenue in which you can request the use of your work. I made two such requests so far, one a year ago, and never received an answer. I then decided to post them. Therefore, any existing copyright belongs to The Reader's Digest. So, if you suddenly don't here from me, try to locate me--I smoke Benson & Hedges Light Menthols.)

A Pond at Dawn

It’s a seven-acre pond, six feet at its deepest, and in the path of a Canada goose flyway. On weekends, from mid-morning until dusk the shores are peopled with parents and children noisily taking in the playground and availing themselves of picnic tables that surround the pond.

I’ve fished in more exotic places, but it’s only ten minutes from my house. You’ll find me there at dawn on most warm Saturdays, fishing for largemouth bass. I’m usually the only person there, and as much as others might consider this an ungodly hour to be stirring, I consider it my godly hour.

While fishing one Saturday morning I heard a child’s voice. I turned to see a young woman with a boy about ten, walking in my direction. She was undoubtedly his mother. They shared the same light brown hair; their cheeks lightly dappled with freckles. I thought, what could they be doing here at this ungodly hour? The boy carried a brown paper shopping bag. He ran to the shore some ten feet to my right. Without any sign of acknowledging my presence he reached into his bag and began throwing bread into the water. With that, the entire goose population stopped their tranquil meandering and rushed to the bread. To avoid snagging a goose, I quickly retrieved my lure. By the time my lure reached the shore, a toddler could have walked some twenty feet into the pond with his body supported by nothing but geese.

Does this boy not see me fishing? The pond, although small, can surely accommodate one small goose feeder and a lone fisherman with enough elbowroom to satisfy both pursuits. I picked up my tackle box, smiled at the brat and moved to a small cove a safe distance from the geese.

I saw his mother sitting at one of the picnic tables some fifty feet away, her head in a book, occasionally lifting it to track her offspring. When I looked directly at her—a tacit glare to express my objection to the boy’s behavior—she gave me an obligatory smile and ducked back into her book.

I began casting. Above the boy, ring-billed gulls hovered and swooped down, snatching pieces of bread whenever a piece lay a safe distance from the intimidating geese. He’d toss some in the air, laughing as a gull caught them before the morsels dropped to the water.

I was relieved that his intrusion into my world was short-lived. I eased into a pleasing casting rhythm. Behind me the sun dappled through the scrub pines and the water’s surface danced in light and shadow.

Ten minutes later the boy was back at my side, attracted by a pair of mallards cruising my cove. The boy, this great provider, started tossing bread their way. You didn’t have to be a keen observer of nature to know that the horde of geese was paddling toward us. They now crowded in on land, pond and air.

The mallards, spooked by the arrival of this mighty throng, hurriedly flapped away. The boy smiled at me, I smiled at him. Mine was more of a crocodile smile. I quickly reeled in, sat at a picnic table, and began organizing the drawers in my tackle box until, finally, he ran out of bread. The geese lingered, honking at each other as though the lack of stale bread was the topic of conversation. They waited a short while to be absolutely sure the food ran out. Once convinced, they turned pondward almost in unison and paddled off, wiggling their tail feathers at the boy as though mooning him for running out of bread.

He walked to a trash barrel and discarded the empty bag, then wiped the palms of his hands along the front of his jeans. He looked toward his mother who was still absorbed in her book. As I stood up, thinking that I could now resume fishing, the boy began skipping rocks into the cove. This activity, I can tell you, will not have the fish in a biting mood. I sat down, and just as I was thinking of leaving, he stopped.

He walked up to me at the picnic table and sat next to my opened tackle box, eyeing my assortment of lures. I looked toward his mother who was some fifty feet away. I thought maybe she would shepherd him away now that he’d run out of ways to disturb me—or, at the very least call out with a “now-don’t-you-bother-the-man”—but, no, her book was more engaging.

When his hand hung in the air above my tackle box and I was about to politely say, “hands off,” he looked up at me and said, “My mom says I’m too young to go fishing.”

“Son,” I heard myself saying,” nobody’s too young to go fishing.” Maybe, I thought, drive a car, wed, drink a Bud…yeah, but fishing?

My pole moved back slowly then confidently whipped forward, the lure hitting the water a few inches short of a patch of lily pads—a bit awkward, but not bad for a ten-year-old.

- end -

Published in The Front Porch Syndicate (copyrighted)

Franz Kafka? Just Look Next to Dave Barry

As a child I was never able to master a coloring book. I am not sure whether it was due to my inquiring mind venturing off the paths indicated, or that my eye/hand coordination sucked. I did lean toward the former rationale, however, believing that my roaming Crayolas were in large part due to creative leanings which would eventually bear fruit.


Consequently, my frustration with coloring books led to my love of those other books-- books of text, books where there was no need to reach into my box of many colors and experience near catatonic trepidation. This romance with the bound word led me to my current undertaking-- born from a concept that I happened on, you might say, not unlike how Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity.


It came to me after installing new bookshelves above the desk in my den. I noticed that the books appeared to overwhelm the shelves-- what with the white brackets, white shelves, and white walls contrasted against the dominating colors of the book jackets. This color scheme made my installation appear somewhat shaky, and it occurred to me that a loosened screw or two could send an avalanche of books from the top shelf crashing down on me.



Concerned, I removed the books and stacked them back on the floor. I thought about putting my paperbacks on the upper tiers, but there's a total of twenty-four feet of new shelving. That's room for more than two hundred books, and organizing according to book-weight would not be an efficient way of finding anything. I sat amidst the stacks of books-- some three hundred-- thinking of ways to arrange them that wouldn't leave me suffering a concussion.

As I picked up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Thus Spake Zarathustra, a silly thought arose. Some words, I mused, are heavier than others; which led me to think that I'd rather get walloped by the lighter prose of Mark Twain than the weightiness of Friedrich Nietzsche's. Of course, the meanings of words are physically weightless-- it's the hundreds of pages wrapped in stiff binders that would do me harm. I'm not a stupid person. (You should see all my books!) I am well aware that the word "feather" carries the same corporeal weight as the word "anvil."


However, this very silliness gave me the more practical notion of arranging my books, my thriving community of authors, by how each might complement the other. To allay my fear of an avalanche I reinforced the brackets with larger screws and then tackled the books.


I put Dave Barry next to Franz Kafka: Dave to extract an occasional chuckle out of the gloomy Franz, and Franz to maybe drag the frolicking Dave out of puberty. I ran into trouble with the vitriolic Dorothy Parker and put her aside until I could find a few thick-skinned authors, but when I found G. B. Shaw and Voltaire I felt I had brought together a pretty good threesome.


Would Emily Dickinson want any company? I tried placing her-- albeit, a slim volume-- next to the gregarious Whitman who was standing erect on the second shelf, but to my disappointment Emily tilted away from Walt and dropped to the shelf in a dead faint.


This was not as easy as I had thought. I paced the den, weaving mindfully through the two hundred or so remaining authors who were waiting to be placed, and finished the day after spending an inordinate amount of time weighing the possibility of introducing the King James Bible to the I Ching. Sweat trickled down my forehead as I pondered the many contributors of both, and, what was worse, the anonymity of most of the authors-- a difficult placement task for even the most scholarly of theologians.



I suppose I should've foreseen the Herculean task ahead of me, but, I thought, if I'm to commit myself to this initiative, then all the books in the den should be part of the same system. I therefore removed the books from the other shelves that flanked my den and sat among them, counting. The tome-tally came to eight hundred and fifty-three-- excluding magazines, six personal notebook journals, and a dog-eared New York subway map.


It's been a few months since I started this project, and I've been spending the better part of my waking hours in the den. My wife has established a regimen of bringing my lunch, carefully setting the tray down on four towers of selected, neatly stacked books that I had erected-- selections that I know will try my organizational skills and will remain idle until I'm near completion. Oddly, she's yet to ask about my semi-seclusion. It's probably just as well since I'd be hard put to give a satisfactory answer-- her being a Dewey Decimal kind of woman.


This morning was quite productive. I found it easy to find a place for my self-help books. In one fell swoop I relegated them to the den's darkest corner. I did this with little remorse, since, among other failed attempts at perusing them for self improvement, I'm still uncomfortably overweight and have yet to cease my nail biting.


As of today, my efforts left me with a mere four hundred and twenty-four books still waiting for homes. The afternoon was a bit troublesome, though. From noon until the late day shadows crept across the last of my shelved books, I scrupulously examined two authors, but I just couldn't decide, in good conscience, if I should put Scott and Zelda together again.


Rich has taken some time off from writing and is busying himself with convincing the Library of Congress to adapt his system.

Published in Absolute Write (copyrighted)

First Love

I suppose you could've called it a love triangle--Cindy was smitten with me, and I was smitten with fishing. In the summer of 1958 my parents rented a bungalow on a cove in Greenwood Lake, New Jersey. It was there that I met Cindy and her brother, Hank, who were staying in the adjacent bungalow. They were close to my age and seemed to know all there was to know about fishing. Of course, that was only the opinion of a 12-year-old boy who was baiting hooks for the first time.

The two of them had plenty of fishing gear and gladly shared it. We spent a good portion of our days sitting on the dock watching bobbers disappear and pulling up sunnies and perch.

Cindy always seemed to be sitting between me and Hank, and when there was no room to squeeze in, she'd choose the side next to me. She was pretty. Her red hair caught fire in the sun, and her dimples just jumped out at me when she smiled my way--and she smiled my way a lot.

But Hank was teaching me about this new, mysterious world of fishing, and at this time in my life, girls were just not a big priority

Thinking back, it must have taken her a lot of courage to ask me to go to the movies. She and her mother were going shopping the next day. After that, she said, her mother could drop her off at the movie house and pick us up later. If my parents could drive me to town that afternoon, we could meet there.

Since Hank didn't like movies, I suppose Cindy was kind of cutting me from the herd to get more of my attention. But I thought a movie sounded good. The show started at 6. I'd have plenty of time to fish before leaving.

By the middle of the next day, Hank and I were at our usual fishing spots and Cindy and her mother were in town.

"You know..." said Hank, with that far-off look he used when he was about to talk fish.

"What?" I said, with that intense look I used when he was about to talk fish.

"It's gonna be a full moon tonight."

"Yeah...and?"

"Catfish," he said, searching the bright sky. "Much bigger than these sunnies. You bottom fish for 'em. Small balls of white bread. Big, big bullheads. They start bitin' just before dusk. 'Specially on a full moon."

"But the movie...." I said.

"Cindy goes every week when the picture changes. She's there with or without you."

"Catfish," I thought. Even the word enchanted me. I'd never seen a catfish. Suddenly "sunny" and "perch" just didn't have the ring, the gusto, of "catfish." And since Cindy went to the movies every week anyway....

Hank's catfish expertise failed him that late afternoon. We didn't feel a nibble. I decided to give up on the dough balls and switch to worms. Later, we heard Cindy's footsteps coming toward us. When she reached the dock, her steps took on an unfamiliar knocking sound. Without turning to see her, I realized it was caused by shoe leather. Cindy was wearing real shoes.

I didn't turn to look. I was feeling a bit guilty about not meeting her. Hank--maybe feeling a bit guilty himself--got to his feet, put his pole over his shoulder, and gave me a quick "See ya," then walked away.

Cindy was right behind me, but I didn't look at her. I just sat there staring down at the water, not sure at all what she was doing but certain that her dimples weren't showing. She didn't say anything. Maybe she was waiting for an explanation. All I could hear was the persistent chatter of crickets and the moans of bullfrogs.

When she moved directly to my right I had no choice but to look at her. The full moon lit her up, showing off the light-blue dress she had worn to the movie. I didn't know what to say. Trying to act as though nothing were wrong, I said something anyway: "Well, I guess catfish don't like worms, do they?"

As she walked off the dock, she said, "Me either."


- END -


Published in Field & Stream (Copyrighted)

An aside: I thought it would be a good idea, especially for beginning writers, to give some anecdotal stuff behind a published piece. I sent something to Field & Stream a while back. It was written in the present tense and was closer to a prose poem than it was prose. The rejection letter read:

"Dear Mr. Marino:

I'm sorry to have to return "The Long Walk." Five of us read it and no one undertood it. I wish I could be more enlightening than that, but that's how it was."

--------------

The next story I sent them was "First Love."

Don't be discouraged by rejections. Keep them as you would purple hearts. I keep mine in a file called "Love Letters." Yeah, in a purple folder.

Haiku for Anglers

O Lord, allow me
At least a few fish this day.
My buddy, one less

I lurch far forward
From the sharp bend of my pole
Another stump, hooked

The fish eagle dives
Snatching unsuspecting bass
“Please, leave some for me”

The sun’s rays cause sweat
Beads to drop from brow to reel--
And me, out of beer

A box in a shed:
Within, a tangled treasure
Of forgotten lures


The best laid plans of
Mice and Men shrink in the midst
Of the picky trout

The old fishing hole
Memories of hooked whoppers,
Whatever their size

How many great lures,
From impatient casts, still swing
From the tall flora?

Feed a man a fish,
It’s one meal. Teach him to fish
He’ll mooch your tackle.

Proverb for the skunked:
Blessed are the poor of catch
For they lie the best

Published in ROSEBUD (copyrighted)

An Exceedingly Presumptuous Wine

My wife and I do have meaningful conversations, but the one we had last Saturday afternoon wasn’t one of them. We had just heard a news item on TV that a small bottle of wine was sold for nine thousand dollars. In contrast, the most expensive liquid in our possession was a gallon of extra virgin olive oil.

It was a French wine with a two-word name—one of those throat-clearing, tongue twisting names that if a French Berlitz instructor spent a week coaching me I’d still screw it up. The nearest I’d come to describing it would be, “It’s French and red.”

“What if,” my wife said, “somebody gave us that bottle as a gift?”

Normally we wouldn’t go to any great lengths in pursuing such a “what if,” but it was a rainy Saturday. I got out my calculator and converted a seven hundred and fifty milliliter bottle into ounces. It came to a little over twenty-five. After briefly whistling, I announced that a bottle like that costs about three hundred and fifty bucks an ounce. My wife also briefly whistled.

“Do you realize,” she said, “that if a little spills when you pop the cork, say a half ounce, we’d lose one hundred and seventy-five dollars?”

I mentally went down a list of relatives and friends who had the wherewithal to give us such a gift and concluded that we would not be in danger of losing one hundred and seventy-five bucks. I then added fuel to the conversation by throwing this in: “Let’s say we each had a glass of it, say three ounces each. That would mean we would’ve swallowed over two thousand bucks of the stuff.”

Both of us nodded, our eyebrows involuntarily rising to the occasion. We sat quietly for a minute—each trying to put this into perspective. I pictured this extremely costly liquid swishing around my taste buds and could actually hear the buds discussing their dilemma: “Well, who’s gonna tell him we’re not sure how to interpret this stuff? It’s obviously exotic, and our guy here is strictly a Coke and McDonald’s man.”

I knew my wife’s thoughts were moving along these same lines. Her cheeks were puffed up as though she was at the bathroom sink with a mouthful of Listerine. We were both much concerned—the two of us in just a few minutes’ time had already consumed over two thousand bucks of wine and we’re still holding off buying a bigger refrigerator. I estimate our cold food stock to be some three cubic feet more than the fridge’s capacity.

She gave me a real worried look and asked, “What if we don’t like the taste?”

This gave me pause—not only would my first glass, one thousand and fifty bucks worth, not be as gratifying as that kind of money should gratify, but it also might taste funny.

“What if,” she continued, “we drank some and put the bottle in the refrigerator?”

“So?”

“Will it go bad after a while?”

“Shit.” I said, “I’m sure it’s the cork kind. I’ve always had trouble with re-corking.” She was what-iffing the two of us into a mild depression. I looked out the window at the dull, rainy day, wondering why those expensive wines never give you the luxury of a screw-on cap.

With my thoughts on the cork, another observation came to mind. The cork itself would have absorbed some wine—maybe a fiftieth of an ounce? That means that the cork alone would steal some seven bucks of wine; enough to buy a half-gallon of domestic burgundy.

Less costly, but if I were a chemist, still calculable: how many molecules would disappear if I decided to sniff its bouquet? Since my nose, wine-wise, is just as uneducated as my taste buds, that would be one foolish sniff.

We were not enjoying this wine.

Another whistle, but this time it was the kettle calling us to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

She poured the steaming water into the cups. The teabags swirled and gradually colored the liquid. After prying the container of milk from the refrigerator, I sat down and sipped my tea. It was hot and comforting and familiar. With a broad smile my wife lifted her cup as though about to make a toast, “About a penny an ounce.”

We were much relieved.

- end -

Published in The Front Porch Syndicate (copyrighted)

Great Blue Heron

We startled each other. He was in a position where he couldn't spread his six-foot wingspan, and I had a camera around my neck. After the shot he tiptoed out of the brush,pondward, then flew off.

It's 2 AM and I'm Awake, I think

Sometimes, after waking in the middle of the night--as was the case this morning--and deciding that I might as well urinate while I'm up, I don't return to bed. This is because my wife takes advantage of my absence and sprawls her slumbering body across the mattress. Rather then readjust her to the proper sleeping position so that I, too, can fit, I go downstairs and ponder how this new day will treat me.

Such is the case this morning. My two dogs are sleeping in their crates. We really don't need crates. The Beagle is four and the Wheaten Terrier is three. Both are house-broken so the crates are never locked. They just prefer to sleep in their crates so the crates remain like two little houses within a larger house because the dogs want it that way. There are two doggy beds located outside their crates which they take advantage of when it comes to quick, daytime naps, but the crates serve as their overnight residence.

These crates are four feet long and two and a half feet wide and sit between a walnut end table and an overstuffed leather chair. If we ever hired an interior decorator she'd have a difficult time fitting these kennels into any kind of harmonius scheme--a Feng Shui designer would take one look at them and reconsider her father's offer to manage his Chinese restaurant.

So, I'm sitting on the couch, awake, but still under some influence of Morpheus, when the Beagle waddles out of his crate. He sits and stares at me. The Wheaten follows suit. I know if I ignore them they'll not bother me for a bit. Both turn away and start slowly stretching their bodies. They're almost in unison--like some kind of doggy Tai Chi class.

This doesn't last long. They're back to sitting and staring at me. Now, this probably didn't happen exactly the way I'm about to explain it, but keep in mind that as much as I was upright and moving, I was probably still asleep.

I knew what the two of them were thinking, "He's awake; therefore, he should open the back door so we can either pee or sniff around the backyard...or both."

"No way," I thought. With that I began to explain why. I know that's silly, but be honest, you do it too.

"It's two AM. Just because I'm up it doesn't mean I'm gonna let you out."

The Beagle was first, "What? You think we can tell time? You're up; what's the difference?"

Too sleepy to be startled by his sudden acquisition of speech, I said, "Because at this ungodly hour you both should be sleeping."

The Wheaten: So, why are you up?

Me: Because my wife hogs the bed. I don't have the luxury of owning a
crate of my own.

Beagle: C'mon, just five minutes outside.

Me: Ah ha! You can tell time!

Beagle: No. You just call us in five minutes.

Me: Since when do you guys come when I call?

Wheaten: Four minutes?

With that I hustled them into their crates and locked them in. I vaguely remember the Beagle whispering to the Wheaten--something like, "The next time let me do all the talking."

As much as couches are wide they're never wide enough between the arms to prevent your head from burrowing into one of them. I then slept...I think.

A Scatterbrain Day

Sunday, for me, is a bad day for writing. Earlier, I decided to edit a first draft that's been sleeping for about a week. It didn't happen. I then decided to do some rewriting on a newly rejected piece, but couldn't decide on a market to send it to. It's easier to look for markets before you rewrite; then you have an excuse not to rewrite when you don't find the perfect market.

There are no acceptances on Sundays--then again, there are no rejections either. (Although, one Sunday I inquired via email about three pieces I had sent out. The editor, that Sunday night, emailed me that he was accepting two of them--maybe some friend or relative of mine was in church that day, praying for me.)

Ever walk out of your house on Sunday and unconsciously check your mailbox? I have--just in case. I tend to do it with emails to, but then I have the excuse that I'm just checking my email.

Then you think, "Hey, Sunday's a day of rest anyway" while trying to forget that you didn't write Friday and Saturday either. Tomorrow's Monday--a day when the world gets back to being productive. I, too, can do that.

I'm going fishing--hey, it's Sunday.

Gawdening

Who plants veggies? I sometimes do. Last year I planted tomatoes in two huge half-barrels used for whiskey. (It took me a whole month of serious drinking to empty that barrel.) The tomato plants were well on their way to puberty when my wife, while weeding, weeded them. I never told her what she did, for that would've ended up as an endless argument over my not telling her I planted tomatoes there in the first place.

This year I planted Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, and cucumbers. Further, I started the tomatoes and peppers indoors in little pots. I kept them in my office by the window, which meant that one of my cats who loves everything green, needed to be kept out--hard to do when his favorite sleeping spot is behind my printer.

Two days ago, after a week of preparing new ground for my expected cornucopia--that meaning fencing to keep away my pets, tilling new soil, and shoveling in manure and top soil--I sowed.

(Oh, I also still had the half-barrels from last year to seed. I had mixed emotions about that, since the downing of the barrel's contents last year, I felt, was part of the ritual of good farm management and there was this little twinge of guilt in bypassing one of the steps that would insure me a good harvest.)

Anyway, my wife leaned over the deck, watching me sweat my ass off installing the fencing around my soon to be crop.

"I didn't know you were gonna plant tomatoes there."

I looked up, afraid to ask why. "Why?"

"I planted flowers there."

"Why?"

"We got a complimentary package of red, white and blue flowers from Blieberg's Plumbing. I thought they'd look nice there."

"Why?"

"It's patriotic."

"If you want to show you're patriotism you plant them in the FRONT yard!" I explained.

I finished relocating a number of seeds and plants about one AM that night. I then surfed for The Jack Daniel's Distilling Company, hoping that within a week I'd have a barrel to saw. But first I'd have to go through the ritual I should've gone through before I sowed.

I love gawdening.