“Do You Have a Secret You Will Take to Your Grave?”
We Get Questions
Katherine Hepburn* asked me this question when I visited her a couple weeks ago with Teddy, the Pet Therapy Dog.
Before I could answer, she asked another: “Do you have love letters you need to burn before you die? I do. My problem was I kept falling in love with people; deeply, deeply in love. And they fell in love with me. I still have a stash of letters I can’t bring myself to burn.”
This question has haunted me since Katherine asked it, and is an excellent example of how a writing/editing life never takes a minute off. TVBR editors have been discussing ways to engage with our Substack readers and initiate conversations.
So, we put this question to you: “Do you have a secret you will take to your grave?”
I have more than one. A few secrets I’ve confided in no one. Not even Teddy. As I get older, I wonder if I will ever spill the beans about them or if I will, indeed, carry them with me into the silence of the Other Side. I’m no longer burdened by them—I don’t think—but Katherine’s questions got me to thinking about them again. I’m weighing what to do with them, how to manage them, and considering how I’ve managed them in the past.
How do you manage yours? Have you already disposed of them? Or, do you have secrets still burning within you, letters or other receipts that you need to burn?
Tell us, Dear Readers: “Do you have a secret you will take to your grave?”
NO! You don’t have to tell us your secrets. But, let’s start a conversation about humans and their secrets, and how we manage them. We can keep it impersonal and start with three of our recently published pieces: Andrea Avery’s “Expensive People,” Susan Signe Morrison’s “The Landlady,” and Ed Davis’s “Aidan and Isobel,” which all discuss the housekeeping, the management of secrets.
Comments, as always, are OPEN below.
*Katherine Hepburn is not her real name. To protect the privacy/identities of the friends Teddy and I visit in care and retirement facilities, I chose names for them based on who they remind me of, and to help readers picture them, as well as to help me keep them straight in my notes. Sometimes I ask them to chose a pseudonym for themselves. Katherine Hepburn chose her name. She’s a fascinating friend to visit, and I’ll write more about her soon under my writer’s hat for the Teddy and the Time Travelers newsletter here.
—KAW
The Vincent Brothers Review Has $1,850 in Short Story Contest Prize Money to Distribute and We Need our Readers’ Help!
Lee Huntington’s story, “Knick-Knack”—upcoming next week—also contains a long-held secret, as do the other finalists in our “Housekeeping”-themed short story contest.
Thank you to those of you who have been patiently waiting for the winners of our 2021 Annual Short Story Contest, themed “Housekeeping,” to be announced.
We received more than two hundred well-written stories, and whittling down entries to a short list was difficult. More than a few of the entries centered around the plot of suburban women killing their husbands, or the intentional poisoning of co-workers. Hmm. Looks like we’ve been isolated from each other a little too long.
The Vincent Brothers Review editors were pleased to announce the winners for the “Housekeeping” contest some time ago.
The FINAL FOUR winners—in alphabetical order—are:
“Aiden and Isobel” by Ed Davis
“Knick-Knack” by Lee Huntington
“The Wolf Girl” by Ant Torres
“First, You Crack” by Diz Warner
The other five short-list selections from the contest entries—in alphabetical order—were:
“Salvation Salvage” by Ann Calandro
“No Quedo Mas Nada” by Khalil Elayan
“Tennessee Williams’s Last Play” by David Lohrey
“One to Keep” by Christine Terp Madsen
“Everything They Had Forgotten” by Lauren Summers
The FINAL FOUR short stories have begun appearing here in The Vincent Brothers Review Weekly Reader, and will also appear in the TVBR’s PRINT Issue #26. Some of the other contest finalists will appear here or in the print version of Issue #26, or both places. We’ll make final format and PRINT selection decisions mid-September 2024.
The remaining nonfiction and poetry selections for Issue #26 will be announced here, as well as on our website, in mid-September 2024.
Final winners of the contest will be gauged by Readers’ Votes polled and gathered via the social media platforms Substack, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook once all four of the short-list short stories have been published here. Polling on social media will begin at the end of July, and we need your help to determine prize winners!
First place will receive a prize of $1,000, second place will receive $500, third place will receive $200, and fourth place will receive $150.
The Antioch Writers’ Workshop Returns Summer 2024!
WooHoo!
This is EXCELLENT NEWS!
TVBR got its start from several auspicious interactions at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop on the Yellow Springs campus in July 1988. It’s such a fabulous program.
The workshop takes place July 7th through the 12th, 2024, on the historic grounds of the Antioch College campus, and allows writers working in all genres to share their craft and fellowship through morning seminars, afternoon practice, author meetings, and evening events.
Dr. Feroz Rather, author of The Night of Broken Glass, will lead a fiction workshop “designed to help us develop, interrogate, and reconceptualize our relationship with the place we call home.”
Rebecca Kuder will guide participants through strategies on how to quiet negative self-talk.
Robin Littell will lead the flash fiction workshop, “where attention to language is paramount. Where image reigns.”
Yippee!
The World At Large—not just the literary world—will benefit from this nurturing of the creative spirit.
Look here for more information on how to participate.