COMING SOON - A New Release!

Photo Cover Art by MJ McGalliard

Coming in August:

"The Highway is a great rolling stage for drama.  Some are grand and expansive, complete with flashing lights, bells, and confrontations of life and death.  Others of these rolling epochs are simple moments of delight and justice, for where would tragedy be without comedy?"

What began as a single short story has blossomed into a series of observations and adventures inspired by interstate highway travel.  Stories in this collection will include:

• The Red Car
• The Bubble of Me
• The Terrible Tuesday After
• Road Construction
• Whole Brain Drive

And more! Coming to Amazon for Kindle and in Paperback.

As we gear up for this release, enjoy this quite amusing look at the future of motor travel as envisioned by the artists of the Walt Disney Company: Disney's Magic Highway from 1958.  You have to admit, highway travel can be as funny as it can be terrifying!

IMPORTANT NOTE: The sharing of this video in this post in no way reflects, nor should be construed to indicate, the support or endorsement by the Walt Disney Company of this, or any other book by this author.

FIVE DAY POETRY CHALLENGE

I have happily accepted a poetry challenge by friend and fellow artist Cath Blackfeather to write one poem a day for five days (Click on her name to visit her site and read some of her fascinating writing).  

You can find each day’s poem here, in this post. These challenges always seem tough when you start out.  However, some of the best poetry and haiku that I have written have come from just such as this.  This has been great fun, and I encourage anyone to take this challenge on, whether you consider yourself a poet/writer, or not. Poems don;t have to be complex, elegant, or complicated.  Sometimes they can just be fun!

Photo "Chicken Noodle Soup" by Casja Lilliehook from Wikimedia Commons

Day #5

The Last Poem

By Judith Cullen

© 2015

A Cup O’ Noodles at 5am,

Face in a steamy reverie

Poem five must post today

What the heck will this one be?

Nature’s glory? That was four

No need to be repeating

Perhaps some deep, heartfelt emotion?

Number two, beware of prating

Inspiration lurks all around

Just need to see and catch it

The cat? the light? my asthma wheeze?

Good Lord!  Could I just scratch this?

Just sit your butt and start to write

The words will come, you know

There's always ideas awaiting release

A thought reveals and shows

The room, the hour seem desolate

What possibly can be said?

“It will come later” my inner voice says,

“Lay down, go back to bed”

##

Click "More" to read the previous poems...

MUSINGS: "All My Cousins"

All My Cousins

My Great Aunt Cornelia, my Grandmother
Lillie, and my Great Uncle Robert as children.
Love those smiles!

by Judith Cullen
(c) 2015

We’ve always been a bit apart, my cousins and I.  Hard times, good times, distances near and far, as well as the various interpersonal mixes that are part and parcel of an extended family are the understandable cause.  My sister and I have not always been in close touch with our contemporaries across the family strata, nor they with us.

Family is a blessing.  Family can make you crazy.  Family is wild and diverse: you are theirs and they are yours whether you like it or not.  A collection of sub-divisions on both sides of my family spin themselves into a bright spectrum of personalities: a generation vibrantly reflecting those that came before while each having a unique light all their own. Those are my cousins.

Something remarkable has happened over the past few years and, for all its dangers and cultural pitfalls, social media has made this easier than it would have been for previous generations.  We’ve all been reconnecting.  I think my sister, as usual, took the lead and began the process.  For me, it really began when a cousin came down from her home in Alaska last summer to visit her immediate family here in the Puget Sound. Almost every connection and encounter since then has been tinted with the same sweetness and surprise – the same delight.

NEW ESSAY from Upcoming Release: "Beauty on the Interstate"

I have been busy enjoying the last moments of the release of The Blackberry & Other Tales That Creep while preparing the text for August's collection, entitled Beauty On the Interstate.  I am really enjoying the revision process of the 8-10 essays and stories that will be part of this release.

The following story is a little preview from the planned essays for Beauty... .  ENJOY!

Public Domain photo by Alex Grichenko

Hurry Up and Wait

By Judith Cullen

© 2015

I’ll never forget that morning.  It was a typically overcast, drizzly Pacific Northwest weekday anonymously tucked somewhere between November and March.  It was the kind of morning that would typically blend into the sameness of other winter, weekday morning commutes. The sky hung in a misty, moist silver blur as I pulled out onto the main drag by my house, embarking once more on the 30 mile trek to a job in the state capitol.

When I first started driving this particular commute nearly two years ago, I remembered every turn, every leaf and branch, every bridge and stream of the very scenic journey.  At the time my amazement was such that I said a loud to myself, “I wonder if I will ever get tired of this lovely drive?” The drive was, and is, filled with loveliness to fill any scenic sensibility: vibrant mixes of green, leafy trees; the different glimpses of sky and mountains; the far off ripple and sparkle of Puget Sound waters.  The answer turned out to be “yes, sort of.”  I’ve long since stopped noticing every scenic bit and bob along the way.  I still enjoy the views and the changes of season, but not as attentively as I once did.  It was not going to be scenery, this particular morning, which made this trip stand out.