Brenda Mantz

When I was young I wrote poetry – sadly almost all of it was in iambic pentameter and it rhymed.  It was after we bought the house on the Bay that I actually began to write. I sat at the table in the little house next to the creek that was also just beginning to thaw and wrote. 
Pye Dives for the Oarlock
Getting Baptized 
What I Left Behind  
Running 
Fishing with Mama
They made their way from memory to story and then I stopped.    
I pushed aside Life Story and went kayaking on the creek now completely thawed and filled with spot and sailboats fishing boats and swans and just a few jellyfish. When I started again I wrote in a tiny room. I could hardly breathe in that room.  But I wasn’t there to breathe I was there to write.  
Back To Embudo  
Stephen Moves Into His Studio and I Get Drunk  
Mama Dies  
The Festival  
I added story like a child adding ornaments to an already full tree.  Which was my favorite?  Where did it belong?  “I remember when I collected this one.”  “I don’t care for that one anymore but I cannot discard it yet.”  Some had poetry.  Some had pictures.  Some even had recipes.  
Quince Preserves.  
NC Bar-b-queue.  
Collards.  
It was a feast.  I fed bits of Life Story to friends then to strangers who swallowed it whole and said “May we have some more, please?”  I gave it to them and went back to make more Life Story.  When it was finished I sent Life Story on a journey with only a flimsy letter to keep it company.  
I was disappointed when Life Story came home with an even shorter rejection letter. That’s why I’ve chosen to self-publish. I am a better writer than I am a marketer.