PAULA WHYMAN
Gravity Dancers: Fiction By Washington Area Women edited by Richard Peabody, founder and editor of Gargoyle Magazine. July 2009, Paycock Press.
Selected Works
Fiction
A young woman struggles with an unplanned pregnancy.
Sexual and racial tensions in a classroom threaten to explode as a young teen faces choices that will haunt her in adulthood. ORDER HERE
Two American teens go on their first European trip and get into trouble.
A young girl in Thailand is sold into prostitution by her mother.
A woman is haunted by events from the past that threaten to disturb her domestic life.
A man battles neighbors to build his dream house, while his son resists the pull of the family heritage.
A psychologist confuses fantasy and reality as she travels alone for the first time after her divorce.
Humor
Dining out with dietary issues, and Twizzlers. From the Washington Post.
KITCHEN SINK LINKS
Washington Independent Review of Books
Washington's nonprofit online book review
Semi-Charmed Life: Surviving at the Center of the Universe
first-person column on absurdities of suburban life
Bethesda World News
Bethesda's own parody newspaper
When the Menu Is a Minefield
Washington Post Food section, on dining out with dietary issues
Ode to the Hand Dryers of La Guardia
guest post for Susan Coll's blog
Rumpus Mini-Interview #19
I interview visual artist Tim Guthrie about his unusual anti-war project.
Work-in-Progress: A blog by Leslie Pietrzyk
Explores the Creative Process
Alternate Sides: A blog by Susan Coll
Adventures Along the Northeast Corridor
Finding Josephine
Writer Dionne Ford's blog
Poetry in the Arts
Publisher of the poetry journal, Ardent! - and fine books of poetry by invitation.
Sand People
Excerpt...
His people came from the desert. They came from the same sort of desert where, thousands of years before, the Lord helped Moses get water from a rock. It took them many years to leave. But at least by then they had learned there could be no water from rocks.
Between here and the desert, before the moment when Gabriel stood as he did, gazing out at the ocean, five generations of his family had turned to dust, among them his grandfather and even, now, his father, who would never know that he had made it right to the edge of the earth, where the earth gave way to water only, water spreading out beyond his capacity to see. Before he could come to this place, all the generations who knew only desert had to die.
His people came from the desert. They came from the same sort of desert where, thousands of years before, the Lord helped Moses get water from a rock. It took them many years to leave. But at least by then they had learned there could be no water from rocks.
Between here and the desert, before the moment when Gabriel stood as he did, gazing out at the ocean, five generations of his family had turned to dust, among them his grandfather and even, now, his father, who would never know that he had made it right to the edge of the earth, where the earth gave way to water only, water spreading out beyond his capacity to see. Before he could come to this place, all the generations who knew only desert had to die.