"My Happy Place" Nominated for 2021 Pushcart Prize
Lowestoft Chronicle’s 2021 Pushcart Prize Nominations
We are very appreciative of the great writers who have graced our pages over the years. In 2010, we published a couple of works by Hugh Bernard Fox Jr., one of the founders of the Pushcart Prize, who sadly passed away in 2011. Hugh was an admirer of Lowestoft Chronicle and a prolific literary writer of quality poetry and prose, with a remarkable catalog of publications to his name.
One of the finest pieces we have published in recent years was the poignant story, “Mr. O’Brien’s Last Soliloquy,” by Robert Garner McBrearty, whose excellent stories have been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize. This story remains among the editor’s all-time favorites.
This November, we made the following nominations for the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976.
Pushcart Prize nominations:
“The Journey to Autumn” by (Essay) Sharon Frame Gay
“Espèce de Cowboy,” (Story) by Charles Holdefer
“My Happy Place” (Poem) by Jacqueline Jules
“Empathy” (Story) by Laurence Klavan
“Isle of Mull” (Poem) by George Moore
“Hsi-wei and the Little Straw Sandals” (Story) by Robert Wexelblatt
Thanks to everybody who submitted work to us in 2021. It was no easy feat choosing only six from among so many quality pieces.
My Happy Place
JACQUELINE JULES
“Hand on your heart,” she says.
“Visualize your happy place.”
“It’s a cruise ship,” I answer.
“The one I took six months after.”
“Breathe,” she reminds.
Salt air cleanses my lungs.
I’m standing on the stern,
watching the water foam
in thick white trails.
At the back of the boat,
no one is judging me,
wondering if my grief
lingers too long.
I can throw tears over the rail
like ashes. I can rock inside
the sound of swirling water.
I can whisper into the waves.
And I can feel him near me,
listening.
