Welcome to volume twenty-three my Literature series, The Ladies of Lit!
The premise here is simple. Below you will find an assortment of Literature features from a selection of female deviants here on DeviantART, all of them suggested by you. In this article, you will also find a variety of other things of interest, including:
This article’s deviant spotlight: featuring the sweet TheSkaBoss. She has offered to answer a few questions as well, to tell us a bit about what inspires her writing and which piece in particular she favors. Additional information about our upcoming events, including a special critique Q and A session in our official TheLadiesofLit chatroom. And we also have a selection of other interesting Literature news links to share with you. Our “meet our contributors” section. Be sure to note me if you would like to volunteer your services or offer additional suggestions as to how to improve this series. We also have a new series format for this news article, due to recent DeviantART website changes. Deviants are still able to 
this journal, so please take a moment to do so, to continue to show your support for our devious writers.Now – On With the Features!
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Mature Content
Love LetterOpen your mouth to invite me in.
(You could never say anything bad about me)
Play with my muscles, run your fingers over the smoothness of my ribs.
(My body is a gift for your patience)
I'm still scared, still shaking as lips linger.
(If you could just hold me a little tighter)
And I know my poetry can never compare to yours.
(It's embarassing to even try)
You just need to understand that my tongue gets tangled with the butterflies in my stomach,
(You have such an effect on me)
And it gets hard to swallow what I'm drinking in.
(Reality can be exceptionally hard to understand)
So the words I can't say come out on the back of math n
Maybe...Maybe if I curl up real tight, I can disappear.
Just like she wants me to.
Maybe if I lay on the floor and stay awake,
I won't have to cry myself to sleep.
Maybe if I lie,
I won't have to dissapoint her with the truth.
Maybe I can starve from my lack of confidence by morning..
Maybe my pain will one day become so intense that I'll become numb..
Maybe if I quit now,
she won't get angry because I didn't win.
Suggested by: dreamsinstatic
“There is a powerful, visceral quality to Ashley's work. Every emotion and thought she puts explores reverberates within the reader.”
Kay-March
Shadows... The shadow merges,
hides among the chestnut trees,
between, the intertwined branches, leaves and flowers.
Looks at me, looks right through me...
Says nothing... whispers nothing... silently.
My eyelids go down, a slight flutter of lashes and wings
cryptic as a rune, I read within
the open clover, lost inside the haze of his dreams,
maze of a thousand waters, timeless, blood age,
web woven in the roots of Earth itself.
I follow his steps, without landing.
I let myself go, sweet are his kisses on my skin
and this old cloak, no longer serves me.
It blazes transmuted, transparent...
A chameleon of stars, I am like him
The Star Eater
Soon, the evening begins to slide the fall
the last of the sunbeams is soon to crash
against an unavailable horizon filled with darkness
whiskers trembles, wakening suddenly
the old hunter's claws, redraws
its new hunger while the warrior roars
fluffy cushions, little paws
ears aware and tail seductive
there it goes eating the milky wave of stars
one by one until the void of night
caresses its fur... it roars softly, tenderly
it asks to walk the grasses
to do whatever cats do until the middle of the magic hour
its eyes blink mysteriously, graciously
once to her keeper then towards the hazel mist of woods
where the full moon st
HeartacheThis silver blade knows no shame
cutting my heart in half of its glory
and reaping the beating from my chest
I have hoped and prayed
wishing the pain to be swept away
crying myself, all miseries
It keeps pumping and bleeding
caring not for my hurt
living outside of me, still
The heartache remains and grows
damning me for all eternity
to this unknown identity...
*K
MARCH
*Y
© copyright of KAY MARCH - All Rights Reserved.
Suggested by: Mrs-Freestar-Bul
“Her poetry is always a new adventure and a new experience. You just love to read and read it again.”
Beyond-the-Pages
Deja VuNow I see you,
and now I don't.
You're like the dust motes
swirling in the air
around my open window.
The sun shines through,
making the dust fly
like miniscule birds,
and I try to catch them,
thinking to make pets of them.
But,
just like you,
they elude me,
until I realize how silly I am,
and fall on my bed,
breathless with laughter.
I hear you on the radio,
and I see you in the car.
You're always right where
I need you to be: never
far away, but always
just out of reach
of my fingertips.
When I close my eyes,
I hear your voice
singing songs in my head,
like some long-forgotten
melody
that I heard
ten years ago.
SerenityKeel and haul,
metal bearings up the wall.
And she's a right beauty.
Ship and shape,
trailing golden cape.
And she's always done her duty.
Fore and aft,
peace in every shaft.
And she's the boat for rowing.
Main and sail,
life along the beaten trail,
And mei-mei, she's glowing!
Oceanus CallsI wandered the halls like a ghost,
treading lightly on shallow feet,
and met Oceanus Fatale
while on my way to sleep.
She drove in great gales, like
seagulls pecking out my eyes,
and unnerved, I stopped to listen,
hoping for a word to the wise.
But no voice flickered in that dark abyss,
not a single sound.
And I tried my best to keep up hope
that I was homeward bound.
as I lay there on the floor,
contemplating the roiling waves,
they crashed over and dragged me to sea,
the clever, fiendish knaves.
Now I was a castaway, and
I struggled to remain afloat,
but trouble brewed on the horizon,
and I did not see a boat.
Suggested by: Tobaeus
“Sometimes short and sweet, Beyond-the-Pages's poetry flows and is always a treat to read.”
Quolia
Going Under Sunlight sparkles high above me
out of reach, rippling;
shimmering and fleeting like
a ribbon, beckoning.
Minute spheres of glass ascend,
resembling balloons escaping
from a child's careless grasp,
fading beyond sight.
My throat is sealed, invisible hands
compressing; my body accepts,
shifting to stone and dragging
me below.
The moment to act is long gone and I
let go, readily accepting and
no longer keen on clutching
to threads of time.
SuffocatingDecember 12, 2009
i. I watched eagerly as you read the life changing words upon that piece of paper. My joy was full to bursting, a miniature explosion within my heart. In that dark apartment we stood only feet apart, yet I could only make out your silhouette against the soft light filtering in through that grimy window. I could have sworn I saw you trembling, but then it was always cold in this place. You folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope slowly, as though in a trance. I clutched the envelope close to my chest as you handed it back. Finally I could see you properly now that you were closer. Most people would be mor
A QuestionJust one question…Where do I begin?
How do I know which question is most important?
One that is easily asked, yet so difficult to answer?
I have one question that is often asked
Time and again, yet always yields various answers
One that is universally sought for
What is true happiness?
Where can I find it?
Does it really exist for everyone?
The answer to this always eludes me
Sometimes I believe I have it within my grasp
Then the next moment I'm desperately searching for it
Why is it that the answer to this question is different for most people?
What makes one person claim it is love?
And that others follow the path of des
Suggested by: RavensQuill
“I find her pieces to be amazingly different. In her poems, the imagery is real, well-formed and then twist into something dark, but still well meshing with the innocence she began with. Her prose is, for lack of a better word- real. It feels like she pulls each one from real life and with her mastery of 1st person perspective, allows the reader to see and feel what she does.”
winterkate
to a womanYou see it coming from the men.
You see the ways their eyes linger on you
When they're looking around the room
The way their bodies brush yours when you're walking through the hallways to class
The way they stutter and look away when apologizing for the accidental contact of skin to skin
You see it coming from the men.
You never see it coming from me.
God, was the world not complicated enough already
Without causing me to notice the interplay of textures in her hands
The calluses like mahogany mountains carving ridges of stone
Into her palms softer than Impressionistic sunlight?
I'm not supposed to feel this way about another woman
THAT POEM (Writer's Block)I sat down at my computer last Thursday night
with the full intention of writing THAT POEM. Oh, don't
play dumb. You know what THAT POEM is. We all know
what THAT POEM is. You with the cigarette train-tracks
charting your eternal drift to nowhere
on the insides of your arms, you
with the sludge of alcohol dripping thick & brown through
veins swollen & slow & pussy as zombies, you
with the eight children whose faces you can't remember
& the husband in the Hamptons whose name you sometimes forget
& the lover who never seems to come around as much as you pay him to – you
all know what THAT POEM
is. It's the rhythm beating a dull
Astronauti.238,900 miles away
the Earth gleams in the darkness.
A cat's eye, opalescent blue
flecked with terra verdant,
fifty-two cream colors
of cloud.
Under a heavy lid of night,
it glares. Angry.
Baleful.
As if to say to the Sun:
I was dreaming
of all the fish
in my seas.
As if to ask why
it had to be woken.
ii.
Thoughts are protozoan here;
with glass-thin skin
transparent as the first lie
he ever told as a child.
No,
I didn't steal that candy bar.
He can see the mechanics,
the workings,
the insides.
They divide like dreams,
impossibly smoothly,
Whole and unbroken
as they tear apart. If
he could stretch far e
Suggested by: LadyofGaerdon
“winterkate is a new and highly promising young addition to our literature community. Her words are filled with passion and utilized meticulously, to create thought-provoking, highly satisfying poetry.”
My Spotlight Deviant:
TheSkaBoss
ApathrossApathross sat in the rather generous imprint on his favourite comfy cloud, flicking through the channels on his 2,000-inch TV. "What is this?" He grumbled, making millions of people cower at the unexpected thunder, "Every God-Damned channel in the whole God-Damned world and not a single one is showing anything remotely interesting? I've seen this episode of Friends a hundred times already."
"One hundred and thirty-two times, to be precise." The diminutive angel at his side interjected.
"Yeah, yeah, whatevs. Who's keeping count these days? I just want to watch something new...and not shit." He added the last after a brief pause to reflect on
She has a gift for taking your imagination to any place that it might wish to visit, within the realms of her short stories, poetry and non-fiction. After taking a wonderful tour through her gallery, you will be mesmerized by her heart and humor.
She has also taken a few moments to share some of her own insights as a writer. I asked her a few questions:
Why do you write?I write because I read; because I love to read; because I've always loved to read and have always been grateful to the authors who gave me such wonderful worlds to escape to when I needed them; because I want to give back to the world and, most importantly, because I want to share the love and joy I have for stories, and I can't think of a better way to do that than to make sure there are more stories in the world for people to love and enjoy.
When did writing first start to become an interest for you and what keeps that interest consistent?Oof. Erm. I can't remember a time when it wasn't an interest for me. It's certainly been an interest for as long as reading has (I remember one time, when I was really little and probably only just recently learned to write, just copying out a book that I loved for the pure joy of watching it come to life beneath my fingers), and I've always loved reading.
Well, I guess I probably didn't love reading when I was a baby, but I don't remember that. I do remember that within my first year of school, while everyone else was still learning to read, I devoured my entire school library and had to be given special permission to go all the way into town to the bigger library there.
(That and the fact that the earliest memories I have are of my Dad reading Dr Seuss to me, or The Hobbit, or making up bedtime stories on the spot about The Nosey Parkers [they were a family called Parker who had upside-down noses for bellybuttons - don't ask me how that came into the stories, I really don't remember any more details!])
What keeps it consistent is nothing more special than reading. Lots of reading. I have a lot of 'spare' time where I can't move enough to do anything but read, and so find myself going through books fairly quickly (my goodreads 2012 reading challenge is set to 200 books and I'm ahead of schedule). Then every time I come across a great book that I love I once again feel the need to share that feeling with the rest of the world, and off to write I go.
Conversely, every time I come across a terrible book (usually the completely unedited self-published ones) I get all offended and huffy and stomp off to write while grumbling about how I could easily write a better book than that. That's always good motivation.
What unique aspects in your writing do you think stand out to others?I'd like to think it's the casual humour in them. My natural writing style is first-person conversational, with a tendency for sarcasm, wordplay, and veering off on amusing tangents in parentheses. I can't help it; I have to actively stop myself doing that if I'm trying to write something more serious.
Someone once commented on a piece of mine that it was "classic TheSkaBoss: well-written, funny, and conversational, with a dash of the bizarre." and that pretty much made my day, so I'm going with that answer. (
Wolfrug) What motivates you to share your writing on DeviantART?This goes right back to the first question. I share my writing here because I want people to be able to enjoy reading it.
Although, with dA specifically, there's the added bonus of feedback from our awesome lit community. Even though I may not have time to go back and edit the piece afterwards, I always love the feedback and try my best to take it in. I learn what people like and what just doesn't work; what confuses people and where I should be clearer.
(The ego boost, too; that's always a plus.)
Which piece featured is your favorite and why? Total bias here. 20th November, 2005, for obvious sentimental reasons.
If they're not so obvious because you've not read the piece and have no idea what I'm talking about; it's a non-fiction piece of a teenage me meeting my fiancé for the first time. You might want to avoid it if the idea of sickly-sweet cutesy teenage love doesn't appeal to you.
TheSkaBoss will also be joining us in the our TheLadiesofLit chatroom for a special critiquing session for her wonderful literary work. If there are any critiquing tips you would like to offer her toward any deviations that you have seen featured here today or others that interest you – this is the place to be on July 22nd at 5pm EST! (What time is this for me?) And as an extra incentive: for those of who offer TheSkaBoss the best critiques, there will be a few extra goodies in store for you, so don’t miss out!
Meet Our Contributors:
I want to express my gratitude toward everyone for all of the ongoing support of this project. I duly hope to see even more suggestions in the future. Also – those of you who did not see your deviations selected and posted in this article, they may be featured on the next one. We will have plenty of upcoming deviants to spotlight in the future. If you would like to be one of those, or to suggest others, feel free to note me and be sure to tell me what you love most about them and why these writers appeals to you. Do not be shy – get involved! The more suggestions I receive, the more writers that get featured. For now, check out our volunteers who sent in their features and offered assistance, and don’t forget to thank them!
Our Wonderful Suggesters and Volunteers dreamsinstatic
Mrs-Freestar-Bul
Tobaeus
RavensQuill
LadyofGaerdon
TheSkaBoss
WorldWar-Tori
If this article interests you, be sure to check these out! LadyLincoln’s previous issues of The Ladies of Lit. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII,IX,X,XI, XII, XIII, XIV,XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXI and XXII
LadyLincoln’s 30 Writers You Should Discover: Volume X
BeccaJS and thorns' June Literature DD’s
DailyLitDeviations’ Daily Lit Deviations for July 5th
dreamsinstatic’s Friday Night Features: LIV
SixWordStories’ #SixWordStories Showcase: June 18 –July 2
wyldhoney’s Writers with a Promise: #14
Yours,
LadyLincoln
