there's a fruit bowl, chipped china, sitting on the kitchen table. you sift through it. bananas and apples, oranges and kiwi. in the darkest depths, you discover a rotten pear, squishy and spattered with dark spots.

there's a tangy aroma wafting off of it, sweetness bordering on rot. the flesh melts into your hands, and you can't help yourself. the hunger in your stomach comes in short, insistent bursts.

the pear brushes your lips. the layer around it is waxy.

the juices crash into your tongue. it's the best thing you've ever eaten.

the pear is gone too soon. your attention diverts to the door outside. maybe there's... light out there.

your fingers are delicate, wisps of bone. you have to choke the handle with your grip.

you are weak, paper blowing through the wind.

the outside world has never seemed so alive. your senses have magnified. waves of color and sound and smells crash over you.

there's a buzzing noise. it's close, invading your ears. you can't decipher where it's coming from, but it's close. you spin in circles, scanning the sky.

when they find dying rays of the sun, crawling and weaving into the sharp blue sky, you are temporarily distracted.

you used to despise the sun. how it dug into your flesh and wrinkled it, how it scattered you with angry burns. it made the air scorching, like it was made of invisible flames.

but now, it is a luminous beacon- of light, of hope. now, you can comprehend its symbolism. what it represents, what it truly is. you are drawn to it. the pull is inevitable.

the buzzing. it's from your wings. you had forgotten about them, adjusted to their weight. your wings are aching to fly, toward the sun.

at that thought, you begin to hover, over the patch of dead grass that was needling your bare feet. your wings flap slowly, twisting and morphing under the weight of the air. they are brittle, and the scales that encase the lace and tulle inside slough off, floating to the ground like volcanic ash.

it's awkward, at the beginning. but, practice makes perfect.

you need to start your journey now. the sooner you reach the sun, the better.

you will die happy, bathing in its light.

the higher you soar, the colder it gets. your lungs collapse in on themselves. below you is a tragically gorgeous quilt. it only looks beautiful when it's far away.

a snake of traffic becomes a glistening rainbow ribbon. smoke from factories become fluffy wads of cotton. houses, all the same, become flawlessly executed lines of stitching.

the air is ice now, not the flame you once knew. you thought getting closer to the sun would pull you into its circle of warmth.

black slides into your vision. your wings twitch, then stutter. they are beginning to bleed, a soft shower of crimson rain.

you will never reach the sun.

your eyes slip shut. your mind has left your body, continuing on without you, towards that beautiful, beautiful, light.

but your body, your prison, shall tumble to the earth and shatter.

*****

your eyes fly open. you are wrapped in layers of silk, it clings to you, presses your limbs together.

you're still alive... but something's missing.

you claw at the threads, claw at your mind.

what is it?

a tear blossoms. you drop to the ground, gape at the vessel. a glowing white orb, hanging from the thin branch of a willow tree.

and suddenly, you know. you rake your hands up and down your back, feeling nothing.

your wings are gone, now only their shadows remain. you will miss them, you will not easily forget.

as you walk away from the tree, to nowhere in particular, you gaze up at the moon, a soft echo of the sun's light.

and

you

abandon

your

cocoon

once

Celia_Himawari

78 reads

Tribute to How Important Mums are

I used to be a good girl. Your typical, average, nice brainiac. Good grades, glasses, slightly chubby, with brown hair. I always wore hoodies. I had no friends, but the teachers were alright with me. I stayed happy and optimistic. My mom was proud of me, and my dad was nowhere to be seen since I was eighteen months old. I loved escaping to magical worlds where I could be in the military, save the world, even save multiple worlds. But that is all gone now. My grades have dropped. My smile is nowhere to be seen. I have scars on my wrists that everyone avoids talking about.

You want to know what happened, don't you? You want to know why I changed, and why I never smile. Well, that will come later. For now, this is my life before it was broken.

"Yes, Minerva?" Mr. Graves, my biology teacher picked me to answer.

"The genetic codon most DNA strands start with is methionine, which is AUG in RNA and TAC in DNA form," I answered his question.

"Correct! Very good," he stopped for a second, glancing at his computer. "Minerva, you are needed in guidance" He looked pale, and at the time, I had wondered why.

I found out after five minutes. In just the five seconds it took to tell me, my whole life shattered. I was never the same.

I couldn't believe it.

My rock, my heart, my soul, my anchor, h*ll, my ship, my captin, my sea. Dead.

Mum's dead.

zionisticbella

64 reads

Blissful Oblivion

Does knowing everything left to be known make an impact on your healing? I do not think so. Is it required to check up on that person’s latest tweets or Facebook post every now and then, either? Doing so can further hurt you. It can slow up the process of your healing. Does thinking about a person from the past make a difference to your wounded soul and heart? The answer is always no.

It is painful to pour an acid to an open wound, isn’t it? Remember when you were still a little kid, and you tripped on the road because you were running and chasing your playmate, or you were the one being chased to be the next ‘it’. You saw your wounded elbow and knee, and blood gushed out. Is rubbing it with alcohol your option when you were a kid? Absolutely not, for you would find yourself bawling your eyes out because of pain. You chose to patch the wound with a strip of Band-Aid over cleaning it with rubbing alcohol and cotton balls. Did you?

Yes, you know it. You now got the logic. As a wound gets more pained if it will be poured a chemical, so will be the pain in your heart and soul when you get to know things. In fact, not all things are worth knowing after an aftermath. The more you know about the person after a detachment, or what other people may say regarding a circumstance, the more you will grieve about it. The more you will devastate yourself, and you do not want to make yourself be stinged any further. The more you care about, the greater the questioning and doubt you will have. It’s over; you are done with that.

You need not to know what is up on that person’s life anymore. It is okay to cut off ties from people who made you compromise your values, standards, and principles in life. It is alright too, to never listen to the hurtful opinions of other people. Never ever regret the choice of muting, unfollowing, or blocking some people’s accounts, who would not help you regain your peace, and who would not help you in your walk with the Lord. God will replace them with people who will show you genuine trust, kindness, care, and love.

Now, there is bliss in unawareness of the facts that will bewilder you. There is bliss in oblivion, for not knowing everything will make you happier, even more joyful and peaceful, than knowing everything after all.

Firstborn60

245 reads

Chapter #19 The Secret Garden

Faith sat silently on a sad lonely log that, severed from its remaining parts, could now only provide a place to rest. She’d made friends with this place and the log had become her conversational companion. Their talks remained internal but genuine. She felt she was living out her favorite childhood book “The Giving Tree”. It appeared the bark had willingly sloughed off so she had a smooth seat. It welcomed her resting there. In this world of rough starts and rougher continuations finding solace in the small things brought the just right bits of pleasure.

Reminiscing about the book in the dappled shade deep in the musty smell of the small spot of forest that had recovered she relived too often the horror that took her voice. The fire tornado was fierce and violent and the result was life-altering beyond all that could be expected, but she had her memories. She remembered her mother’s voice as she read the book to her and her brother Felix. They would beg her to read it again. Sometimes she would but often she’d give it to them and ask them to read it to her. Her brother told her how much she sounded like Momma. She too could hear it and revel in being like her mother. Recalling that is when the tears would start. In that lay her reason to never speak again. She couldn’t bear hearing the voice that reminded her of Momma and felt selfishly protective of the perfect sound it produced. She vowed to keep it hidden away. That gave her something she could control as there wasn’t much else in her grasp.

Wiping tears away with the back of her dirty hand she smeared the dirt on her face without noticing how badly she needed to bathe. Momma would have scolded her for that for sure.

In this outdoor room, she was shaping as her own, she smiled and danced and talked in silence to the trees and the flowers and the dirt. She wished desperately for a ladybug. Her daddy called her his little ladybug. Daddy loved plants and gardening and taught her about them. The things she missed were so many. The things she was trying to make happen to help others were many too.

Faith had a huge heart. She was focused on sustainability that would help everyone find and grow food. She’d secretly been cultivating this small plot with hopes of growing what was needed and then working with Felix to find a plan to distribute it successfully. She would always need him to be her voice. He would support her in this endeavor because he believed in the gravity of the situation.

Her small idea of cultivating a garden had grown quickly. It seemed the earth was hungry. It wanted to be used. It wanted to help. She had found seeds from foraging and in the empty storage rooms of stores still in their packaging. The seeds were viable and the herbs planted from seed or relocated were thriving. There were to be rows of lettuces, carrots, beets, broccoli, and she was watching some asparagus to see how it was going to do. She’d made trellises of branches on which to grow cucumbers and beans. Stumbling across some grapevines growing wild, she’d watched them closely for the formation of the perfect little orbs she cherished at home. Momma loved them too and they’d sit on the porch waiting for Felix to come home from his friends munching them and talking about all sorts of things.

There was one last thing that Faith knew she had to have in place or all this work was for not. The soon to be sprouting seedlings would need water. The giver of all life. She’d struggled with how to handle that but with so much secretive time on her hands she pondered and plotted and planned. On a walk around the ruins, she found a large not too badly damaged plastic garden cistern in the nursery section of the deceased Walmart. She’d seen her dad shopping for them in a well-worn gardening catalog years ago. She didn’t see the point back then but he’d explained it to her. An unsolicited explanation of course. She looked up at the sky.

Thank you, Daddy.

In the late morning of that quiet sunny day, she rolled the large awkward thing as best as she could to the edge of the road. Getting through the tangle of the woods would be the trick. This would hopefully be a one day venture. After keeping it going only to have it roll right back at her from the forest, she took a pause. It pushed back angrily as if to tell her, “Hell no!” Once it landed on its end. She contemplated that and decided she’d do like The Worlds Strongest Men did with tires and lifted it from the end and sort of tossed it. Hallelujah, that worked. It landed on the top of the underbrush and all she had to do then was nudge it along. She lifted under it with her shoulders and it kept moving forward. All of a sudden it plopped off the messy growth and landed in the flat of the garden opening. Panting and sweating she decided she’d come back the next day to finish the setup.

When she got there to finish getting it set up she realized how damn lucky she was. Inside under the mesh top was the hose that it came with. All she had to do was attach that to the bottom and snap the valve closed to keep the rain in. Over the next few weeks, while she worked the soil and planned where she’d plant what, she watched it gather water from the rain.

Once all the planting was done she tried the valve and hose and the water flowed out easily. She’d failed to grab a receptacle for the water dispersion so she just started by aiming the hose so it ran between the rows. The ground had been watered by the rain anyway.

The best part about this thriving garden was that no one knew about it yet. Things weren’t growing too quickly so nothing would go to waste before she had Felix onboard.

****

Felix was wandering down the sun-drenched dirt road and, she hoped, looking for her. She hid behind a tree and watched his approach. As he passed by she jumped out and waved at him. She thought to scare him. Then started to giggle to herself.

You can’t scare someone when you don’t yell out dummy!

Changing her plan she ran up behind him and bumped his knee with hers so he lost his footing. He wheeled around ready to level someone. Then he saw it was her and she was laughing for the first time in so long. Seeing her eyes scrunched up and her teeth unprotected by her tight-lipped mouth made him happy beyond measure.

She implored him to follow her. She took his hand and pulled him along. They skipped and trotted through deep underbrush and in and around trees and over fallen ones that wished for new jobs.

They broke through into a sunny clearing of sudden order and purpose. Order and purpose that his little sister Faith had created in this world of chaos. He stopped quickly, stunned. He couldn’t stop looking. He strove to take it all in. He realized his hands hung limply at his side useless to be important in this moment of pure beauty and joy.

She has done this? She has made this beautiful option to end hunger and worry about food supplies?!

He followed her as she led him down each row. The rows were marked with the empty seed packets on popsicle sticks. Taking a mental inventory, Felix made mental notes of what was there and what quantities they were looking at if everything grew to fruition. Her excitement was palpable. It was contagious.

“Faith-y this is astonishing. I don’t know how you kept it to yourself. Is this something you want people to make so they can have food to eat?” he asked. "This is really a cool idea. You blew me away. I never knew until now just how smart my little sister was!”

He watched her face. He waited for a reply. She looked up from her rows of fledglings and into his eyes, eyes she’d known all her waking days. She felt his approval. She basked in it. Remaining silent out of fear to hear her own voice she nodded in approval.

Challenge

Trident Media Group is the leading U.S. literary agency and we are looking to discover and represent the next bestsellers. Share a sample of your work. If it shows promise, we will be in touch with you.

Please include the following information at the end of your post: title, genre, age range, word count, author name, why your project is a good fit, the hook, synopsis, target audience, your bio, platform, education, experience, personality / writing style, likes/hobbies, hometown, age (optional)

lbhouston

758 reads

Universe

1) A Very Small Case of Thievery

Look, I didn’t steal the book. Okay, so all signs point in that direction. But I promise you, the thievery of Universe had nothing to do with Ren Northwood.

I was slinking along the metal shelves of the Wray Public Library when it happened. I breathed in the scent of old paperbacks, running a finger along the side of the wall. I snagged a book off one of the shelves, frowned at the tattered cover, and started to put it back.

″Ren,” a voice said from behind me. I whipped around to see a little girl staring at me with wide gray eyes, holding a book under one arm.

“Um, yeah?” I said, slipping my own book back on the shelf. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet,” she replied.

What kind of answer was that?

“Does one of your parents work here?” I said. “Do you need help finding them?”

She rolled her eyes and stalked past me. “Alright, listen up, because I’m only telling you this once.”

I shook my head, looking at her closer. She seemed to be only six or seven years old, with pale skin and dark, choppy hair. I guessed that she had cut it herself.

“Okay, kid, can you at least tell me how you know my name?”

“I’m not a—nevermind. Do you see this?” She waved the book in my face, and I sneezed.

The girl leaned over to place it in my hands, her breath smelling of oranges.

“This . . . is something very special, and very dangerous.” She glanced behind her, looking apprehensive. “I have to go soon. Please be careful with it, okay?”

I looked down at the book in my hands. The plain green cover was fraying at the seams, and its riveted pages dug into my palms. The title was written in peeling gold, so covered in dust that I could barely see it. I could just make out the letters. Universe. I hooked a thumb under the cover, but the girl took in a sharp breath, and I quickly pulled away my hand.

“Not yet!” she repeated. “You’ll know. When the time is right.”

I glanced back up at her. “You’re letting me keep this?”

“Yes, yes.” She waved my question away.

“But . . . why me?” I said. I shouldn’t have let hope rise in my chest, the thought that maybe I had been chosen for some sort of great adventure.

The girl squashed that hope with one withering look. “In fact, no one else wanted it. I’ve been walking around this library for the past half an hour trying to get someone to take it.

“I can’t stay any longer. If you spill anything on the book, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Leave it on your windowsill at full moon. That should . . . recharge it.”

“Um,” I said. “What exactly do you mean, recharge it?”

“Recharge its powers,” the girl said in a soft voice. She must have caught my doubtful expression, because she added, “You can believe me or not, I don’t really care which. At least the book will be gone.”

The little girl turned to leave, but I grabbed her arm before she could disappear.

“Wait—can you tell me why no one wanted it? And where are you going?”

She just shrugged me off with a smile. “Fate has many places to be at this hour. It’s such a big, big universe and souls are such small, small things.”

“Ask for Fate— for me—in an emergency,” said the girl. “Emergency only, you hear me?”

She turned the corner of the bookshelf and disappeared. When I poked my head around the corner, I saw nothing but dust and books.

. . .

I stood there for a while with Universe in my hand. I stared at it, and got a faint sensation something in there was staring right back at me. I decided the logical thing to do would be to leave the book, forget about talking to the strange little girl, and go back home with a different novel.

Before I could put the book back, I heard a familiar voice from the other side of the library. I looked over to see my older brother, Chance, talking to a librarian.

“I’m looking for my brother. His name is Ren . . . he’s thirteen, curly red-brown hair, kinda short—”

“Chance?” I said, and he turned around with a sigh of relief. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you for the past half an hour.”

I frowned. I was sure I had only been talking to Fate for a couple of minutes.

“What were you doing?” Chance asked. He ran his hand through his hair—dyed black for as long as I could remember.

“Picking cherries. What do you think I was doing?”

I suppose I got my sarcasm from him.

Chance rolled his eyes. “I’m glad you found a book. Though it looks rather . . . well loved.”

“I got it from this little girl,” I said. “I think her name was Fate. She wasn’t very nice.”

“Lovely.” He wasn’t listening. Chance traced the scar that ran from the bottom of his left eye to his cheek. He was seven years older than me, but he never seemed a whole lot smarter. He always invented different stories when I would ask how he got the scar, so I always assumed he had done something stupid and cut himself.

“Are we leaving now?” I tried to put the book back on a shelf but couldn’t find a way to wedge it in.

“You’re not taking it? Don’t you need more books?” Chance said.

I didn’t respond as I tried to find a place to put the book.

“What’s it about?” he said.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t supposed to open it.”

At this, Chance gave a little frown and leaned in to look at the book. A look of dread flitted across his face and he pulled away, glancing at me.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He was a terrible liar, but I didn’t say anything. Mostly to spite him, and a little bit because I felt strangely drawn to the book, I grabbed it from the top of the shelf and brought it with me. When we reached the library’s desk, Chance turned around to look at me.

“You’re checking it out after all?” he said, glancing down at Universe.

“Yes.” I stared at him, waiting for Chance to object. But all he did was take the book from my hands and bring it to the desk.

Strangely enough, the book did not seem to belong to the library. After quite a bit of confusion, a librarian finally concluded that it must have been left by someone—which was the truth—and therefore could not be checked out. I suppose I should have been expecting such a thing. Fate had not been so kind as to fix all of the little details of taking her book out of the library after getting it in, so now I would have to solve the issue on my own. Hopefully without becoming a book fugitive.

I tuned back into what the librarian was saying. “So we’ll have to take the book for now. It must be somewhat rare—I looked up the title and couldn’t find anything. Otherwise I would let you keep it. When it’s all fixed up, it will go through the process of being catalogued and marked before it’s available to loan. If you’d like, we can mark you down on a waiting list.”

“Are you sure I can’t have it now?” I said. “I’d be really careful.”

“Not yet, sorry.”

Chance cleared his throat and gave a nervous little smile, sliding the book across the table toward him. “Thank you for your help, though. Where should we put it?”

The librarian waved her hand in the direction of a heavy metal cart. “Just on that shelf, please.”

She hurried off and Chance stared after her with narrowed eyes. When he was satisfied that she was gone, he took my hand and began to walk in the direction the librarian had pointed. After we passed the cart in question, however, I tugged on the yellow and red sleeve of his sweatshirt and looked him in the eye.

“Where are we going?”

“Where do you think, Ren? Home.”

“What about the book?” I asked.

He smiled again, tugging me along as we walked out the door. “It doesn’t belong to the library. It’s yours, now. Merry Christmas.”

“It’s probably worth a lot of money,” I said. I wanted the book, but stealing it seemed . . . wrong, I guess.

“I’d hate to see our faces in the paper,” I said instead.

“You’re too modest.” Chance was walking faster now. He held the book as if it was a small child about to throw a fit, and he had to get it out before a tantrum would erupt and screaming ensued.

We reached the car, and I slipped into the passenger seat. Chance began to drive home, past sloping hills and withered yucca, with the mountains looming in the distance.

“Can I have Universe?” I said, turning away from the familiar scenery.

“Not yet.” Chance tightened his grip on the steering wheel. I forced myself not to point out those two words had been used far too much in the past few minutes. I made a face at him before grabbing a school notebook and a pencil from the dashboard.

I, Renwyn Northwood, am officially dying of boredom. Two years of living in the Nowhere Town of Wray, Colorado, can do that to you. Especially if you live in a falling-apart house, next to a mountain that spontaneously blocks your wifi, and can go to only one library in the whole town. And the only interesting thing that ever happens, your brother has to go and take away.

My pencil snapped, and I looked up.

Chance had turned to read over my shoulder. At my glance, he said, “What are you writing?”

“My death note,” I told him. “I’ve discovered my diagnosis. The people that own our house next will discover it beside my dead body.”

“Well, I’d give you the book, but I’m driving.”

“What kind of excuse is that? You’re not even driving right now.”

He glanced back at the road and swerved to avoid a truck spitting up an unreasonable amount of smoke. The driver yelled something over the wind at him.

“They say it will snow soon. A big storm,” Chance said to distract my glare.

I squinted out at the horizon. It did seem like a storm was approaching. It snowed too much in Colorado.

“Who says?” I asked.

“You know.” Chance shrugged. “The weather people.”

“It’s only December.”

“Maybe we’ll get snow for Christmas.”

“Maybe.”

We pulled into our driveway. In the middle of nowhere, as usual. I closed my eyes and wished I was anywhere else, then opened them. My wish had not been granted.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” I said

“Should I have kept driving?” He stepped out of the car and walked toward the house. I had to run to catch up with him, grabbing his arm.

“I mean stolen the book,” I said. Chance kept walking, face emotionless, the book under his arm. He opened the door, then slammed it shut behind him. I stared at the flaking wood for a minute, before finally easing open the door. It creaked, and chips of peeling paint fluttered off of it. Chance stood at the counter, unleashing his irritation upon a loaf of bread. A wedge of cheese sat beside him, heralding the telltale arrival of the only meal he could cook without utter failure.

“Grilled cheese. Something new and different,” I said.

Chance looked up, cutting his finger with a knife. He cursed. “Why did you do that?”

I watched a trickle of blood seep into the bread, which I could now see was whole grain. This day was just getting worse and worse.

“You’re getting blood all over my sandwich,” I said. “Besides, how am I supposed to eat it if we don’t have any ketchup?”

“That’s disgusting. Nobody puts ketchup on grilled cheese,” Chance said, wiping the blood off his finger with an old towel.

“I do.” I grabbed the bread from his hands. “I’m going to bike to the gas station to get some.”

“I wouldn’t. I already told you, there’s a storm brewing.”

I walked into the living room and opened the window. Sure enough, a freezing wind blew my hair into my face as I poked my head out, frowning up at enormous, ice-heavy clouds. It was unnatural. Storms didn’t come that fast.

“Close that window!” Chance shouted from the other room. I closed the window and stomped past him.

“I’m going out anyway,” I said. “You can have my sandwich if I die.”

“Fine! Get struck by lightning for all I care.” In a smaller voice, he said, “at least wear your helmet.”

Opening the door, I stepped out into the snowstorm. I tried to take a breath and got only a mouthful of frigid snow. Coughing the snow out, I turned myself right back around. The door slammed shut behind me, the house a welcome relief from the cold, and I collapsed on a chair to thaw.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in, Ren. That ketchup sure came fast.” Chance set the burnt grilled cheese in front of me.

“I’m not going out in that,” I told him. The grilled cheese was still smoking, but I ate it anyway.

“What did I tell you? Want some apple cider?”

“Yes, but I’ll make it.”

. . .

We sat at the table, watching the snowstorm and sipping cider. I stared down into my mug pensively.

“Hey, Ren?” Chance said. I looked up as he tugged something crumpled and white out of his pocket.

“I was digging around the filing cabinet while you were at school today and I found—” he unfolded the object and smoothed it out— “this.”

It was a photograph, a black and white picture dusted with age. The picture was a shot of Chance holding a toddler up on his shoulders, laughter frozen on both of their faces.

“Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to the little boy.

Chance smiled. “That’s you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I think our dad took it.” Chance held the photograph out to me. “Here. You should keep it.”

I hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t want to lose it.”

“Please, Ren? Just in case,” he said.

Just in case . . . what? I wondered. Something happened to Chance? Something happened to the house? What did he mean? I started to open my mouth, but Chance was already putting the photograph into my hands. I took it and rubbed a smear off with my sleeve, noticing a signature on the back that must have been my dad’s.

“I wish they were here,” I said, touching the signature.

“Me too, Ren. Me too.” Chance glanced at the clock. “You have school tomorrow. You should get to bed.” Then, with a little smile, my brother handed me Universe. “For good dreams.”

Title: Universe

Genre/Age range: Middle Grade Fantasy (11-14 age range)

Author: L. B. Houston

Word count: 60,000

Why project is a good fit: My project is a good fit for Trident because I see your agency represents sci fi and fantasy.

Summary/hook:

Ren Northwood hasn’t stolen the book. Well...he may have helped steal it, just a little, but it’s mostly his older brother Chance’s fault. And to be fair, this isn’t a regular book. It has a whole world within--literally.

But before the two can find out what the book really is, Chance is sucked INSIDE, and it’s up to Ren to rescue him. Even worse, the world within the book, called the Haven, needs saving from an ancient evil. Ren will need the help of two almost human friends and a whole lot of courage to save Chance and the rest of the Haven, before whatever created the evil spreading across the planet catches up to them.

But like, no pressure or anything.

Your bio: I’m a writer and illustrator of middle grade fantasy. I’ve been writing and painting most of my life. My artwork has been featured in galleries and shows across the state, including Artstreet, Appleton’s Art in The Park, UWGB’s Lawton Gallery, and the Art Garage. I am also part of the Visual Arts strand at East High School. In 2018, I won second place in the Delta Kappa Gamma writing contest.

Platform(website): https://lbhoustonauthor.wixsite.com/books

<a href="https://twitter.com/Lbhoustonwriter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @Lbhoustonwriter</a><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Education: East High School

Personality / writing style: I write funny, dark, MG books, with a strong character voice and high stakes. I like to sneak in the occasional pop culture reference, though most of my themes have an environmental aspect.

Likes/hobbies: writing (of course), painting and illustrating my novels, being in nature

Hometown: Green Bay

Age: 14

Please email me at lbhoustonauthor@gmail.com if you are interested!

sarah1 in Poetry & Free Verse

154 reads

Once It Was So

Your force of nature

Your beacon, your light

I was that force,

Or wasn't that so?

Your reason for life

Your greatest feat yet

You were just mine

Back then it was so.

For awhile I was

The dream you once dreamt

As a smaller girl, tender

Heart void of contempt

I hear you around me

And smell you and see you

Yet you're not around me

Still, once it was so.