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Author Spotlights

Celebrating the release of, “Sweat” we are going to spotlight a few of the incredible writer’s who contributed to the collection. This week we are setting our sights on Allie Nadeau. Follow the link below to learn more about Allie, read an exclusive interview, and read her nonfiction poetry.

Author Spotlight – Allie Nadeau
Author Spotlight – Michaela Brady

Peek Inside!

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Murder

By Allison Nadeau

take summer for what it’s supposed to be
eleven years old,
dingy shacks that smell like mildew
and a lake that refuses to be heated by the sun
but it’s ninety degrees
aren’t we all just trying to take our clothes off?

summer camp where we can’t kayak
and all the older boys look hand-sculpted by God
I was convinced they were put here
for me.

this twenty-something sweetheart
he can do push-ups with little girls on his back
and I’m here asking
why wasn’t I pretty enough
as if a ten year age gap
is nothing

some things never change.

I made gimp keychains and scraped my knees
got angry when I realized Caelyn’s wrists were littler than mine no one wants “chicken arms” anyway.

and Marco’s playing tag
with those twenty-something legs
twenty-something mouth
I worship the ground he walks on
but as a twenty-something,
he doesn’t give a fuck.

eight years later and
I can’t get their eyes off of me.

now I drive like a maniac
just to get to the shore
where it’s so cold I
want to smoke two packs of cigarettes
and the dead deer on the side of the road

makes me need three.

neck snapped and its innards spread thinly on the gravel
I know an omen when I see one and
I’m gonna kill myself trying to forget it.

and the beach is cloudy
waveless ocean I just want to drown in
but the seagulls beg me to leave
just before I see two crows:
that’s one short of a murder.

tell me
how could this get any worse?

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“Superheaters: A Forum”

By J. T. Townley

Dear Dr. Rob,
            I can’t remember the last time Hephaestus and I slept in the same bed.  We don’t even share the same room anymore, since I can’t bear the heat.  I make myself a pallet each night in front of the hearth and open all the windows.  As a blacksmith, Heph works around a blazing furnace all day, every day, so he must’ve absorbed too much heat over the years.  The man is a human volcano.
            That’s why we moved up here.  We hoped cooler climes might make everything a little easier.  Heph had no trouble finding work, since smithies are always in demand, and it didn’t take long before he set up his own shop.  Only thing is, the cold, wet winters only make him radiate even more hotly.  We’re both making an effort.  He gave up cigars.  He only takes cold showers—which don’t faze him at all.  I monitor his diet to insure he avoids spicy foods.  In fact, we’ve done everything you suggested on your Superheaters Special, Dr. Rob, but none of it seems to be making any difference.  The house heats up so much at night, I almost can’t sleep at all.  I take long walks in the dark drizzle just to get some relief.
            I don’t mean to complain.  In many ways, we’re very fortunate.  Business is good.  We’re both healthy.  But this crazy heat thing has gone on too long, and I’m at my wit’s end.  Any advice you might offer would be welcome.

Home fires burning,
Hestia
Olympia, WA

Dear All,
            I am come a light into the world, that whosoever batheth in me should not abide in darkness.  Or coldness, for that matter.  For I am the original Superheater, driving my chariot across the sky each day, bringing you life-giving heat from ninety-three million miles away.  I’ve even inspired my own cult of worshippers, oiled up and reveling in the golden light.  So show a little respect.  Without me, where would you be?

Hot enough for ya?
Helios
Phoenix, AZ

Dear Dr. Rob
            Can’t say I’m a fan of your show.  I’d never even heard of it until my buddy Flint mentioned your Superheaters Special.  Glad he did, too.  My mom (Vesta), my dad (Vulcan), and me—we always thought we were just hot-natured.  But I go to the gas pump, nine times out of ten, some part of me catches fire—my hand, my arm, one time my whole right side.  Feed me Jim Beam and Kettle Chips, and I’m belching fire the rest of the night.  That’s how I made friends in school, and it’s a great party trick, but still.  
Anyway, thanks for helping me realize we’re not alone.  I’ll recommend your special to my folks, as I think they’d get a lot out of it.

Out of the frying pan,
Caucus
Rome, OR

Dr. Robert Geoffries,
            I guess I’m what you’d call a Superheater, though I never thought about myself that way before your special aired.  I mean, I sweat through my sheets almost every night, but I always figured that was just the climate.  Summers are brutal in Athens.  They seem to last most of the year. 
            Still, I can’t remember the last time I convinced a lover to stay the night.  “You’re so hot,” they tell me, feeling for their clothes in the dim light.  “But hot’s a good thing, right?”  “Not that kind of hot,” they say.  Then come the comparisons:  like spooning in a sauna, like snuggling in a sweat lodge, like trying to sleep in the bowels of hell.  By now, I’ve heard them all.
            And I don’t get it.  I stay away from Vindaloo and chiles rellenos and Sichuan chicken, and I only take cold showers.  As for “vigorous exercise,” as you call it, I never engage in it before bed.  I mean, I’m not insane, right?
            I am a pretty dedicated runner, though.  I put in sixty miles or more most weeks and have for years.  Not in the heat of the day, but early in the morning before things really start to steam up.  It’s who I am, and even though it may be part of the problem, I don’t plan to change any time soon.  Yet I don’t want to live alone forever.
            Any other runners out there want to get together for an easy 10k and some cold beers?  I could use the companionship.

All fired up,
Hermes
Athens, GA

Dear Dr. Slob,
            We’re not sheep, you blowhard quack.  Are you even a real M.D.?  Seriously, people, don’t be so gullible!  Are you that desperate that you’ll actually listen to a TV doctor?  Just because information comes to you in flickering blue light doesn’t make it true.  Wake up!  Heat is life, but Mr. Quackjob is pushing cold death, and all to turn a buck.  He’s a manipulative predator and a low-down, dirty liar.  
            Be your own man.  Follow your own star.  And more than anything, be true to yourself.  So you run hot?  So what?  If the good “doctor” doesn’t like it, he can crawl back into his hole.  He won’t be missed.

Where’s the fire?
Agni
Calcutta, OH

Dear Superheaters,
            Y’all are something else, a true gift and blessing to this world.  Thanks to the good doctor for bringing us all together like this.
Like some of y’all, I’m a bona fide blacksmith, or used to be.  I apprenticed for a while, a short while, but it didn’t take exactly.  What’s the point of pounding steel like some drudge when you got perfectly fine flames right there in front of you?  I never could figger it out.  That pulsing dance of orange and red always distracted me, so I’d stare into the furnace for hours on end, hypnotized.  Bossman didn’t care for it.  Come to find out, his shop burned to the ground, so I had to move on.
Anyway, you folks are A-okay in my book.  You ever need a place to crash, an ear to bend, a friend to light the fuse, give me a holler.  Seriously, day or night, it don’t matter.  Like Trashfire always sings, “No escapade, no cheap pomade, just a pyromania.”  Let’s light it up, y’all.

Fire forever,
Cole Black
El Fuego, TX

Dear all,
            So the wifey won’t share a bed with you anymore.  So you get night sweats from nightmares about burning in the pits of hell.  So what?  We’re not freaks.  Our heat is our strength, our power, what makes us unique in the world.  Embrace it!  Enough crying and bitching and moaning.  Enough feeling ashamed, inadequate, and sorry for yourself.  Have a little dignity and self-respect.    

Feet to the fire,
Ra
Cairo, IL

Dear Dr. Geoffries,
            Most people have heard about the punishment I’ve suffered.  The rock, the eagle, my liver:  a life of eternal torment.  By Zeus, it was a grueling, degrading experience, made all the worse for how long it went on.  I kept hoping I might expire and thereby escape the excruciating pain.  But then I’d catch sight of that broad silver wingspan sailing on a distant updraft, and I knew all hope was lost.
       What almost no one pays attention to, though, is the root of my suffering, the original source of my pain, the crime, so-called, that led to my prolonged punishment.  It was alleged that I stole fire, which never made a lot of sense to me.  Fire’s not exactly something that can be stolen, like jewels or innocence or even life itself.  Yet it’s possible that the real crime was giving it away—though, again, what might that mean?  The power of flames was there all along, and all I did was demonstrate how it could be harnessed and put to work.  Where’s the harm in that?
       Despite all the pain and suffering I endured, despite the cruel and unusual punishment to which I was sentenced, that experience pales in comparison to what I’m now dealing with.  It’s the reason I’m writing today.  I can’t sleep a wink, Doc.  The bedding feels as if it’s about to catch fire.  My pillow’s so hot on both sides, I think it may melt.  When I’m lucky, I down a jug of Gallo Pinto red and pass out on the floor in front of the box fan.
         So I guess I’m a Superheater, Doc, and the irony’s not lost on me.  I’ve become the fire I (allegedly) stole.  Touché, Zeus.    

Where there’s smoke,
Prometheus
Ithaca, NY

Mr. Dr. Rob,
            We’ve tried everything.  Bamboo sheets, a thin cotton blanket, cooling gel pillows.  We even bought a special mattress that’s designed to draw away body heat.  We’re talking thousands of dollars here, folks, but none of it has done any good.  We even throw open the windows in the middle of winter, but we’re both still scorching hot.  One of us always gets burned out and winds up on the living room couch.  He calls me Hella Hot; I call him Mr. Man-o-pause; neither of us is amused.  It’s gotten so bad, we sold our California King and got our own twin beds.  I set mine up in the spare bedroom.  When he still couldn’t get any rest, Xiuhtecuhtli unfolded a cot in the garden shed and began converting it into habitable space.  It’s no way to live, Doc.  We can’t take much more of this.  There has to be some way to contain all this heat.   

Superheaters 4 Life,
Chantico & Xiuhtecuhtli
Texcoco, TX

To:  Lost Souls
From:  He of Many Names

You are mistaken:  heat is not the enemy.  Soak in cauldrons of magma, red-orange tongues licking you clean.  Bathe in your own cinders, scrubbing yourself with ash.  Embrace all fires the fire.  Only in flame will you be purified.  

The Prince of Darkness Has Spoken
Lake of Fire, Gehenna

Doctor Robert “Rob” Geoffries,
            Hot Flash.  That’s what they all started calling me—Kāne Milohai, Kamohoali‘i, Nāmaka, and all my sisters name Hi‘laka.  What would Earth Mother and Sky Father think?  It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I hadn’t had to hear it all the time, but we were still living together, and our fire pit Halema‘uma‘u in Kīlauea’s summit caldera isn’t as big as you might think.
            It got under my skin, and my brothers and sisters all knew it.  They would egg each other on.  I knew they were just trying to get a rise out of me, but I couldn’t help it.  All I saw was red.  I’ve always been known for my volcanic temper, and sure enough, I would explode every time.  On one hand, my tantrums were productive, expanding the landmass and making the Big Island even bigger.  On the other, all that lava destroyed whole neighborhoods in a single flow.  People lost their homes because of me.  It was a real problem.
            When it finally got too bad, I moved to O‘ahu and found an apartment in Honolulu.  I’m keeping on the downlow.  But I can still hear them saying Hot Flash and snickering at me.  It wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t true.  Any advice on how to cope?

Hot under the collar,
Madame Pele
Honolulu, HI

The Good Doctor & Co.,
            You people need to grow a pair.  (Here’s looking at you, Hermes.)  You don’t like the lot you drew?  Tough luck.  Either deal with it or make a change, but for the love of Zeus, quit whining.  You think I go all crybaby when, twelve miles into twenty-six-point-two, my feet start to blister or my Achilles heel flares up?  Gimme a break.  I dig deep and race for the finish line.  You can’t go crying to mommy every time you get scared and lonely and think nobody loves you.  Walk it off!  
And if, like poor Hermes, you can’t find a date, maybe you should work on your approach.  Look at me.  I run hotter than most, so I found a woman who runs even hotter than me—and maybe even faster.  Talk about aych-oh-tee!  Name’s Atalanta.  I’m sure you’ve heard of her:  she’s won gold in every Olympics so far.  
So life’s not fair.  Get over yourself.  And please stop being such titty-babies about the whole thing.

Great balls of fire,
Pheidippides
Marathon, IA

For Superheaters Everywhere:

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This cutting-edge technology allows you to control your comfort, no matter the ambient room temperature.  Strap it to your wrist and see how easy it can be to take your life back.  Feeling a little warm?  Set the Kay Onda Personal Wrist Thermostat to Cool and it’s like the AC’s blowing on high.  Sweat trickling down your back and pitting out your Oxford?  Set the Kay Onda to Cold and the Arctic relief arrives in seconds.  On the verge of volcanic eruption?  Set your Personal Wrist Thermostat to Frigid, and you’ll feel like you’re inside a meat locker before you can say “Fires of Gehenna.”  With the Kay Onda Personal Wrist Thermostat, even the hottest day in your personal hellhole can feel like a perfect spring morning.
Kay Onda was a pioneer in testing human heat tolerance and one of the first documented cases of fatal spontaneous combustion.  In homage to her pioneering spirit, her children started the Kay Onda Exploratory Heat Research Laboratory.  And now, for a limited time only, they’re offering an exclusive deal on the revolutionary Kay Onda Personal Wrist Thermostat just for you.  Call 1-800-HOT-HEAT or visit our website at http://www.kayondaway.com. 

Why wait?  Get yours today!       
Blaze Estrella for Kay Onda Enterprises, Inc.
Houston, TX

Dear Dr. Rob,
Thanks for hosting this forum.  My son recommended your show, and I’m glad he did.  It’s comforting to know my situation is more common than I imagined.  My husband is a blacksmith, too, and a human volcano who drove me from our connubial bed with his heat.  I moved into the guest bedroom.  We’re both miserable.  But how can I make us a happy home when I wake up in the darkness with my brains boiling and my skin on fire?  Vulcan screams himself awake, then rages, yellow-eyed and panting, about melting skies and burning children.  I can’t listen to his nightmares anymore.  They’re contagious.
I still love him deeply, but I won’t let him get close enough to touch me for fear I’ll spontaneously combust.  Now he doesn’t come home after work, roaming the night into the wee hours.  Who knows where he goes?  When he finally stumbles in, the stench of singed hair, hot whiskey, and cheap perfume draws me from dreams of ice falls and glacial breezes.
We don’t know what to do.  This situation isn’t tenable.  Maybe Hestia, Chantico, and some of the others might like to start a support group?  Even if our men are too proud, we could still get together for moral support.    

Trial by fire,
Vesta
Rome, OR

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Seduction

By Rey Fairburn

I don’t have butterflies in my stomach
Instead, I have cicadas
Burrowed in my limbs
Making a playground of my ribcage
They scream when you come near
Drowning out any other thought that dare cross my mind
Any thought other than you coming closer, closer
Aching for you to take me apart
To unravel the threads in my veins
Open me and witness the horrors inside
Blood and guts and bugs
And take me not in spite of it
But because of it
Dirt and grime drawing you in
I am not the holy mary virgin they tried to make of me
I baptized myself in mud and made myself a saint
So come worship at my altar of ruin
Under this new-moon night
Take me in your arms
Drink up this sacrament
And worship me

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A Monologue Delivered to the Back of a Stranger 

By Ezra James Fiddimore

I know that look. It’s that plague doctor look, don’t get too close to me kinda look, you will contaminate me. Yes. Sorry. I’ve never dissected it because I suppose you must be right. I come from the fog. 

You run fast as hell, and I run too (if only to open the door for you). It’s all black in here anyway, you wouldn’t like it, not to assume; my insides are like the drain of a sink, the scummy up of a faucet, decades-old football cleats left to dry off after the rain, yadda yadda. The kind of thing you really wouldn’t want to stick your hand into. 

And it’s odd between us, isn’t it, stranger? New friend. Acquaintance. It’s weeeeird. I never outlast the benefit of the doubt, and we have a conversation with bent necks, hollering through the gaps in the legs of the great big fuck-off elephant in the room. (Oh wow, oh man. There’s nothing in there, is there. Does he know?) (I don’t think he does.) 

Sad isn’t the dominating feeling here. Weird, as you well know, is a biological fact. It’s a flush of chemicals in the veins all howling get-me-out-of-here, the voice of I’m-too-young cells, moving your legs before you even know it. These are the whistling Appalachian woods, the too-dark living room windows. This is my flagship, this is my calling card. (Get me out of here.) (Sorry. Sorry.) My, um. 

My no-lipstick-stains on the operatic cigarette holder, my no-shoeprints on your doormat, my no-mug-of-tea left behind from my visit, I was never here. I come from the fog, did I say, I’m a face in a window. I was never a child for I have no recollection, and I was never a man, for there was nothing between my legs, and I was never a stranger for I never locked eyes, and I was never truly alive for I was never caught in the rain, and if I was born at all, that’s a memory for my mother, but when I die, that one will be just for me. 

So anyway, so anyway, sorry, ignore me. Anyway. Um. On connection: I suspect that it is joy that bonds people, and that it rushes up from inside them like a fucking hot spring and permeates the skin from the inside. Don’t I wish, you said, sorry? That that was me? You have no idea. 

But wishing isn’t the dominant action here, because hollow is very becoming. Hollow feeds hollow; hollow begets hollowness; hollow is as hollow does, and I am the inside of an unfertilised egg, my life is inside of the egg, the whole world is on the inside of this egg. 

Hello, stranger. Okay: I’ll be you, and you be me. I wish I could do this to you all, you know. Isn’t that wrong? But it’s done now. One faulty look and the lines of your web are cut; your suckers are dropped; you’re spinning out like an asteroid while the great vacuum smoothes ya down – like a pebble on the shore, like ice in the mouth of a dog. So it doesn’t matter much whether you’re in the sea or the sky or the palm of somebody’s hand; it’s all quiet to you. 

You’re supposed to be wanting something but you don’t know what. In another life, you were just a rock, and your job was to burn. But you will be again, someday. 

A rock, I mean. Someone will carve a face out of you and think they are doing you a service.