I had known Jenna Hauser—or had known of her, I should say—since 2013, when she was a seventh grader at Sudlersville Middle School. She wasn’t on my roster, unfortunately, but her reputation as an artist put her on my radar. Walking the hallway galleries, you knew immediately which pieces were Jenna’s. Everyone did. Portraits, still-lifes, abstractions. They spoke louder to me than the seemingly shy artist ever could. I felt robbed. As a teacher, you pray every fall that such a talent will land a seat in your class. Emphasizing this injustice was the fact that Jenna and I happened to live on the same street, and every once in a blue moon I’d see her walking the block, face hidden by a shoulder-length curtain of hair, lost in reverie. We’d wave to each other and go about our day. Six years passed before I beheld her artwork again. It was December of 2019. Jenna had moved onto the high school, her family had uprooted, and I was busy now at Centreville Middle School, brainstorming ideas to improve Dead Awake. Scrolling idly through my Facebook feed—past the ubiquitous family pics, political sentiments, rumors of a deadly disease ravaging a city in China, yada-yada—I halted on a gallery of art pieces posted by my friend and fellow teacher, Ms. Stephanie Zeiler. Two of her QACHS seniors, she wrote, had been selected for the 2020 National Art Honor Society Juried Exhibition: Cara […]

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by Julia Reburn My eyes close softly as my hands fold in my lap, and I pray. Lord Posiedon, Protector of the Sea, Father of Storms, Shaker of the Earth, Guide me as I face the day. Give me strength to protect those close And to do good by Your Name.  Be with me as I walk the world. My green eyes flutter open, adjusting to the bright sun. I pick a small gardenia from its place in the flowerbed and twirl it through my fingers. Around me, servants bustle around bushes and flower beds, trimming hedges, scrubbing the many statues and shrines to Athena, and picking vegetables from the expanse of the garden. My name, Penelope Aurelia Dukas, is engraved in the marble chaise on which I’m now resting. Bright flowers sway in the breeze throughout this gathering area, my small sanctuary, which is tucked away in the western corner of my home. Water flows endlessly over the carving of Poseidon, who lounges in a simple throne wielding his glistening trident. My mother carved this statue when I was a baby to treasure my heritage. She was born in Corinth, a small town southeast of Athens, and used to joke that her family didn’t raise her, the sea did. I keep a tally in the garden: one month, two weeks, three days. That’s how long she’s been gone. I wonder whether Mother was actually joking about the sea raising […]

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John Scott Dewey is a husband, father, fiction writer, poet, and public school teacher living in Chestertown, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore. He holds an MA degree in Fiction from Johns Hopkins University. His work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Delmarva Review, Fjords Review, and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. He’s currently composing a collection of short stories set on and around the Shore titled ‘Prayers for Pondtown.’ This is what his writing desk/dining room table looks like before dawn:

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