Slow Sand Writers Society                                             

                   fiction and creative nonfiction

 


home
anthology
writing tips
publishing tips
writers' group tips
reading list
links

member pages
  Colleen Fullbright
  Teresa Funke
  Jean Hanson
  Kathy Hayes
  Luana Heikes
  Sara Hoffman
  Paul Miller
  Karla Oceanak
  Kay Rios
  Debby Thompson

former member pages
  Tracy Ekstrand
  Leslie Patterson
  Laura Pritchett
  Laura Resau
  Todd Shimoda
  Greta Skau
  Zach Zorich

all content copyright 2003
Slow Sand Writers Society
or individual authors

email:
info@slowsand.com

paul cabin

  Paul Miller

Paul Miller is a writer and editor at Colorado State University and was awarded the 1996 Artist's Fellowship in Literary Nonfiction from the Colorado Council on the Arts. His most recent essays will appear in summer and fall 2006 in High Country News and in “Pulse of the River,” a collection of stories about the Poudre River written by regional authors.

Publications

  • June 2008, Wild Things (Tallgrass Writers, Outrider Press Anthology), "Sixty-Two Thousand Reasons Why A River is Good for Your Soul: In Particular, the Colorado River in Utah, Above the Point Where It Becomes a Reservoir" personal essay. 1st place winner in annual Tallgrass Writers competition.

Comments/Advice/Maxims

Contact info

^ top

 



Excerpt - from Sister Troubadours, a novel in progress - February 2009

The admitting desk at the hospital has one woman behind it. She excuses herself for a minute to make a call. I can’t sit, can’t focus. Now what?

The woman sets the phone down. “A nurse will be out to talk with you in just a few minutes. Can you wait?”

What the hell choice do I have? I pace in the lobby, in the waiting room, passing doors marked as chapel and for grieving. The grieving room is sparse, morosely painted, claustrophobic. I’d rather grieve on a mountaintop, where you can see to the edge of the universe. Nobody else is around except for a couple, man and woman, in a corner of the waiting area, heads close together, engrossed in their own tragedy. Another few minutes stretch to eternity, then a woman in hospital gown strides briskly up. She smells like a hospital, like the long view of death and one last shot at resurrection. “Ms. Patricola? Can we sit over here?”

She tells me Connie had been beaten severely. Blood rushes to my head, or drains out of it. It doesn’t matter. I feel sick, woozy. I want out of this madness. She has the wrong girl.

The nurse eases my head down close to my knees. She’s telling me to breathe, just breathe. I feel a throbbing in the part of my scalp that’s missing. After another interminable minute, she says Connie is still in surgery. She has broken bones in her face, a broken arm, maybe some internal injuries. Her brain is swollen. I hear the word hemorrhage, but it doesn’t register. They’re too busy trying to fix her, so I can’t see her now. “She’s pretty tough,” the stranger says. “We almost lost her once, but she’s fighting hard.”

The nurse leaves, but I don’t realize it until I look beside me and see an empty chair. Beaten. She’s been beaten. By who? I’m almost glad to have something to concentrate on. Should be “by whom,” I think, a stupid thing to think, even if it’s just for a second. Never know how your brain is going to fire and misfire in times like this. I’m going to need a towel to catch all the tears. Wrap it around the back of my neck like I’m working out on a treadmill. Oh, if I could only do something ordinary, like heat water for tea, wake up slowly on a weekend morning, chide a student to do better work.