Painted Bride Quarterlys Slush Pile

It’s okay to be somber, Slushies! Don't let the poetic gestures confuse you as the rhythm and pacing contribute to a starburst of flash fiction by Maria McLeod. The obligation to help the writer leaves the crew thinking, as Kathy recalls Dubus’s “A Fathers Story” and Marion thinking of “The Defeated” on Netflix. “The Eternal Fall Backwards” will have you captured in the stream of the writer's thoughts and deeply invested in remaining there.  What piece of media did you recall while reading “The Eternal Fall Backwards”?  This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.   Maria McLeod writes poetry and prose. Honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. She was named the 2020 WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest winner, judged by Oregon State Poet Laureate Kim Stafford, for “Mother Want,” published in 2021.