Anyway, she said to him, softly, as if afraid to disturb the dawn.
Anyway, we need to talk about Paris.
I Dreamed a Dream Last Night
by Dick Heinz
I dreamed a dream last night. It was a good dream, because I dreamed of you. In this dream we were students at De Anza College. Yes students! It’s really weird already. Isn't it? At first we were studying the French language. Later, it seemed that we were studying the cuisine of France. But, I’m on a diet and when you're on a diet you’re always hungry and you’re always thinking (sometimes dreaming) about la cuisine!
At first the professor was very serious. But, as we talked more and more about food he began to loosen up and actually play practical jokes in class. The first time I noticed this, he was talking about chicken in the pot garni. I was taking notes and when I looked up the professor had vanished. There was an immense chicken in front of the class. I turned my head toward you, but you were writing and didn't see The Great Chicken. I turned my head to the front again. The Great Chicken was gone and the professor was in front of the class once more. He was smiling as if he had played a very funny joke!
Now, in this class, you always sat on my right and a young woman, who was constantly asking questions always sat on my left. As time passed, the professor would slip out more often. When he was gone, The Great Chicken would be in front of the class. But, the professor would always be present at the beginning of the class. One day, when The Great Chicken was in front of the class, the young woman who sat on my left asked “What wine do we use in making coq au vin?” I thought: Oh la la. She's mocking him. Asking a chicken how to cook one of his relatives? The Great Chicken will be furious. Perhaps he will go away. And never come back again. But I was mistaken. The Great Chicken just clucked calmly. He said “Cluuuuk, cluuuk, cluuuk, cluck.” The young woman who sat on my left was writing. I looked at her notes. She had written “cluck cluck cluck cluck.”
At the next class session the professor was not present at the beginning of the class for the first time. Why not? I don't know. Perhaps he was at Paul and Eddies shooting pool and having a few cold ones, or having a snack at Ike’s Lair. More likely, he was in the Dean’s office. Probably, the Dean was reprimanding him for his horseplay in class. Of course, The Great Chicken was in front of the class. The young woman who sat on my left arrived a bit late. She said to me “Pardon me, Sir. You're shopping bag is on my chair.” I looked at her chair. To my great surprise, there actually was a shopping bag there. I placed it on the floor. I looked inside. The bag contained a large knife, actually a cleaver, an onion, garlic, ground pork, ground veal, an egg, salt, pepper, carrots, leeks, turnips, celery, 8 small potatoes and a bouquet garni. What a coincidence! The bag contained almost all of the ingredients for making chicken in the pot garni. The only ingredient that was missing from the bag was strutting and clucking in front of the class.
Then, my dream became a jumble. People were running. People were shouting. Perhaps there was a fire in the chemistry lab. The young woman who sat on my left fainted. I tried to help. The young woman let out a piercing shriek and fainted again. I thought: Let’s wait for professional help. Now my dream is very clear. This room, this cot, these bars, the nice gentleman in the hall are all parts of my dream. But they seem so real. Tomorrow. When I wake up. Where will I be? Here or at home, in our bed, next to you?
Edge of Night
by Ellaraine Lockie
Black with blue swollen veins
He sits in stained denim
on the train station bench
Elbows on spread-eagled knees
Sparrow hands on head hung low
A plastic produce bag for a hat
pulled over his ears
Preserving the rising heat
The fragile lobes from frostbite
As winter eats its way
into the San Francisco Bay
with butcher knife teeth
Acknowledgements
By the Bay would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication, and imaginative force of a whole village of people.
This village starts with the founding members of the Bay Area Library ePublishers, including joint editors Liz Hickok and Kate Gaidos Eppler. Liz and Kate hatched this idea together across their cubicles in adult services when they were both working as librarians at Sunnyvale Public Library. The book is stamped with Kate’s editorial genius and owes much, including its title, to her sense of style and good judgment. Now at Alameda County Library, Kate recruited fellow librarians across the Bay Area to join the panel, including Nicole Pasini of San Mateo County Library, Mathew Rose of Sonoma County Library and Morgan Rose Pershing of Santa Clara City Library. These dedicated professionals volunteered their time to spend nights, weekends, and holidays reading, reviewing, and negotiating the contents of what would eventually become the first anthology of its kind to be independently published by an American public library. Liz recruited two professional writing instructors for BALE, Ben Black and Miya Reekers, of San Francisco State University’s Masters of Fine Arts graduate program, who contributed their expertise to the project and consulted with the librarians on the content of the submissions. Thank you all for taking this leap of faith together. Because of this synergy, the project has accomplished much more than any one library could have done on its own.
To Christina Shin and Michael Nellany at Sunnyvale Public Library, the project owes its thanks to you for countless hours spent on administrative details, planning, and strategy. Many others supported us with marketing, promotion, logistics, cataloging, and more including Susan Fisher, Web Services Coordinator at Alameda County Library, and Amy Hsu, Cataloging Librarian at Sunnyvale Public Library. To Wendy Silver of Sunnyvale Public Library the project owes credit to you for the design of its emblematic logo and branding. To the Sunnyvale Public Library administration, including Lisa Rosenblum, Christine Mendoza, and Steve Sloan, thank you for your encouragement in pursuit of this redefining venture in library services.
The California State Library and our grant monitor, Lena Pham, were instrumental in the funding of our activities, including the manuscript production and contracted services, as well as with continued guidance and feedback about our progress along the way. The project would not be what it is today without you. We give gratitude and recognition to the Friends of the Sunnyvale Public Library for adding its support to the grant project by funding the eBook Launch celebration.
Finally, thank you to both the writers and the readers of this book for joining the village in this new frontier for writing and publishing.
Contributors
Edith Algren was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in 1942 and is retired from the English Department of the University of Puerto at Mayaguez where she taught for thirty years. Between 1943 and 1946 she lived in Oakland, California while her father, Charles, serving in the US Air Force was stationed at Alameda. She and her husband, Jaime, spend their time between Puerto Rico, McKinney, Texas where her son Albert lives with his family and Sunnyvale, California where her daughter Monica lives with her family. Her grandchildren Andrea, Sofia, Alicia and Alberto are the joy of her life. Inspired by family and nature, writing poetry in English and Spanish is something that brings her peace. She holds degrees from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Her PhD dissertation, The Movement Against Teaching English in the Public Schools of Puerto Rico, was published by the University Press of America and declared “a must read for anyone interested in language in the Caribbean ” by the American Society of Linguistics.
Adrianne Aron’s writings, in fiction and nonfiction, English and Spanish, lately and long ago, never stray far from social issues. In 1994 she co-edited Writings for a Liberation Psychology (Harvard University Press), which was selected Book of the Month by the Catholic Book Club of America. In 2009 she translated and wrote the introduction to Mario Benedetti’s play on the t
heme of torture, Pedro and the Captain (Cadmus Editions), and her memoir about her human rights work, Little Lessons in Liberation Psychology, which won the Creative Justice Press Chapbook competition, will be published this year. In between, her fiction pieces have placed first at both the San Francisco Writers Conference and the Jack London Writers Conference, and Able Muse has honored her with the Able Muse Write Prize. She is especially fond of flash fiction, and was a finalist for the Gover Prize in Flash Fiction, with a short story published in Best New Writing. The little story California Catechism is a flash excerpt from a novel in progress. Adrianne lives in Berkeley, California.
Sheila Scobba Banning is the author of Terroir, Intersections, and Failblog. She lives in Sunnyvale with her husband and sons and menagerie of pets. When not writing, Sheila creates fascinators and outlandish hats. She throws fabulous parties, wears vintage dresses, and laughs until she cries every day. Her superpower is catalysis. Learn more at scobba.com.
Carson Beker is co-founder of Wayward Writers and has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University. Her writing has appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Transfer, and Bourbon Penn. She has performed at Quiet Lightning, Red Light Lit, and Litcrawl. Her play Sunflower Suicide Moon won a second-place Highsmith Award and will be given a staged production at Z Space in May. Her play Brizo will be part of the 2015 SF Olympians Festival. She is currently at work on a novel about Grief Camp.
Lianne Card has been a writer since childhood. Born in Winnipeg, Canada, she has lived in multiple Californian cities. She especially loves to write about place so she can feel anchored within her vagabond life. At various times she has been a teacher, researcher, editor and publisher as well a knowledge worker on the shifting sands of Silicon Valley. Her writing has appeared in two Central Valley anthologies: Leaves from the Valley Oak and Sierra Wonders. In addition, her poems have been included in collections published by Subud, a spiritual association. These include The God’s Eye, Humankind, and Creation. Lianne is in the process of publishing a travel memoir in the coming months.
Arthur Carey is a former newspaper reporter, editor, and journalism instructor who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a member of the California Writers Club. His fiction has appeared in print and Internet publications, including Pedestal, Funny Times, Eclectic Flash, Golden Visions Magazine, Suspense, Abstract Quill, Clever Magazine, and Still Crazy. His is the author of The Gender War, a humorous novel about a contest to determine which sex is superior. It is available at Amazon, together with short stories and a novella. His is a journalism graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has worked as a reporter and copy editor on daily newspapers in Michigan and California. After leaving newspaper work, he taught journalism for 27 years at San Jose City College.
Ullas Gargi has been reciting, and occasionally, writing poetry for the past 20 years with breaks for eating, sleeping, getting a PhD, and working as a software engineer at Google.
Dick Heinz is a retired software engineer. He likes to read books and to write weird little stories like the one in this e-book. Though he would like to write longer stuff, his attention span is too short. He also spends a lot of time exercising. Favorite book? The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek.
Shu-Hsien Ho has been writing poetry and short stories for fun since she was seven years old. Today she is a writing coach who is passionate about teaching youth and teens how to organize their thoughts and write with power and clarity. Since 1996, her students have learned to write essays, research papers, poems, short stories, and even their first novels. Ms. Ho has a BA from Pomona College and an MA from Lesley University. She hosts workshops for Bay Area Young Writers and Bay Area Teen Writers, two thriving meet up clubs with over 470 families. In recent years, she has published six anthologies of her students’ fiction: Strokes of Lightning, Real Heroes Wear Sneakers, Bones of Mystery, Encroaching Ink, Special Worlds, and Piercing the Unknown. When she is not teaching, Ms. Ho writes poems and stories inspired by visits to the beach and woods. She is currently compiling a collection of poetry for publication in November 2015.
Karen Jessen's grandparents came to Palo Alto in 1922. She was born in Palo Alto and grew up in Los Altos where she has since lived with her husband, David. She graduated from Los Altos High School and received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her short stories and travel pieces have appeared in several magazines and newspapers. She has just completed her first novel: The Distance Between Planets.
Swati Kher has been writing for more than 5 years. She also studied at Stanford's Writer's Studio. She has been self-published and her interests are writing juvenile fiction and poetry. Her favorite authors include Steinbeck, Hawthorne, Poe, Jane Austen, Bronte Sisters, and Emily Dickinson.
Joyce Kiefer grew up in the Bay Area and graduated from San Jose State in Journalism and English. Kiefer and family have a strong sense of place. The house which her parents built in San Mateo is now home to her granddaughter. Her son and his family live down the street from there, so she does go home again often. Kiefer and her husband have lived in the same house in Sunnyvale since 1966. She has worked at Stanford University in an administrative capacity and ended up as an event planner. Currently she volunteers with the Midpeninsula Open Space District and does interviews for the Stanford Historical Society Oral History Project. She enjoys traveling both near and far. She has been a regular contributor to TheColumnists.com, and she has published several anthologies, poems and articles on the Bay Area Family Travel site and the San Jose Mercury News. Read her blog at Lifeinthepursuit.blogspot.com.
Ellaraine Lockie is a widely published and awarded author of poetry, nonfiction books and essays. Her collection, Where the Meadowlark Sings, won the 2014 Encircle Publication’s Chapbook Contest and was published in early 2015. Other recent awards include the 2013 Women’s National Book Association’s Poetry Prize, the Best Individual Collection from Purple Patch magazine in England for Stroking David's Leg, first place in the San Gabriel Poetry Festival Chapbook Contest for Red for the Funeral, and The Aurorean's Chapbook Spring Pick for Wild as in Familiar. Ellaraine teaches poetry workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, Lilipoh. She is a frequent judge of poetry/literary contests and is currently judging the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Winning Writers.
G. David Nordley, in full Gerald David Nordley, is an author and astronautical engineer. He lives in Sunnyvale, CA, with his retired wife. A retired Air Force officer, he has extensive experience in spacecraft systems operations, engineering, and testing as well as research in advanced spacecraft propulsion. As a writer of fiction and nonfiction, his main interest is the future of human exploration and settlement of space. His stories typically focus on the dramatic aspects of individual lives within the broad sweep of a plausible human future. Gerald is a past Hugo and Nebula award nominee as well as a four-time winner of the Analog Science Fiction & Fact annual "AnLab" reader's poll. His recent work includes the novel To Climb a Flat Mountain and the collection Among the Stars, both from variationspublishing.com. His latest publication is Haumea in Extreme Planets from Chaosium, 2014. Find out more at his website: www.gdnordley.com.
Misuk Park’s inspiration for Somewhere in Birdland came from the author’s childhood visit to an Eichler house with a Japanese garden atrium in the Birdland neighborhood. Park lives in Sunnyvale and is active in local non-profits. She chairs the Sunnyvale Arts Commission and is an Advisory Board Member for Sustainable Community Gardens. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley.
Robert S. Pesich is the editor and publisher of Swan Scythe Press swanscythe.com, president of Poetry Center San José and coordinator for The Well-RED Reading Series also in San José. He has received poetry fellowships from Arts Council Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. He was twice a Djerassi Resident Artist Fellow and nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. His recent work has a
ppeared or is forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander, Right Hand Pointing, Porter Gulch Review, The Redwood Coast Review, Arsenic Lobster, and Círculo de Poesía (Mexico City). In 2009, he was awarded the Littoral Press Poetry Prize. An interview with Pesich, including a selection of his work, appears in The Bitter Oleander vol. 14, no. 2. Author of Burned Kilim (Dragonfly Press) his collection of poetry Night Sutures is in submission. He works as a lab manager/research associate for Palo Alto Institute for Research and Education and for Stanford University. Visit robertpesich.com for additional information. He lives in Sunnyvale with his family.
Clare Ramsaran was born and raised in England, but checks “other” on forms when asked to define her heritage—or creates her own category of “Indo-Guyanese/Irish.” Resident in the Bay Area since 2004, she is currently an MFA candidate at the University of San Francisco. She is writing a novel about two Caribbean brothers who join other young immigrants to London in their pursuit of love, love of the inter-racial and queer varieties, and justice. In 2015 she read from her novel at a Crossroads Festival writer’s panel in San Francisco. Her work has been published in the anthologies Surviving the Blues, The Suitcase Book of Love Poems in England, and Everything Indicates—Bay Bridge Poems and Portraits, the St Sebastian Review and others in the U.S. She published a chapbook called Aftershocks. She is a blogger at Mixed Remixed www.mixedremixed.org/author/clare/ and an alumna of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) writing workshop. She started Himself, during a writing class in San Francisco. Her inspirations included her time working for the Mayor of London as a web developer and the happy scenes at San Francisco City Hall in 2004 when the City issued marriage licenses to same sex couples. Visit her blog at clareramsaran.blogspot.com.
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