tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89738776911646606112026-05-18T09:18:05.891-04:00"a single stroke which, for brevity's sake, represents a word," or, short work from creative writing majors at Susquehanna UniversityRyan Rickrodehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07475505247939016300noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8973877691164660611.post-87411268273057458172011-04-28T15:00:00.051-04:002011-05-02T12:54:41.228-04:00

fiction by Ryan Rickrode Early in the morning, before the Hospice nurse lets herself in, Gladys goes to the piano. She slides her feet into the pink slippers she’ll be wearing the rest of the day, and she slowly shuffles into the sitting room. The long walk from the dining room, which is now her bedroom, leaves her pink sweater swelling with short wheezing breaths. It’s been a long time

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Susquehanna senior and Logogram contributor Lauren Bailey was recently anthologized in plain china, Bennington College's national online magazine of the best undergraduate of 2010.  On top of being anthologized, Lauren's essay, "Convalesence," which was originally published in Susquehanna's Essay magazine, was selected by author/editor Phillip Lopate for the 2010 Bennington

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Susquehanna's own Marcus Burke, now a grad student at the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop, was recently featured in a PBS NewsHour piece marking the Workshop's 75th anniversary.  See it for yourself:

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poetry by Alex Guarco I told you I was lost in you,like I was some one-hit-wonder radio lookalike,only Irealize now that my misplacement was little morethan a feeling of place,a feeling I’ve been waiting years to experience,a knowing of where I was at the time,a knowing thatthere, with you,was where I belonged. I wouldn’t go out and say it was love,it was just whatevertwo 19-year-olds are capable

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by poetry Amber L. Cook When I emptied the contents of your skull                           I was monogrammed into synapses you would never use,                      

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fiction by Aaron Abel The day Ethan died was the first day it snowed.  None of us really knew how to feel or what to say.  To be honest, I didn’t really know him that well. I stared outside my bedroom window, standing close to it and leaning my forehead against the frozen glass.  The aura of fluorescent streetlight illuminated the snow, making it look more blue than white as tiny

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poetry by Alex Guarco I ask him what he thinks Hell is,if he’s ever thought about it.  He says,an eternity with your mother.laughing, he sinks into the couch,sips from his glass, Jameson, Cokethumb-clicking his way through our evening,sinking, sipping low until his eyes follow suitas predicted. Alex Guarco is a sophomore creative writing major at Susquehanna University. He's president of

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by Kim Stoll You woke at 2:46,kicked the sheets from your sweat-glossed legs,to tell me about a dreamwhere a fish floats belly-up,reborn under thin sheets of ice.You were that fish.Moved so painfully slow,pressed your skeleton againstyour flesh and could not escape.Then you were snaggedand yanked to the surface,gutted and scraped ofall your scales on a mossy table.Your eyes rolled between the

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The Susquehanna Review has gone digital!  Editors Dana Diehl and Melissa Goodrich, with lots of help from graphic designer Kathy Sheehan, have complemented the print version of Susquehanna University's national undergraduate literary magazine with a full online version of the magazine. Susquehanna is well represented in the pages of the magazine this year, with

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nonfiction by Emily Northey Yuddha Kanda The Yuddha Kanda describes how a floating bridge is built to Lanka and Rama crosses it to save his wife.  He fights and finally kills Ravana and saves Sita from her prison.  To test her purity, he asks her to perform a trial by fire, which she willingly jumps into and comes out of unburned and whole.  Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya—Rama’s

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nonfiction by Emily Northey In the fourth book of the Ramayana, the Kishkindha Kanda, Rama and his brother go to the monkey kingdom, Kishkindha, where they call upon the monkeys for aid in finding Sita.  One of the monkeys, Hanuman, finds out that Sita had been taken to a land called Lanka (believed to be modern Sri Lanka).  Hanuman takes a gigantic leap across the water, as depicted

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nonfiction by Emily Northey A Note from the Author The Ramayana is a famous and ancient Sanskrit epic written by the Hindu sage Valmiki, during the 4th century, B.C.E.  The text depicts different societal roles—king, wife, brother, servant, etc.—and the ideal relationships expected to exist between them.  The Ramayana follows the story of Rama, the hero and prince of Ayodhya and an

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by Rob Rotell I step onto the moving walkway in the spacious underground channel between tracks at Diagonal Station, and I lean against the glass shield, and relax. I’m tired, my eyes are red; I’ve just spent the last two hours walking in the dark, looking for a metro station after a late night movie at Yelmo Icaria Cinema. It’s past midnight, Friday going into Saturday, and the drunks, the

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fiction by Mary-Kate Sims I don’t really know what my wife wants me to do with these ridiculous coupons. Half off a colossal size toilet paper pack? Fuck, I didn’t think we went through that much toilet paper. It’s just the two of us. My uncle warned me about this. He warned me that wives make husbands do stupid shit for no reason. He didn’t tell me the stupid shit would be driving in the middle

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a memoir by William Hoffacker  On a clear night, at the end of a long car ride alone, I’m pulling headfirst into the space in front of my parents’ small suburban house when this jolt shakes my sleek new Honda, coupled with a slam-and-scrape that awakens my senses, dulled by the winding miles of I-80, with a rush of adrenaline. I panic at the thought of what’s been hit, what have I done, as

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fiction by Dana P. Diehl He stood in the mouth of the hanger, his back to the girl in the green rain jacket. “Any minute now, Deb. You’ll hear it first. Then right there, over the mountain, it’ll come.” His voice was low and tense. “It’ll just be a silver speck at first. You’ll have to look for the sun glinting against it. Now hurry, come out by me. You won’t see anything from in there.” The

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nonfiction by Emily Northey In my travels, I found a wonderful friendship with my Hindi teacher, Bhavani, and her young daughter, Tanvi.  This piece is dedicated to both of them in thanks for the joy and love we have shared. The little girl with raspberry lips that fumbled around letters in three languages ran up the cement stairs, down the cement stairs, paused halfway to toddle near

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poetry by Melissa Goodrich plover, seal, pledge, place, stent, flush, flight a lover is not a bird near shore, short-tailed with longpointed wingsnor the sea torpedo-shaped with four flippers, nor a sealant a ledge is not something promised, bound bypromise, the promise to give nor lace a room, region, or part devotedto a special purpose a tent is not a surgical device to hold tissue in place,

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poetry by Elizabeth Deanna Morris Bee Sting And your tongue of bees stung me in between and that’s all my clit is now but a swelling from when you kamikazied yourself before retreating further within me to your hive where you would die and now I carry you with me, calcium & amber; when I dip into my honey comb these days, I lose myself in the buzzing in the space behind my right ear. (

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The fall 2010 issue of Outrageous Fortune—a national online undergraduate literary magazine produced by students at Mary Baldwin College —launched this week, and it’s packed with writing from Susquehanna students! Half of this issue’s poetry and prose contributions are from writing majors here at Susquehanna University: “Bumbling Hearts,” a poem by Michelle Bayman “Untitled,” a poem

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fiction by David Joseph  Harper’s hands curl into each other as his tangled fingers acknowledge God’s presence and begin to pray.  His face is veiled by the sunlight filtering through the tinted glass that frames the congregation.  They are all on display.  Harper imagines they are fireflies.  Fireflies, proud to be airborne gems in the overcast night, the envy of all

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fiction by Rob Rotell The sky is a clear, ashen blue, devoid of the faintest of clouds. The sun is blazing white, illuminating each emerald green ear of corn in the field that stretches for miles. The stalks wave lazily in the faint wind and a little brown-haired boy named Jacob is sweating through his flannel shirt, drenching it a dark maroon. He stands in an open patch, the legs of his

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poetry by Staci Eckenroth Midnights dissolve into mid-mornings andsleepless stumble. Through hours of fog, driving down well-lit highways, they hope forillusions that others are as forgotten in the blanketingthick enough to blackout histories, like memories of a boy’s body. Posedin his casket while a girl in the corner stealstissues and prayer cards, stuffing them in fistfulsdown her pockets. She

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nonfiction by Lauren Bailey      Anya, the temperature is dropping, and we’re not doing very well. At night we eat dinner in the cafeteria, and our friends watch every bite you put into your mouth. We smoke cigarettes on the patio beforehand, the uncomfortable outdoor furniture embedding diamond patterns into our arms and legs. Most nights, your eyes fill with tears. You

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logogram ('lo-ge-græm) n.  “a sign or character representing a word; a single stroke which, for brevity's sake, represents an entire word” i.e., in ancient Egyptian, "rejoice, support, exalt"      What we publish is short work by writing majors at Susquehanna University, every Thursday.  Stuff that only that only takes five minutes to read, stuff that won't

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