The Ladies of Lit: Volume XXII

Jun 7, 201225 min read

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Published: Jun 7, 2012

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Welcome to volume twenty-two my Literature series, The Ladies of Lit!

The premise here is simple. Below you will find an assortment of Literature features from a selection of female deviants here on DeviantART, all of them suggested by you. In this article, you will also find a variety of other things of interest, including:

This article’s deviant spotlight: featuring the lovely LadyofGaerdon. She has offered to answer a few questions as well, to tell us a bit about what inspires her writing and which piece in particular she favors.

Additional information about our upcoming events, including a special critique Q and A session in our official TheLadiesofLit chatroom. And we also have a selection of other interesting Literature news links to share with you.

Our “meet our contributors” section. Be sure to note me if you would like to volunteer your services or offer additional suggestions as to how to improve this series.

We also have a new series format for this news article, due to recent DeviantART website changes. Deviants are still able to

this journal, so please take a moment to do so, to continue to show your support for our devious writers.

Now – On With the Features!

Avallynh
once.the world was wider, once: strewn bright
and willing to a fingertip's beckoning, riddled
with roads that spilled in breathless wanders
to otherlands of reverie. i remember
the promise i made a wild changeling child
before i bade her hush and say goodnight --
i've not woken her since: she sleeps and i steal
her spun-glass dreams for my garden
of wilt, ever longing to hold
the ghost-dance that spins by their dying light.

strangeryou came clinging to the grace of a summer storm's
underbreath, came cold hands and tired eyes
and a bruised lip i'd longed to kiss
when you stumbled on night listing
too far to the left
cross my thistledown garden by old dusks
that wilt between, i'll keep my door open:
your lady in sepia doesn't live here, only
the ghosts and i -- and Grandmother,
in the far-between wanders when she can
remember --
but i've a place where you can
lay your wayworn bones to dry, and
if morning should come calling, i'll not
tell her where you sleep. and stayed awhile.

_{Suggested by: LadyofGaerdon

“Avallynh weaves her words with thread like gossamer - her poetry is breathy, gauze-like, fragile - yet her imagery is so strong that it will remain in your mind, leaving you a heart swelled with longing.”}

butterfli1473girl
Rescue'I can't do it anymore. I'm too tired, too cold, too uncaring. I'll just find some place out of the way to die. Wow, that's a depressing thought.' Alice curls up under a cardboard box in a trash-filled alley. Her ears lay forward and her tail curls around her bare feet. Her clothes, which are the wrong size and falling apart, barely hold in the heat against the November chill. Alice falls asleep shivering.
The feel of her world tilting wakes her. Her cat instincts urge her to jump away from the impending danger; however, they abandon her upon landing. She tumbles from the cardboard and lands in a crumpled heap on the cold ground. Alice cries out in pain as her leg gives out beneath her.
The man operating the trash truck watches the body fall from the pile of cardboard and turns his truck off to investigate. He carefully walks over to Alice, noticing how homeless she looks, and then he sees the cat ears and tail.
"Are you okay?" Christopher reaches out a hand towards her.
Alice hisses, Christmas with the Kitten"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Rub your face against things."
"Oh. I don't even notice I'm doing it. I guess because they're soft, and warm, and I feel don't feel the softness as well with my hands."
Alice sits curled on the couch, her head resting on the armrest. Every so often, she rubs the side of her face against it, and sighs in contentment while watching TV with Christopher.
~~~
"Do you have this in other colors?" Christopher holds up an orange scarf to the sales clerk.
"Sure, just let me check in the back." She walks through the door to inventory, leaving him standing in the overly girly store. He looks extremely out of place among the pink and sequins in his torn flannel shirt and work boots.
Looking around he shakes his head at the mannequins dressed in clothes he could only imagine Alice wearing if she continued to live on the streets selling herself to get by. At that notion, he turns back to the door the sales clerk went through, and she comes back with an ar pinky promise"Pinky promise?"
"Sure"
They link pinky fingers. Then one went to touch thumbs and the other one went to bite her thumb. The end result was his thumb on her nose.
Giggling "what are you doing?"
"Apparently petting your nose," he starts to move his thumb in a circular motion on the tip of her nose, "what were you trying to do?"
"Bite my thumb to finish the pinky promise."
"I've never heard of that. I touch thumbs."
"Why?"
"To complete the promise and it's supposed to symbolize an unbreakable vow since circles are typically harder to break. Why would you bite your thumb?"
"That's the way I was taught." She thinks a bit further causing her to cock her head to the left and furrow her brow slightly, "I guess it means I would rather eat my own thumb than break my promise to you." she turns red as the blood rushes to her cheeks, and she giggles nervously.
"Really?"
"Really what?"
"You would really rather eat your own thumbs than break this promise?"
"I would rather eat my thumbs than break an

_{Suggested by: RavensQuill

“She is a relatively unknown writer who has a style that I just love to read. Her works are full of heart and capture moments in life- both precious and horrifying. And she's not afraid to write about some of the tougher issues like abuse and prejudice. It's rather refreshing.”}

SocraticSynapses
exhalei loved you in stolen glances
in individual moments i wrapped up in eager dreams
waiting for a hushed smile that never came
but reflected itself in the midnight rain of my bedroom window
i loved you as a secret
that lay between the shadows of my heart
and the tip of my tongue
i could not whisper your name aloud
but god, did i want to
i loved you boundlessly
like the wind, with no beginning and no end
forever traveling across your landscape
chasing the sunset resting on your horizon distinctionThis is what I cannot understand.
There is an understanding that nothing is ever black and white. Good can be achieved through bad means, what's wrong can sometimes be right, and if you turn right for long enough, you eventually go left. Boys can be girls who fall in love with girls who sometimes think they are boys and the lines between everything end up irreversibly blurred.
Or so I've always thought.
But this is a line that cannot be blurred. This is the only remaining clear-cut line that separates black from white as perfectly as a color wheel. And that is the fact that everything is until it isn't. We are until we aren't. We breathe until we don't. We live until we die. There is no gray area, no matter what the talk of doctors and comas and life support and brain death might say. Your heart beats until it doesn't.
This goes beyond just life and death. Emotions are until they aren't. As are moments, definitions, seasons. Two people falling in love, well, some of them inevitably cra across the meridianShe felt the destruction settle in her bones.
When she lay awake at night, it swallowed her piece by piece and consumed everything that she was. She lay beneath the covers with her eyes open and irises glued to the heavens outside her window, and tried to forget about the black hole that rooted itself behind her ribcage and between her lungs. She counted the stars and looked for the man on the moon while she told herself that if she kept breathing, she would keep living, and that would be enough. If she kept breathing, if she remembered to inhale and exhale in the correct pattern, it wouldn't matter that her soul was slowly turning itself inside out and she hurt in every part of her body without knowing why, it wouldn't matter that she had completely lost track of who she was and who she wanted to become. If she kept breathing, it wouldn't matter that he was lying against her and whispering to her when all she felt was her axons slowly untangling, when all she heard was her synapses sh

_{Suggested by: SadisticIceCream

“No matter the genre, SocraticSynapses writes in a lyric, headlong style that throws you right into the middle of her pieces.”}

Saidani
:thumb271057732::thumb199849650::thumb152400086:

_{Suggested by: dreamsinstatic

“Always powerful and poignant, Vicky manages to weave fantastically complex pieces that leave the reader thinking.”}

magdalagarza
The Monster of Orange Joyling

The children had never seen a monster before.
They'd heard the stories, of course. It was impossible to live in the City of Always Nightfall without having huge, cavernous dreams about the bone-pile it digs its roots into. It was a very big and bloody bone-pile, the one crunching underneath Singing City.
There was Glum Rradung, the bulge-eyed sewer-midget who slithered out of water-closets and gulped down children wandering about in the dark. There was Ingalin, the hungrymind which spontaneously formed out of clutter and garbage. There was the Very Practical Man, whose face was just an enormous nose and an even bigger grin, a demon who, they say, could smell out loneliness and loved to torment the heartbroken and the near-suicides.
And there was the Dark Lord in his pyramid, high up in the inner city where no Squatschild could ever go. The climbing, black stain of Tower Myth and Mastery was a brooding reminder that it was a monster who ruled them all.
Singing City's slum-brats had no l

_{Suggested by: Tobaeus

“While her gallery is small, so far the pieces in it pack a lot of punch. It is definitely worth a look.”}

My Spotlight Deviant:

LadyofGaerdon

RemnantWashed up a remnant,
a relic of abandoned epochs,
she inhales her first breath in an aeon.
Air thick with soot,
pungent with poison,
sinuous hands fly to her throat
as she sputters a curse
in a language long forgotten.
Beneath the slick surface of her murky realm
lost, she wandered on,
searched through centuries for a land
half-remembered in dreams.
Time and toxins took their toll
and when she arose from the depths
her scales shone bright with mercury,
glinting silver in the moonlight.
With trembling fingers
she combs starlight from her tresses,
brushes moonbeams from her curves,
counting lesions to her body,
carved by knowledge, knives
or nothing. She no longer knows.
She shivers in the shadow of
impossible structures,
their quivering reflections rippling
across the magic mirror
from which she surfaced.
In the dark their glass eyes gleam,
a thousand starry-eyed monstrosities,
rake their gaze across her form.
She clings to the shoreline,
jagged rocks and filthy sand.
Anothe Immortal CallI won't forget all I've found
Oh, you can't convince me
As this life fades into the background
I close my eyes and dream of what I could be
Distant shadows show the way
Oh, into the twilight
Lead me back to yesterday
Before I made the choice to lead a "real" life
Dancing moonlight
Whispering leaves
Tease this ghost inside of me
Can't return without your will
With every breath I feel the chill
Life is slipping out of me
To meet the voices in the trees
Don't leave me here
To face the light
Call me back into the night
Don't leave me here to face the dawn alone
Bring me home
Starlight burn emotion deep into these thirsting eyes
Oh, release their poison
I feel the wind and realize
The emptiness of what I've chosen
Walking a mortal's beaten path
Oh, the straight and narrow
Tightening this noose around my neck
Pierce humanity with time's dull arrow
Dancing moonlight
Whispering leaves
Tease this ghost inside of me
Can't return without your will
With every breath I feel the chill
Life is slippi

_{Julia has an amazing ability to bring everything she writes to vivid life. Each character, each scene and each story she writes has such beauty on its own. Taken together, her descriptive writing takes us all on an unforgettable journey, making us truly appreciate its unique flow.}

She has also taken a few moments to share some of her own insights as a writer. I asked her a few questions:

Why do you write?

Cliché as it sounds, because that's who I am. I'm a writer. I can't imagine not being a writer. Possibly this is because I've had a running commentary in my head for as long as I can remember. I narrate and analyze everything I encounter. I also tend to "think in poetry". I see the poetic in just about everything, and when my muse cooperates, I can transfer these thoughts to the page. I also just like playing with language, with the sounds and rhythm of words. I'm an etymology nerd, and I love learning the history and origins of words, to deepen their meanings when I use them.

I also just like hanging out with the characters in my head, learning their secrets, exploring their emotions and reactions. Emotions fascinate me because they are usually seen as weak and unimportant, but the fate of empires has often rested upon them. Writing a novel is so exciting because you can essentially build an entire world that you completely control and understand - and yet, the process can still surprise you, when characters and scenes don't turn out the way you expected.

You have a wonderful eye for Daily Deviations. What sorts of things do you look for in a suggestion and what tips can you offer other deviants looking to suggest?

The most important tip I can offer is to keep suggesting! I was discouraged when I first started, because I would suggest one or two pieces every so often that I loved and thought were brilliant, and then when they weren't accepted I became really discouraged, figuring the CVs just weren't interested in what I thought was worthy of featuring. That's the wrong attitude to have about it, though. I was prompted by LiliWrites's DD Challenge to step up my suggesting, and I suggested over 50 pieces! Seven were accepted, which I suppose you could say isn't very many, compared to how many I suggested. That's not how I saw it though. I was just thrilled that seven of my suggestions were featured! You also have to throw out the mindset that the CVs don't want to hear from you. I used to think I wasn't well known or important enough to suggest DDs, but you know what? Suggesting DDs actually kind of made me more well known! And I can assure you that the CVs want suggestions from absolutely anyone they can get!

As for the DDs themselves, I tend to suggest things that completely blow me away in some way, be it style, originality, emotional content, etc. Pieces I think the community really needs to see. I like pieces that are different and interesting and offer something special. I seek this in both lit and other mediums.

What things inspire you while writing?

I find the most inspiration in nature and music. I like to leave the window wide open and listen to the birds and the breeze. I find I do my best writing in the middle of the night, generally with a cat on my lap who refuses to even let me up for a bathroom break. Wildly whistling wind and pounding rain are also good. These things really help me detach and go into the world of my series. I started writing my first novel with a couple different albums on repeat. One was Dashboard Confessional and the other was The Verve. Of course, that didn't last long because even subconsciously I ended up memorizing the words. I switched to George Winston, who is an amazing pianist and never fails to put me in the mindset of my series.

I also like to listen to inspiring music right before writing, to get me in the proper mindset. I was listening to tons of Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKennit when I was writing my first novel and I think that shows through in the text. Nowadays I listen to lots of Symphonic Metal like Within Temptation and Mortal Love. I also notice that depending on what kind of writing I'm doing; reading a certain book concurrently is very helpful. When writing a first draft, I like to read something by Paticia A. McKillip. The way she weaves poetry throughout her text is incredibly inspiring and helps get my imagination flowing. During the revision and editing phase, I notice that reading some quality YA like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes can really help me clean up the text and keep things clear and concise.

What motivates you to share your writing on DeviantART?

DeviantART has been such an amazing experience for me. I tried out other online communities and never stuck around, but I feel like I can really be myself on dA. People encounter me through my writing, which is the most authentic part of myself. It's wonderful to know that people enjoy and respond to my writing. I find so much motivation and enthusiasm here! Knowing that there are actually people in the world who look forward to seeing what I post is one of the most amazing experiences ever. It gives me hope and confidence in my writing. I also love the challenge dA offers. I've written things for dA prompts and contests that I would otherwise have never thought to write. It's exciting. And of course my writing itself has definitely improved, through the combination of reading the inspiring work of fellow writers like AzizrianDaoXrak and scarletbird, and the tons of incredibly helpful feedback and critique other deviants so generously offer. I can't even remember what I did before I found dA.

Which piece featured is your favorite and why?

Probably Remnant. I wrote it to include in my new group Lit-Visual-Alliance, a project I'm really excited about. I tried to incorporate as many elements of the original image as possible, while still making it my own. It was the first narrative free verse poem I ever attempted and I was quite please with the results. I also played around with the alliteration a bit, trying out internal alliteration instead of just the normal kind. I really like utilizing literary devices that other writers malign - I try to use them in fresh, interesting ways. Plus I just find alliteration (when done right) to be very poetic.

LadyofGaerdon will also be joining us in the our TheLadiesofLit chatroom for a special critiquing session for her wonderful literary work. If there are any critiquing tips you would like to offer her toward any deviations that you have seen featured here today or others that interest you – this is the place to be on June 24th at 6pm EST! (What time is this for me?) And as an extra incentive: for those of who offer LadyofGaerdon the best critiques, there will be a few extra goodies in store for you, so don’t miss out!

Meet Our Contributors:

I want to express my gratitude toward everyone for all of the ongoing support of this project. I duly hope to see even more suggestions in the future. Also – those of you who did not see your deviations selected and posted in this article, they may be featured on the next one. We will have plenty of upcoming deviants to spotlight in the future. If you would like to be one of those, or to suggest others, feel free to note me and be sure to tell me what you love most about them and why these writers appeals to you. Do not be shy – get involved! The more suggestions I receive, the more writers that get featured. For now, check out our volunteers who sent in their features and offered assistance, and don’t forget to thank them!