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Check out Six Sentences and be in the book! Tell McEvily that Rion at RF sent ya. http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2007/12/six-sentences-volume-1-book.html
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COLOSSAL NEWS IN THE WORLD OF PUBLISHING! The submission period for Six Sentences, Volume 1 – a literary tour de force scheduled to be published in February – is officially underway! If you’d like to be part of the action, just send your work to the 6S email address, and make sure the subject line of your email is 6SV1 SUBMISSION (or 6SV1 SUBMISSIONS if you're sending more than one – you may send up to three). Your work must be previously unpublished, and the same 6S Writer's Guidelines apply. The deadline for inclusion in the book is Monday, December 31st, 2007 (at midnight EST). So... when it comes to being published in the book... what will you say in six sentences?

~Madonna by aredsand~

They were waiting to cross over, the immigrants were. Waiting behind the great wall where the lipstick madonna watched them. And they had their dreams, and they made them come alive there while they waited. Alive in blue with outlines of black and of hope, of yellow and of courage. Because it is hard to cross over. But they want it so much.

Trinidad, she wants it, but not, because it means leaving home. So she leaves a little of herself behind, there on the wall, and she asks the madonna to watch over that piece of herself and over her dreams so they might come true.

Waiting for the coyote to arrive and take his money, Guillermo, too, leaves a sign that he was here. And that he wanted to leave, but just please not his name. Because when he crosses over, he will no longer be Guillermo; they will call him Willy.

And the madonna witnesses it, but she does nothing to help.

~Ornament by k's mumbo jumbo~

This little ornament. This one little piece. It is all I have left from my childhood. The final concrete reminder of a mother and father.

Every year when I unpack the ornament and the lights and the tinsel, I think "This is the year I throw it away. This is the year that I move on." But I just can't seem to drop it in the garbage. Letting go sounds so easy, but I know that I am afraid to.

So every year this one small ornament goes onto my Christmas tree to remind me.

~Bear by Dragon~

Sascha doesn't usually let anyone know. You can't get close to him, so you'll never stumble on his secrets. He wasn't always a confirmed bachelor, though.

He didn't look so tough when he married my mama. He looked clean-cut and well-groomed, and he used to smile then. He smiled a lot, big, happy grins. He bought the bear when mama got pregnant with me. For a long while it sat, pristine and fluffy, in the white bassinet they bought. He was ready. Sascha would have been a great father to me.

But I never came, not so you would know. I got close, but all I did was take Mama away with me again. After a while, Sascha took the bear from my empty bassinet, put it in his bed, and stopped being friendly.

~Ink by Comrade Kevin~

I admit to never understanding the predilection for ink that utterly consumes certain folks. As it is, he proudly points to the massive work that adorns the length of his chest, gesticulating towards it by curving the index finger of his right hand inward. It's an impressive study in spiraling letters and flowing cursive that cost him a mere five hundred dollars.

I don't think of such things as remotely artistic and can't help thinking about better ways to spend my money. It seems wasteful, particularly when so many people are going hungry in the world. The design reminds me of airbrushed first names designed to be displayed on the front plates of cars, the kind sold by beach front vendors during Spring Break and sported by women with no conception of how to tastefully apply makeup or properly maintain their hair.

~Pretzels by kj~

"Kelly!" her mother cried.

"What are you doing!?"

Kelly looked up. "Pretzels, mommy," she said, as if the answer were obvious.

"I'm doing pretzels."