Pharmakos

Here is Jill Weiss, whose story with its rugburnt knees and broken pearls features a heroine who struggles with her current appetites and a doomed sexual obsession from the past that still haunts.

Bruce Mosier draws a delicate triptych of images through three meetings with the stranger who will become his own personal stripper-angel and perhaps temporary savior.

Meet Deborah Kagan, whose witty internal monologue charts the minddrift during a less-than-ecstatic coupling.

And Lori Sambol, who conjures a mystical event of matrilineal intensity – where the mother passes on to the daughter a strange and terrible gift.

In a medical gown, ‘the ass of the sinner is always out,’ observes poet Vicki Whicker in her wryly melancholic tale of an impossible and ill-fated love.

Then there is Caron Perkal, who cooks up a mesmerizing tale that follows the slow poisoning of the bond between two people when one succumbs to green-gouging jealousy.

These stories seared. I trust they will do the same for you, individually and as a whole installation.

The idea behind these private workshops is to write with rawness and rigor. To always go deeper. To tear the skin from language, to dig into deepdark and bring back perhaps a tiki torch, or a flicker of recognition or, perhaps…a luminosity. To feed our heads, hearts and souls – always works-in-progress – and to crack open the writing. If you’re interested in learning more, maybe joining a workshop, you can check out my website, rachelresnick.com or myspace.com/rachelresnick and then send me an email through the site.

RACHEL RESNICK