Sandra Rose Hughes

I am infinitely proud to announce that I completed my Nanowrimo novel! 50,000 words of novelly goodness now rests in my computer. I had WAY more fun than I thought I would and I love my first draft of Song of Three Sisters .

Treasure in the Belly of the Beast             The Knight-Eater crouched in our garage. In a fit of creativity and whimsy, my parents had painted a tall metal cabinet canary yellow. Then they added on a cartoony orange dragon tail with a suspicious bulge in the middle that wrapped around the cabinet. Thus, the "Knight-Eater" was born.             The Knight-Eater held the keys to an entire world of creativity and fantasy for my brother, sister, and me. Inside its belly, we kept brushes, paints, Plaster of Paris, dowels, yarn, and other remnants of old crafts my mother had attempted. But most importantly, the Knight-Eater held an old, scratched-up boxed set of books. Their worn pages were turned down at the corners where my mother had marked the pages repeatedly and the edges were frayed.             Every winter, my mother would rescue the boxed set from the Knight-Eater's belly and pack it in her bag to read to us on our winter vacation. My family had a special va

  I am participating in the "Resurrection Blogfest" today. I heard about it from David over at Brits in the UK .   Should I be writing my Nanowrimo novel instead?  Heck yes.  Am I? Clearly not at the moment, but I will later...really I will! In any case, the blogfest is all about resurrecting an old blog post from your first year of blogging that you thought was pretty good but has since lain in your old list of postings growing mold and being generally unappreciated by the community of ppl we call the internet. So here is an old, moldering post which I wrote long ago in those sad, sad days when I was still a high school teacher.  PUTTING ON A HIGH SCHOOL PLAY Putting on a high school play has many unique blessings and challenges. As far as blessings go, the students are usually very enthusiastic about the show. They are willing to put in long hours after school and on weekends. They are full of inspiring creativity and energy and are often capable of sol

They suctioned you out with a hoover and gutted me like a fish Like a cored apple or the yolk of a hard boiled egg. Pushmepullme, pushmepullme. Push was me, pulled was you. And after an hour and half of empty-husk progress promises I clung to like a life-raft, And a burst of fuschial, nuchal color, I saw you sail by, grey and splotchy and strangely long, The unidentified flying baby, Unmoving, uncrying, unconscious baby. Not pink, not screaming. Your father spoke to you and something deep inside you recognized his voice And you cried and I breathed again. Hands carried you to me for inspection like a factory shirt they put those stickers on, “Inspected by #9.” And I looked into the sapphire dragon’s jewels you had for eyes and you looked back and I sang to you.