What's Denise Shelton Writing Now?

July 15, 2020

Thank you again for subscribing to my newsletter. For those of you who took advantage of my Haiku for You promotion, I hope you like your free haiku. A couple of them came out so well that I made them into memes. My favorite is the one I wrote for my sister Jeanne.

By the way, I can have your haiku put on a photo block and sent directly to you. I can either use the picture I sent you to accompany your haiku or another image of your choosing (as long as the resolution is high enough). The cost, including shipping for a 6" x 8" photo block that's 1 1/2" thick, suitable for standing on a shelf or hanging, is $29.95. Let me know if you'd like to order one.

As promised, here is my blog post from my website for July. After that, there will be free links to some of my latest stories on Medium.

Blog post for July 2020:

Well, I've finally done it. After many years of resistance, I've started a blog. I took a crack at it a few times in the past, but I didn't have much of a focus, so I let it drop. A lot of the subjects I liked to write about already had thousands of blogs with millions of dedicated readers. I didn't think I could compete with that. 

So now that I've been writing full-time for several months straight, I have something to talk about that nobody else does: my writing.

Once a month, I will share something I've written with you. It might be a poem, a flash fiction story, advice, something about movies or television, a recipe, you just never know. 

I promise I will do my very best to stay off the subject of politics, so you can visit here to take a break from all that. I'm full of surprises! So check in now and then and see what's going on.

Today my gift to you is a poem I wrote about a subject close to my heart. I hope you enjoy it!

"Hot House Flowers"

My parents grew things very well
Bushes, shrubs, and trees
Succulents and creeping vines
Flowers for the bees
And in and out their greenhouse
Bustling as any hive
Their daughters ran and frolicked
From one to number five
The flower shop and nursery
That filled four acres there
Are only in the memories
That we who loved them share
Like damp earth smell in springtime
First up, the daffodil
That heady fragrance lingers
And floods my senses still
My parents, too, have vanished
The little girls, now old
Had other occupations
The land we loved was sold
Each lives in different places
But bustling once more
Five gardens full of flowers
All blooming as before 

 ©2020, Denise Shelton. All rights reserved. 

As promised, here are free links to some of my latest stuff on Medium.

Escape with 10 Films Guaranteed to Make You Swoon

Flash Fiction: The Bride's Surprise

This is my very latest. It's an experiment to see how many different vehicles I can use to tell the same story. Here are the first four. I recommend you read them in order. (Trigger warning, it gets pretty heavy. If you don't want to read about violence you might want to skip "Really Nice but Tough as Nails.") I'll probably do one or two more. Each one is longer than the one before, and more information is revealed as you go along. I'd love your feedback on my experiment.

#1 is a haiku called A House Burned Down on Stephens Street

#2 is a microfiction story called Why Still Vacant After All This Time?

#3 is a flash fiction story called Who Killed Mrs. H?

#4 is a ballad called Really Nice But Tough as Nails

Well, that's about it for this month's newsletter. Oh, one more thing. Three of my poems have been accepted into the May 2021 edition of Better Than Starbucks Poetry Magazine. You'll be able to read them free online, but what's really exciting for me is that they print copies and sell them. So my poetry will finally appear not just on the internet, but also on the hallowed printed page! Huzzah!!

Cheers!

Denise