Cherries

sometimes in my dreams

i am naked picking cherries

my body undressed of you

were we really two or one-

the leftover pips say two

too hard pips they are dead

but the memory of cherry flesh

is raw it bleeds my mouth sweetly

wakes my body with each bite-

months years later my lips

are still red moist

© Nora Nadjarian
from "25 Ways to Kiss a Man"

The Truth Is...

... I don't do much to promote myself. And so, I've decided that starting from today and throughout the month of June, I will be posting snippets from my own work published in books and online.

I start off with a small excerpt from my micronovel "The Republic of Love", published by BluePrintPress in 2010.

In the beginning. It is the fifth of July, exactly six days before I once met Danny. I live in a house with pale blue walls, the colour of sky. The house has many windows, each of which is a different gilt-framed painting, through which I can see beauty if I look hard enough.

            I am reading a letter:

            Tomorrow will be the beginning of your life. Tomorrow you will cross a bridge and embark on an authentic journey. Soon, a man will take you 2356 kilometres away from your old life, in a boat smelling of oil and fish and salt. You will wonder when you will ever step out onto the quay of another port, how long it will take before you can put down the two bags containing all your possessions in the world. You’re finding it difficult to balance the two, to do a balancing act with the two bags: Keep nothing in your left pocket, empty the right-hand side of your brain of negative thoughts, stop the boat from overturning.

            At night, you will both fall asleep together in a small cabin where the wind will blow into your dreams making a hollow sound, a door opening, closing, opening, closing. You will wake up in broad daylight, floating over the ocean, watching a landscape full of lines and wild colours and strange brushstrokes. The earth is full of love and truth, yes, but you know that already, don’t you. You will travel in the right direction. It will feel secure, it will feel natural, like the journey of water.

            I live in a house with pale blue walls and white furniture. It makes you think you live somewhere near the sky, or that you live in a dream. You could never be angry in this house, but you might feel lonely as you walk from room to room expecting to find something which is never where you last left it. It is not a house designed for one person, not even for two. It is large enough to have an entire family of five or six living happily, filling it with love and laughter.

            I inherited the house from an uncle of mine who never married and never had children. He was a dentist. Strange isn’t it, that he made his money from bad teeth, and the only recollection I have of him is this image: him dropping an egg on our kitchen floor, when attempting to make me an omelette.

            What’s that got to do with anything, Danny didn’t ask, when I told him the story...

In Loving Memory

 In loving memory of a lost friend 

FLYING WITH CHAGALL  

After Marc Chagall’s  Above the Town (1915)

Silently, cloudlessly, we fly

swimming, legs and arms over

roofs and fields and streetlamps.

We skate over and above a sky

of white, our breath trailing behind us,

around the leaves and their small voices,

like notes of a fiddle.

Oh how – how do you do

it, without falling or slipping

or landing on a green roof

and bruising it blue? No one asks,

but everyone wonders. They all

look into the sky canvas and squint,

and inwardly sigh all day, all night.

It is a dream which only you and I see.

And nobody else.

And nobody else.

© Nora Nadjarian

Published in   "All of Our Lives: An Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Writing  " (ed. Sarah Shapiro) Targum Press, 2009

                                                                                               

2011 Chapbook Appeal

An open letter from the Editor in Chief of Folded Word, Jessi Graustein, who published my chapbook Girl, Wolf, Bones.

Please read her appeal (also pasted below), think about it, respond, buy for yourself and for friends. It is a pity that these wonderful books are produced with so much love and attention, and then nobody reads them.

November of this year marked our 2^nd anniversary of producing chapbooks. We couldn’t be more proud of the titles we’ve published—titles written by authors passionate about keeping the craft of writing alive. Each one is a testament to the fact that literature is not, and will never be, dead.
I don’t know where you stand in the great e-book debate, but I personally believe that they will be critical for keeping literature open to new voices in these difficult economic times, due to their financial and physical accessibility. At Folded Word, we have made it our mission to offer 99cent e-book versions of our print chapbooks during the pre-order period because we want to make it possible for any reader to support the artistry of our authors. These e-chaps are formatted to play nice with all e-reading devices and have “speech to text” turned on for the visually impaired. We thought that with all the free e-reading apps out there, at this price and functionality our e-chaps would fly off the virtual shelves. But they haven’t.
In trying to figure out why, I’ve come up with a few questions for you:

1. If you read chapbooks, how do you acquire them?
2. If you don’t read chapbooks, what is the main reason for your reluctance?
3. Do you feel that buying e-books (whether chapbook or book length) encourages publishers not to produce print books?

To weigh in on any of the questions that apply to you, either leave a comment below or send me an email (editors [at] foldedword [dot] com). I can assure you, by the way, that Folded Word is committed to keeping book craft alive—a commitment that can be seen in our signature chapbooks and broadsides. In fact, the sale of e-(chap)books makes it more possible (not less) for us to produce future print titles by increasing cash flow with few additional time demands.
We have some amazing chapbooks available that could truly use some love. If you aren’t familiar with our chapbook list, please explore our chapbook blog at http://foldedchaps.wordpress.com. If all our social-media followers/fans took a chance on just one 99cent e-chap, we could make the close of this year very merry for our chapbook authors. It could also be the highest-yield investment in the arts you’ll make in 2011.
Whether you join in the discussion or not, whether you purchase a chapbook or not, we want to thank you for being part of The Fold. We would not exist without you.
Cheers & Happy New Year,
J.S.

Pushcart Nomination and...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The story "Breadcrumbs" from my chapbook "Girl, Wolf, Bones" ( Folded Word, 2011) has just been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Thank you, Jessi Graustein!

And another great piece of news! My poem "Kyrenia" was included in "A River of Stories", a delightful anthology of tales and poems from across the Commonwealth, illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski. This collection of stories and poems themed around water evoke the sights and sounds of a diverse Commonwealth community.

A River of Stories recognises the 125th anniversary of the foundation of The Commonwealth Education Trust. A full colour anthology of children's stories and poems from each of the 54 Commonwealth member states, it is dedicated to the children of the Commonwealth - and has a foreword written by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

Needless to say, I am immensely proud to be in it. The book is being launched tonight at 18:00 at New Zealand House, 80 Haymarket, London.

I so wish I could have been there!

E-mails Received (Things Happen)

Sometimes things happen. When you least expect them. Things which you never thought were possible.

My words have "travelled" and touched people's lives in strange and wonderful ways. And I just wanted to write something about it today.

I regularly get "fan" mail from people who have read something of mine and want to let me know that they enjoyed it. It always pleases me to know that someone, somewhere has been affected in some way by my writing.

About a month ago I received an e-mail from Zhenya Dimova, a writer in Bulgaria, who informed me that she liked my book "Ledra Street" so much that she has translated it in its entirety into Bulgarian. At the end of her e-mail she wrote: "p.s. You know the strange ways in which books connect people!"

She has written to me several times since, to ask for more information with regard to a specific word or a reference to Cyprus. Two days ago, she wrote to tell me that one of the stories has been published in a Bulgarian newspaper.

People are often surprised to find out that my stories are not autobiographical. Some of my stories are, of course, inspired by events in my life or lives of those around me, but they are essentially imaginary.

For a story to strike one as autobiographical means that it has "felt" real - and I take that as a compliment. A story of mine "Unborn" was recently published  in Blue Fifth Review. A few weeks later, the editor sent me an e-mail:  "I am writing to ask you if your story "Unborn" is a non-fiction piece. I do not mean to pry but am curious about the origins of the story. It has stayed with me since I first read it."  I had to disappoint her with my reply. "Unborn" is entirely fictional. I really don't know where the idea came from. It just wrote itself.

One last thing. I tell people things and then completely forget what I told them. A couple of days ago I got a delightful e-mail from Wim Jurg, a Dutchman I met at a European Writers' conference a few months ago. Here it is:

Dear Nora,

Loved “Girl, Wolf, Bones”!

When someone at my office of the writers’ union has her or his birthday, she or he can ask for a little present. I asked for your book.

And got. And loved it.

Wim

Like I said. Things happen. And I love it when they do.

♥

Laziness, Part 2 (Or Tiny Things)

Laziness continues, but in between, I've been doing tiny bits of writing - some of it good, I hasten to add. I've been told the best things I write are minimalist.

Good news, too, recently:

1. My writing will be in "140 And Counting", an anthology of twitter literature. More info here.
2. I wrote a tiny "book" made up of twenty "chapters" of twenty word sentences. It's a love story entitled "Twenty Days in Torino". I loved writing it... and I'm delighted that it's going to be published as a little chapbook by Twenty20. More details to follow...