Margaret Benbow

This story comes from student daze, and maybe you'd have to be
an old hippy to understand how it could even happen. It comes
from a time when you were considered shallow and bourgeois to

It seems that what's needed in the fight for justice against your
enemies is a handy basic curse that doesn't require any exotic
additions like rare deathly mushrooms in a boiling pot,

It was around 2000. A friend told me that "real" writers were always enriching their grapevine of contacts with the surefire lush manure of workshops, readings, schmoozing in coffee shops, and above all, joining a writing class. I'd never taken one.
"Don't you want CREDENTIALS?" Friend asked me. She recommended someone that we'll call Maxwell....

How strange these strands of silk, buckeye chestnut, mustang brown, not long enough to wrap your hand around, and each by itself insubstantial as dragonfly's flight to breast the wind, to guard against fire or ice, to add one dot to wisdom or peace or...