Author: Clint Smith

The Idyll’s of Jim Faulkner’s Indiana

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This memory popped up a couple days ago, and — considering the suitability of the season — it’s prime for re-appraisal.

“The Woods,” by Jim Faulkner

Back in 2008, I participated in the Arts Kaleidoscope exhibition in Muncie, Indiana — an event (at the unfortunately erstwhile Gallery 308) which paired writers with visual artists, the former creating works inspired by the latter.  I was privileged to get matched up with painter Jim Faulkner, a regional legend of sorts who passed away last January.  In a May, 2021 story for the Muncie Journal, Faulkner was called the “Ambassador of Indiana’s Beauty.”

My task was to create a poem that paid tribute to Faulkner’s simply-titled watercolor, “The Woods,” while imparting my own voice and style.  What I came up with was the following poem, “Heckle and Jeckle’s Catch-22.”

“The Gyrification of Violence” Slated to Appear in VASTARIEN: A Literary Journal

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A personal goal’s been achieved:  My first published non-fiction essay, “The Gyrification of Violence,” will appear in the Fall, 2021 issue of Vastarien: A Literary Journal.  

Cover Art by Ann Trueman

Yet — having a piece of writing accepted under the critical eye and estimable reputation of Jon Padgett and Grimscribe Press — also serves as a professional marker; one need only examine the table of contents and the names of my fellow contributors to confirm this double issue’s literary formidability…

  • Vastarien Column: Tenebrous Ramblings by Romana Lockwood
  • The Unpleasant State of Beginning by Hailey Piper
  • Matsuri by Michael Uhall
  • The Mushroom Men by Carson Winter
  • Heartstrings by Philippa Evans
  • Sculpting by Mari Ness
  • She Ain’t Stoppin’ by Christi Nogle
  • Fold by Gwen C. Katz
  • Night Mare by Stephanie M. Wytovich
  • On Borrowed Time by Greg Sisco
  • Voyeur by Tori Fredrick
  • Everything Will Be Okay by John Claude Smith
  • The Bloody Story of his Canvas: A Reading of “The Lost Art of Twilight” by George Prekas
  • How to Send the Dead (Assuming You’ve Cremated Them Against Their Dying Wish) by Juleigh Howard-Hobson
  • Sometimes It’s Just Like Hiding by Georgia Cook
  • Down the Dark Hallway: An Essay on P.T. by Sean M. Thompson
  • A Walkthrough of Route X: Video Games and the Postmodern Gothic by Joanna Parypinski
  • Thy Structures Rear’d in Blood by Rhonda Eikamp
  • Vulture Eyes by Christa Carmen
  • Revenge and Envy Are Very Small Things: Cosmic Inconsequentialism in S. P.
  • Miskowski’s Skillute Cycle by S. L. Edwards
  • The Accursed Manor of the Mirrorlands by LC von Hessen
  • Anthropophagus by Sara Tantlinger
  • The Collected Poems of James Zjarek, Transgressor by Perry Ruhland
  • The Shining Path by Paul L. Bates
  • Lullaby by Jenny Darmody
  • Lonely Wordless Ghosts by Mari Ness
  • Red Knots Tightening by Emer O’Hanlon
  • The Three Paradigms of Horror by Dejan Ognjanović
  • The Gyrification of Violence by Clint Smith
  • The Food Fellow by Ivy Grimes
  • This Story Will Kill You by Kurt Fawver