Welcome to Joie de Vivre!
Summer 2008
Letter from the Editor
Till Human Voices Wake Us
Tara Avery
Memory. Never quite as clear as a photograph. Easier to tamper with—the merest suggestion calcifies into false reality; memories of old books or television shows seem to belong to one’s own experience; whispers of do you remember? slide through veins of thought like cancer.
The Magician's Apprentice
Desirae May
The village I grew up in was a small one. It had two general stores and a one room chapel. We did not even have the benefit of an assembly hall or other gathering place – dances and the like were held outside on warm nights. It had so little to recommend it to outsiders that a newcomer was always a shock to the residents. People did not move to St. Clair, they were born there and left to go someplace better.
Four Dresses
Liz Shannon Miller
Blood runs down my leg as the phone rings; I don't bother holding back a curse. A month ago, this would have been easy -- I'd be wearing my traditional third date outfit of jeans and a nice top; I wouldn't be running fifteen minutes late and dying a slow death from razor burn. But a month ago, I wasn't this girl. This girl with all these dresses.
The Day Player
Helenna Santos
I’m naked on stage and forgetting every single line I was supposed to have memorized. I have never been to a single rehearsal. I am not even in this production. I’m glistening with sweat in front of a five-hundred-seat theater and about to projectile vomit.
Backyard Conversation
Cynnamon Schreinert
The day was brilliant with a beautiful blue sky. I was playing in the back, along the edge of the yard where the garden had been devoted to sunflowers. They were Mama’s favourite flowers; she loved anything to do with sunflowers. Every spring she sowed and planted the garden, getting it ready for the coming wall of yellow that would bloom along the back of our yard. In the summer she would water them consistently and be out there talking to them. I found that the sunflowers seemed to be one of the few things to give her pleasure.
My Great Escape: London Calling
Natalie Kardum
Well, after planning, saving, researching, and many leaps of faith, I have jumped over the pond to find myself in the United Kingdom, in a city called London. Finally.