Above my desk at home hangs a framed poster of a painting by John William Waterhouse, a poster I have kept for almost thirty years. The painting is titled The Lady of Shalott, named after the famous poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I bought this poster in a poster shop on…
Since the first day that Vladimir Putin’s army invaded Ukraine, I’ve stopped reading and writing. I should say, my only reading is news about the invasion (as well as Club Plum submissions). My books and journals sit untouched, and the essays I had thought I would tackle are still undeveloped, hastily voiced notes spoken into…
Congratulations to Club Plum contributor, Ann-Marie Brown, whose dreamy painting, Plums, was chosen as a 2022 Best of the Net Anthology Finalist in the Art category. Over 3,500 entries from many journals in all categories were submitted. So. That is something. Please see Ann-Marie Brown’s chosen piece below and also in Volume 1, Issue 3,…
I’ve been working from home since March 2020. I am one of the lucky ones, able to sit in a comfortable chair and do all my paid tasks with the joining of fingertips and keycaps, sometimes with video and audio, sometimes with time-sensitive texts, but always with communication, cooperation and collaboration of real people. I…
Come December, I will bake many cookies–hundreds, I suppose. I try to call these Holiday Cookies, not Christmas Cookies because I am an atheist, though I wasn’t always. Many years ago, I adopted the yearly cookie-baking to which my mother-in-law introduced me. My own mother had never baked, so I reveled in this new endeavor,…
Congratulations to Club Plum’s 2021 Best of the Net nominees! It looks like this year is the first year Sundress Publications has opened up a category for art, and I am thrilled they did so because our pages are full of wonderful visual offerings. See last year’s Best of the Net winners and finalists in…
Yesterday, I trimmed the one hedge that occupies our small bit of property. I always wait until the purple flowers bloom, wait until the bees have danced and pollinated, wait until the blossoms are no more. The waiting creates a wild display of California Lilac branches, sticking this way and that way, perhaps an eyesore…
Welcome, April. We are so glad you are here–bringing with you, in some places in our world, vaccinations aplenty, infrastructure plans, a killer cop in court, and for some, the luxury of sitting in a restaurant, at a little table for two, eating beautiful food placed on a surface in close proximity to our very…
Dropping today is the first-year anniversary issue of Club Plum. I state this with calm and little fanfare, though not too much trepidation because with all the bad we’ve had, there is now hope. The Bad Man is almost out the door, and though blood has been shed at his behest, he is packing his…
Unexpected things happened in this last issue of the first volume of Club Plum–mainly, horror and hybrids. Horror, because one playfully creepy submission landed in my inbox and ignited my desire to put out a call for more. Hybrids–or hybrids of hybrids one might say–because we were presented with pieces that seemed to contain more…
Club Plum 