Poetry and Fiction Submissions Needed for Anthology

New publication invites submissions

Filtered through Time

an anthology of original fiction and poetry reflecting how Middle Tennessee traditions and reactions to the Civil War have come down through the generations for 150 years.

There are many excellent history books covering the war and the years before and after that conflict. In this new book, we are seeking examples of how the war plays out in the community’s memory and consciousness as expressed in imaginative writing.

Deadline for submissions is May 2012.

All work must have a Civil War theme but not necessarily a Civil War setting. A story or poem may well describe the long term effect of the war on a family or reflect the feelings of someone to whom the war seems irrelevant. We welcome a variety of points of view.

In so far as many war stories have come down thorough families, we suggest that following a story or poem, an author may add a historical note explaining the origin of its ideas. If you have a great family story, try telling it in verse or see how its theme might play out in fiction, either a full length story or as “flash-fiction.” However, if you want to write it simply as a good narrative in your family’s tradition, go ahead.

Maximum length for fiction is 5,000 words.

Maximum for poetry is 150 lines single spaced.

Submissions may be sent electronically to beechcreek@mindsping.com or hard copy mailed to S.R. Lee, 475 Beech Creek Rd, N Brentwood, TN 37027

This book is being promoted, edited, and financed by a small group of interested writers under the direction of S.R. Lee, author/editor, and Rick Warwick, Williamson County historian. with the assistance of an editorial committee. Authors may order and sell the books themselves. The editors also will find suitable venues for public sales.

Battle Field, 1937

One hot summer day a boy,

with little sister tagging at his heels,

climbs to a low crest where old trenches

sink in weedy waves of three long lines

bottomed in buck bush and prickly pears.

Enthralled the boy brings friends.

They play at war.

The little sister, sun suited, sandaled,

unprepared for cactus spines,

follows their violent charge through

real war’s land. The little sandaled feet

are filled with tiny spears.

Child weeps to home.

Mother with her shiny tweezers

seems a battle surgeon claiming pain

must follow wounds.

The child sobs

and in her baby way forever

knows real danger dwells in battlefields.

S.R. Lee