*Photo provided by Nemadji Review Staff
Calling all creatives! It is about the time of year that UWS’ student-run literary magazine The Nemadji Review will be open for submissions of poetry, short fiction, artwork, and research papers. The journal theme is “Midnight Thoughts: The Creative Hours”. Submit your best midnight-inspired works in multiple categories to potentially be featured in the 12th volume of the journal and/or on the Nemadji website.
Submissions will be open November 14-February 6. Check submission guidelines at thenemadjireview.com. Send submissions to thenemadjireview@gmail.com.
Below is an excerpt from a short fiction piece, “The Lady of The House,” by UWS student Hailie Evans. Check out thenemadjireview.com to read on!
‘An empty manor surrounded by acres of land. A simple front door above the two-step porch. Hanging beside the door, bolted to the siding, is an iron house plaque that reads Trille House. Within the house, a grand piano sits center stage in the drawing room, and a fire crackles in the hearth. Ornate pictures decorate the front hall—all of the same woman: the Lady of the house. In them she is elegantly—but not modestly—dressed in flowing, yellow fabric, her blonde curls tumbling down in perfect array. The portrait of vivacious youth. The ancient, knotted, pine floors don’t so much as creak underfoot, and the house is quiet. Eerily silent. In the parlor, an aesthetic chandelier with glittering crystal hangs from the ceiling, and several well-furnished chairs decorate the floor—both for ladies and gentlemen alike—around a pristine coffee table. Down a separate hallway lies the dining room with a long, oak table, the wood polished and unscratched. A small hall connects the dining room to the kitchen, where an icebox stands untouched, and the cookware hangs unused. A back stairway connects to the kitchen, leading down into the pitch darkness of a basement where the shadows hang so heavily a person could suffocate within them. Connecting to the parlor, a carpeted staircase leads up to the second floor. The bedroom and washroom are upstairs, along with the gentleman’s personal office and the lady’s fainting room. Everything is in place and cared for but unused. Dead.
On the second floor, in the bedroom, a woman stands at the singular window as the sun begins to creep upward in the sky. The curtains flutter in the wind on either side of her like broken wings…’
