The month of June brings with it the last dregs of spring and the “dog days” of summer which become shorter as the Earth tilts and spins on its axis. This year, it also brings with it boundless change, transition, metamorphosis. Evolution in all of its forms- both physical and intangible.

But what does it mean to evolve?

According to @JillyBoyd, “Evolution is the dawn of time, the moments where we were nothing but a distant fact and Earth and the universe were nothing but molecules waiting for their moment. Evolution is now. Evolution is history, is future, is you and your life and the lives of others and change and regret and power and remorse and revolution and rapture and ecstasy...”

What does evolution mean to you?

Last month we asked the entire community to tell us their own tales of change. Of the 34 entries, 25 Prosers demonstrated a strong command of language, creativity, and originality. These 25 pieces of the most intense and beautiful pieces of poetry and prose are now live- available for download- in our second e-book release.

For the month of July, rather than publishing Volume III of the Prose Anthologies, we are releasing a special Haiku edition e-book. For your chance to be published in this first Haiku edition, please enter the following challenge anytime this month: https://theprose.com/challenge/2352.

In the meantime, to find out who made the cut, get your copy of Volume II of The Prose Anthologies on Amazon today:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011F7XYP4?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

(For Prosers in the U.S.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B011F7XYP4?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

(For Prosers in the U.K.)

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B011F7XYP4?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

(For Prosers in Canada)

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B011F7XYP4

(For Prosers in Australia)

You're a butterfly

With golden spotted wings

Fluttering

You're attracted

To flowers

And their sweet nectar

Basking in the sun

I'm a moth

Hidden in the

The tall bluegrass

Flourishing at night

Plain and simple

Shades of brown and grey

A nuisance at its best

you drive me to solipsism.

though I spend hours thinking

of the curve of your lips

and the soft of your fingers,

you are not my muse.

I could not care less for your hands

or your smile, too preoccupied

with myself

to be awed by your splendor.

it is not your touch that enraptures me,

but the feel of my skin

beneath it.

For this week's Friday Feature we are traveling North out of the United States to Canada, where national health care is free and talent is nothing short of abundant.

This particular Proser is an illustrator, graphic design artist, and a social media spitfire.

Susan Wright Boucher, known here as "@Sooz," started out on the east coast of Canada and, through a series of corporate relocations, ended up on the west coast in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.

"About a year ago I left the 60+ hour corporate work week and now work part-time from home doing employer branding, copywriting and social media management."

Her short story entitled, "Boy Named Sue," appeared in Volume I of The Prose Anthologies, #Death. For more information, and to download the publication, please search "The Prose Anthologies" on Amazon.com.

She was also recently accepted into the Prose Partner Program.

P: What is your relationship with writing and how has it evolved?

S: Writing and language have always fascinated me. For many years the only writing I did was for business. It was getting kind of stale for me until I started writing on Prose. The creative writing challenges have sparked my imagination and rekindled my enthusiasm.

P: Briefly discuss the value that reading adds to both your personal and professional life.

S: I grew up in a home where books were central. Mom and Dad used them for DIY projects and the coffee table always held an interesting assortment of library books for anyone who cared to hunker down for a read. Later on, being an avid business book reader contributed to my career success.

These days I'm making my way through as much colourful fiction as I can get my hands on. I particularly enjoy L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz series (did you know he wrote 14 full-length Oz books?) and Lewis Carroll.

I also adore reading blogs. They give you an unprecedented view of the writer as they're frequently published without professional editing. I do 99% of my reading online (we've run out of room for bookshelves!) but one printed book I'd like to own is Stephen King's "On Writing."

P: How would you describe your current literary ventures and what can we look forward to in future posts?

S: Right now I'm playing with some fiction plots I'd like to write and illustrate. Nothing concrete.

P: What does Prose. mean to you?

S: I appreciate Prose. as a tool but it's really the community that keeps me coming back for more. I'm amazed at what Prosers do with words.

I love the gutsy sharing style of Jeff Stewart [@MetalSymphony], @MiGGiE can grind out a story like no one else, and @Yowwa is absolutely endearing (I have become addicted to the selfies that often accompany his stories).

There are so many other great writers I haven't mentioned...

Another great feature of Prose. is being able to flit from one genre or writing style to another.

Once you're established on a blog or business site, your readers expect a certain homogeneous quality. For example, if I were to start publishing fiction on my blog, I'd lose readers.

Prose. is the perfect place to have fun while exploring other styles.

P: Where else can we find you and your writing?

S: I've been blogging on Plugged In since 2009 and occasionally you'll see me pop up on recruitment and human resources sites. [One of] my latest LinkedIn posts is about writer's block which might be of interest to Prose. readers.

In the aforementioned LinkedIn article, @Sooz refers to Prose as "the best place I've ever found to write and read other authors' work." You can read it in its entirety by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/writers-block-app-susan-wright-boucher

Be sure to follow @Sooz here, on Instagram and Twitter @SWrightBoucher. To learn more about her "Plugged In" blog, please visit https://swrightboucher.wordpress.com/about/ and follow @PluggedInBlog on Twitter.

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This #FridayFeature blog series is designed to help you get to know your fellow community members better. Would you like to nominate someone for interview? Have a question you’re dying to ask of someone on the platform? Send us a private message here or visit our contact page to get in touch: theprose.com/p/contact.

I could see headlights outside of my room and I heard someone knocking but I didn’t get up. Insanity had come fast, but it came certain. I didn’t know if it was the years behind it, or if the room was simply the last straw, the snapped end of string with no time left to replace it. I knew that I had lost my mind sometime in the passing week, but coming to terms with it only lost it further. I wanted to be surprised that it had finally found me there in the room, but I wasn’t surprised. The time it took had been well-earned, since the age of 16. The speed of its arrival was only offset by things bigger than the room that I wouldn’t let break me. The room was only there to garnish the grave, what the room reflected was what I’d traded my mind for, to let it go without another fight in me.

I was dead and destroyed, wasted, sorry, lonely and fucked. I had once had women and people who believed in my work. I was once a human with honor and strength and muscular flesh. Now it was gone. Everything was so gone I wondered if it had ever existed. Maybe I was born in the room and everything had been a dream, a neuro-chemical hallucination brought on by flies crawling down my throat and copulating as I slept. I had quit masturbating because it exerted me, and it only made me hungry afterward. I was not even alive. I was a cell in a jar and I was being monitored by giants who had painted this life for me to live as though it was real. I inhaled deeply, closed my eyes and refused to breathe. Not because I wanted to die, but because I was bored with breathing. My body went through a cold wave and then it was dark.