Spy

Spy Reprints “Weeping Willow” by V.P. Loggins

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author, V.P. Loggins
Photography by Alison Harbaugh, Sugar Farm Productions

Author’s Note: “When I was an infant of six weeks, my parents took the decision to leave Birmingham, Alabama, where I was born. The family—my parents, grandparents, my brother, and myself—journeyed from Alabama to Indiana south of Chicago. From there we moved again, this time to Illinois. “Weeping Willow” is inspired by my early experiences attending school as a transplant with a family from the Deep South to a place where the regional differences in speech were markedly different.”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Skimmers: A Love Story in Three Parts” by Patty McLaughlin

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “When our children were young, we would spend our summers on Virginia’s Eastern Shore — a much different world from our suburban Delaware existence. Of course, children grow up and away. That is the plan. Writing about this magical time together helps me feel closer to these far-away adults and reminds me to be grateful. Grateful for past adventures and future possibilities.”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “The Bricks of Baltimore” by Michael Salcman

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “I believe I started writing ‘The Bricks of Baltimore’ after I read an article in The Baltimore Sun on the 10th of March 2021 about the deconstruction of Baltimore through the removal of bricks from Sparrow’s Point and a variety of other sites in our city. I was especially moved by the fact that the bricks were then taken to Washington and used for purely decorative purposes in expensive condominiums. I was further astounded by the fact that one could ‘source’ the bricks to different neighborhoods through a variety of colors and striations. By the end of October the poem had undergone six major revisions and was accepted for publication by The Delmarva Review.” ... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “The Accidental Lion” by Nicholas Katsanis

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “The Accidental Lion tells the story of two childhood friends who took very different paths. Now, they have to understand who they are, who they wish to be, and whether they have the ability to transform. The story is inspired by Nietzsche’s construct that used the lion and the lamb to argue that ethics and morality are created by the weak to protect them from the strong. In my own experience, I found that most people perambulate between positions of strength and weakness. In a way, we can all become lions when the circumstances require.”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Dippin’ Dots” by A. J. Granger

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: Tradition is like a mighty river; no matter how vast its depths, no matter how calm or turbulent its waters, the river always has a beginning and an end. Provoked by questions over my need for over-priced ice cream, “Dippin’ Dots” is a conscious dive upstream, an attempt to traverse through memory and time to find the beginning of the river, to find truth in the mountain’s snow, and to understand why change feels so much like a waterfall... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Love of Learning” by Esther Lim Palmer

April 3, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “To spend more time with my seven-year-old daughter, I started learning the piano with her. This process of learning filled me with childlike joy and prompted ‘Love of Learning.’”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “E Duo Unum” by Maxine Poe-Jensen

February 20, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Editor’s Note: The author is the Featured Student Writer for the 15th anniversary issue. She is the first recipient of the Talbot Arts and Delmarva Review Talbot County High School Mentorship Scholarship award.

Author’s Note: “As an only child, siblinghood has always been a mystery. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a person who looked similar to you, who shared a predetermined, yet unique bond with you. E Duo Unum was an extension of my questions. For the brother who suffers the loss of his twin in this story, his grieving is especially intense. How do you deal with being a walking reminder of your loss?”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Butchery” by Josh Trapani

February 8, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Editor’s Note: “Butchery,” from the 15th edition of the Delmarva Review, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction.

Author’s Note: “When you’re a scientist doing fieldwork in another part of the world, uncertainty comes with the territory. That includes the other scientists on your team. How will they act, especially if things go wrong? I set out intending to tell the tale of a field season soured by recklessness. Instead, “Butchery” reveals how misplaced priorities can destroy careers . . . and even cost lives.”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “I Want to Order a Man from the Sweets Catalog” by Fran Abrams

February 7, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “I wrote this poem after taking a class on how to write a cento. Looking for a source of words, I thought of the Sweets Construction Catalogue I had used when I worked in an architect’s office after college. ‘Sweets’ then was a large collection of three-ring binders but is now online. As I dipped into its pages, the poem began to form in my mind, moving readily from concept to completion.”... [Continue Story]

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Spy Reprints “Authors” by King Grossman

February 6, 2023 By The Editorial Team

Author’s Note: “This poem virtually wrote itself when I was hole up writing in Marfa, Texas, a thin place, as in hardly separated from the source. One afternoon outside my back door I espied through the coke-bottle glass, a young girl who sat at a card table on her porch across the street happy as you please writing in that red bird notebook. I simply stood there in solidarity with another non-civilian.”... [Continue Story]

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