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Laundry List – Fiction by Jennifer Mills Kerr

Once I had my hair down to my waist, a gap between my teeth. I believed in the power of music, that it could change the world. My name is Charlotte by the way. My father used to say that I was too big for my britches. Who uses the word “britches” these days? Though Dad said that a long time ago–we’re talking the 70s. I’m an old(er) lady now, and Dad’s long gone.
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A Celebration Six Months Overdue: Georgina Marie and the Lake County Poet Laureate Inauguration (Complete with Haikus)

A hot, gusty breeze passes by our footsteps, bringing with it needles falling from the giant redwood overhead. We walk through the heart of Library Park, looking for a picnic table safely away from other visitors, two of Juicy’s spectacular pizzas in each hand. The gusty afternoon breeze hasn’t settled down into balmy summer evening just yet; another flurry of wind blows open our pizza box. But slight pink hues in the sky creep over the lake, hinting at a beautiful sunset to come. I flip the pizza box shut, trying to turn it a direction where the wind won’t blow it open again. “Congratulations on your first six months as Poet Laureate,” David says, then takes a large bite of pizza. Georgina smiles, pulling back her hair from her face as another breeze brushes by us.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: Understanding Practice Through Simple Poetry – By Lance Giroux

You are, I am, we are always practicing something all of the time – that this “something” changes now and then does not diminish the fact that whether or not we are consciously aware of it – some of our practices are constructive, and others are not. All practices have shape and all have impact. Our lives revolve around the construct of practice. The willing act to “create and have a practice” – even if for only a short time – helps one illuminate the power and depth of practice.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: Living my Writer’s Life by Georgina Marie

This particular time of the coronavirus challenges us to maintain our relationship with our creative lives and it very well could be a time of pause. One may find it hard to write when we’re worried about our health and livelihoods or our families. One of my favorite writers, Nicole Gulotta, recently discussed in her podcast Wild Words how writing is certainly essential but in a way that is different than our basic essential needs. This may very well be a period of time this year where we slow down or even stop writing because we feel exhausted, we don’t have the energy or the motivation, or we just don’t feel like it. All of this is okay and I would even say that it is certainly a part of living a writer’s life.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Call for Submissions for Rooted in Poetry Bi-Weekly Poetry Column

Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie and The Lake County Bloom invite Lake County writers to submit to our bi-weekly poetry column, Rooted in Poetry. This column is a collaboration to offer a platform for local writers to introduce themselves to the community through their writing. Writers of all backgrounds are welcome regardless of your experience or style. We support established and emerging writers and look forward to reading a wide range of work and perspectives.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: Adjusting To Social Distancing With Poetry – by Hilary Devine

Like all of you, I’m adjusting to this new lifestyle. No facet of my life is unaffected by the pandemic. I’m teaching classes from home. I’m homeschooling a teenager. I’m standing in line for toilet paper at 7:00 a.m. in a mask. I’m dealing with the personal and professional challenges of a “shelter in place” order, and when I get the chance, I’m writing. The following series of poems is dedicated to all of the students who are “sheltered in place” at home.
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Farmers’ Market Poetry Contest A Success!

A total of 22 contest submissions were received from Lake County writers from all around the lake of different ages and writing experience. A reading panel of 5 Lake County residents made the winning poem selections. Submissions were read blind without knowing names of those who wrote the poems until after selections were made. First place winner was Diane Tulley for her poem 65 Year Old Garden. Second place winner was Ariana Weinert for her poem The Market Season. Third place winner was Mia Ruiz for her poem The Golden Peach. Each winner was awarded a monetary amount in market money to use on fresh goods at the market (funds were sponsored by Lake County Bloom and Georgina Marie), had their poems on display for the market’s opening day, and their poems are being published in the Lake County Bloom. The remaining contestants have the opportunity to have their poems posted on the Lake County Farmers’ Finest website.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: The Art of Dreaming by Jennifer Mills Kerr

Art is a conversation. We absorb our worlds, consciously and unconsciously, and when we create art, we’re expressing those experiences, whatever they may be. With the shelter-in-place order, I no longer spent my days teaching in a high school classroom. My ears rang, not with the usual buzz of my 130 students, but with an unfamiliar silence. I felt myself floating in a bubble of space and solitude, listening rather than speaking, an exchange student in a new land.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: A Bi-Weekly Column – Poet Jordan O’ Halloran

Jordan O’Halloran lives in Kelseyville Riviera with her boyfriend and their cat, Fuzzykins. By day, she works at a non-profit here in Lake County and every other moment is spent writing. She has been an attendee of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference for the last 2 years and attends Lake County writing events when she can. When not writing, you can find her cooking vegetarian food, daydreaming about trees and the ocean, and watching things on Disney Plus. You can find some of her writing in Santa Barbara Literary Journal Volume 2: Cor Serpentis and The Middletown Art Center’s chapbook RESILIENCE. You can follow her journey on Facebook and Instagram as Jordanjotsjoy.
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ROOTED IN POETRY GEORGINA
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Rooted in Poetry: A Bi-Weekly Column

This is a time when we are honoring the new. Every day is different: our routines have been altered, and we are faced with uncertainty, which can be difficult to say the least. But we can still write, we can still create and perhaps even without the pressure to finish a poem or write a new book but simply to help us get through this time; to document a time when we were unsure how our day-to-day will proceed, but when we still stayed connected.
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Photo by Abhishek Gaurav from Pexels
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Rose: Short Fiction by John Randall Williams

Rose’s hip stabbed her at seven. She stretched her legs under the quilt, finding a position her pelvis liked, and then she waited for her bladder to wake up and force her out of bed. In her mind she clicked through her schedule for another Monday: KRON news until nine, then New York Crime Sceneon cable 53, then over to cable 56 for its fraternal sibling, Miami Forensics, followed by the Judges: Ray Brown, and Jody. During lunch she’d watch KTVU news, and then another New York Crime Scene on cable 25. In the evening, she switched over to Las Vegas Crime Scene and then, after her nap, the five o’clock KRON news followed by two of the national news broadcasts: ABC and CBS. Rose loved Dan Rather; was heartsick for a week after his retirement. Then dinner and Tuesday’s prime time reality shows beginning with Police Call, over to channel five and Real Life Forensics, followed by Challenge of Fear, which she watched about half of, with sideways glances at the disgusting parts. Her day would end with the eleven o’clock news on KRON, creating a neat KRON symmetry, the channel already set to start the next day.
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