moon, mutable orb
pitch ceaselessly waxes, wanes
tides ever tuning
~
I love to revisit old work and see what I might tease from it. Is this an improvement or something entirely new? I’ll let you decide. The original:
light, vacillating
orb waxes, fills, wanes, renews
still, daily moves tides
~
Play on, fellow wordsmiths.
~ Tanya
as always: photo and words©️2024 Tanya Cliff
With a novel being queried to agents and a half-dozen short stories on submission to various lit mags, I find my mind drifting too frequently to that part of the writing business that exists outside of my control. The successes are exciting and exhilarating. But rejections are a part of this journey. Knowing that fact only lessons the sting. It still hurts.
I’m managing my anxiety through time with family and friends—laughter is truly the best medicine—and yoga. Yoga is a practice that melds body, mind, and soul through breath. It is calming and restorative, building strength and balance. Even a few minutes of yoga practice can be centering and grounding, refreshing and reinvigorating.
Yoga also serves as a reminder to me to focus on the part of the writing business that I do control: the daily practice of putting words to the page. The greatest achievement here is simply showing up.
In that spirit, I am diving like a dolphin into my next novel draft. It’s a project I’ve been churning around for a long time. The characters are compelling and keep pulling me back. The plot, as it’s developing, is thickening…swelling. I’m swimming in words. Making waves. I feel refreshed and reinvigorated. I’m writing…a new book.
Tanya
Thrilled to have my story named to Fractured Lit’s Anthology Prize Longlist. The titles alone have me excited! Congrats to all the anonymous nominees.
https://fracturedlit.com/fractured-lit-anthology-volume-4-longlist/
Baba Yaga, her house ever spinning, casts dizzy spells: multiplies weeds’ thorns, exterminates unicorns, allows toxic fungus to fester, boils it in her tea. She piles her human-boned boundary sky high, ten thousand eye sockets blazing.
None can enter.
She’s grown weary of peasants’ petitions: food, shelter, clothes, cures. Endless. (Although, if pressed, she’d confess to finding revenge requests amusing.)
But now, her garden rots, unweeded. Her tunic needs mending. Her chicken-toed shoes stir up her floor’s thick dust. She coughs, covers her warty nose with her head scarf, exposes her balding crown.
Deprived of tender company, Baba Yaga starves.
words and photography ©️2024 Tanya Cliff
Inceptive thaw sensed
Embryos shed old seed coats
then, naked, ascend
words and photography ©️2024 Tanya Cliff
Snow slowly melts.
Frigid rivulets
form dangling daggers.
Moonlight, through jagged reflections,
flashes pointed warning—
rising temps release nature’s knives.
©️2024 Tanya Cliff
It’s been a while since we’ve seen this much snow in the Driftless Region. The husky is happy! It’s also been too long since I’ve connected with my WordPress friends and family.
In case you were wondering where I’d run off to, I’ve been working full-time on my MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College in Boston. That, and balancing work and family responsibilities. Thrilled to announced I crossed the thesis threshold in December and have graduated 🎓. I’ve learned so many things about writing, life, and myself on this journey, some of which I hope to share as we get caught up over coffee and maybe a good book or two.
For now, I’ll express my gratitude toward my family, mentors, and amazing Emerson cohort, without whom I wouldn’t have gotten to the finish line. Of course, it’s really the beginning of the next adventure. Glad to have you along for the journey.
Tanya
So excited to share my latest story, “Joan, Existing in the Hours of Daisies and Sunflowers,” recently published alongside the stellar fiction in Stork Magazine. Special thanks to Taylor McGowan for her editorial prowess and fabulous live read on launch day and to Katherine Fitzhugh for the beautiful illustration. 🌻
Also, heartfelt thanks to Pamela Painter for her skilled guidance. Without her, this story would have never blossomed. 🌻
Read the story at https://issuu.com/storkstory/docs/stork_spring_2022/41 🌻
An Octopus with a Narwhal Tusk by Tanya Cliff — NEW FLASH FICTION REVIEW
— Read on https://newflashfictionr-saf0s9gzxb.live-website.com/an-octopus-with-a-narwhal-tusk-by-tanya-cliff/
Hey WordPress friends, I’m thrilled to share that my story is live in Issue #26 of New Flash Fiction Review! It’s a flash fiction fast read.
“While Timmy’s puzzle concoctions drive me crazy, I can relate to him. My father abandoned me too. I was sixteen. He had terminal cancer. At least my dad didn’t have a choice.”
Hello WordPress Friends, It's been a long time since my last post. I hope this finds you all happy, healthy (especially given the past few years of global pandemic), and creating many new works. The world desperately needs your art, music, poetry, and stories. This last fall I started my MFA in Creative Writing - Fiction through Emerson College in Boston, MA. Thanks to Zoom and some highly gifted professors and cohorts, I have been able to attend fulltime from my home in the beautiful Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin. The Writing Workshops have been challenging and productive, and I continue to grow and learn daily. I just found out that one of my flash fiction pieces, "An Octopus with a Narwhal Tusk," has been picked up for publication in New Flash Fiction Review. I will share that link as soon as the story goes live. Going forward on this blog, I plan to post some short fiction and poetry, share links to pieces picked up for publication, provide updates on my writing progress (because it motivates me and keeps me accountable), and share a few stories from inside my MFA journey and life in general. I look forward to reconnecting with you all. In case you were wondering, the new novel of literary fiction just hit 12k words. The first few chapters will be workshopped in two weeks. I am excited and a bit nervous and will probably share a bit about that post-workshop. Best Wishes, Tanya (March 2022)
