I’ve had personal disasters gluing a doily to the back of a dollar store glass plate Jesus quote sandwiched In between. I cried
in front of my mother’s church ladies, all wrinkled and off center the doily I mean. My
mother quilts dreams and sews inspiration for the whole of the female church body. I unspool
thread everywhere and haven’t the gift to finish the thread things I start. I couldn’t running backstitch my way out of a wet paper bag. What sort of a
Woman am I? My hands make words not things. By the Word the world was formed says He who IS the church body. He can’t understand my artless grief
who died for our sins yet still found the time to craft the mountains and thread the stars.
-M. (Photography Playbook Prompt: Something you covet.)
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 
This is so rich and wonderful. Thank you
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Thank you so much. I hadn’t looked at it in a long time. It’s nice to know it connected.
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