In Part 2 of our Pushcart Prize Nomination podcast series, we review three pieces: one of poetry, one of creative nonfiction, and one of fiction. Our editors Elena, Mel, and Cerid share their reasons for nominating these pieces, and we hear each author’s background and reason for writing, in their own words. Stories here include “Sharh on Sunan an-Nasa’i 736” by Reyzl Grace; “Rubies” by Carol E. Anderson; and “Ashmedai and the Hairdresser” by Allister Nelson. Part 1 can be found here.
Featured Authors:
Reyzl Grace is a writer, librarian, and translator whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in Room, Rust & Moth, So to Speak, and other periodicals. Currently a poetry editor for Psaltery & Lyre, she lives as an expat in Minneapolis with her novelist girlfriend, arguing over which of them is the better writer. (It’s her girlfriend.) Find more of her at reyzlgrace.com and on social media @reyzlgrace
Nominated Poetry: “Sharh on Sunan an-Nasa’i 736” by Reyzl Grace on the Metaworker website
Carol E. Anderson is a life coach and former organizational consultant whose passions are writing, women’s empowerment and travel photography. She is the founder of Rebellious Dreamers, a twenty-five year strong non-profit organization that has helped women over thirty-five realize dreams they’d deferred and women of all ages come into their own. Carol holds a doctorate in spiritual studies, and master’s degrees in organizational development, and creative nonfiction. She is the author of the award-winning memoir, You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties. Her work has been published in The Metaworker, Across the Margin, Bending Genres, Hippocampus, Lit Break and others. Her goal at this stage is to live with a peaceful heart – a state regularly cultivated through walks in nature, meditation, and heartfelt conversation with friends. She lives with the love of her life and their sassy pup in a nature sanctuary in Ann Arbor, MI.
Nominated Creative Nonfiction: “Rubies” by Carol E Anderson on the Metaworker website
Allister Nelson is a technical writer who has been published in Apex Magazine, Eternal Haunted Summer, FunDead Publication’s Gothic Anthology, Sudden Denouement, the Showbear Family Circus, and more.
Nominated Fiction: “Ashmedai and the Hairdresser” by Allister Nelson on the Metaworker website
Episode Transcript:
Elena L. Perez: 00:04
Hi, everyone. We’re here today with part two of our two-part podcast series featuring our 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees. This is our second year nominating for this prize, and we’re so glad to be able to provide this formal recognition of the hard work they put into their writing. So first off, we’ll introduce ourselves again. I’m Elena Perez, the Editor-in-Chief of The Metaworker.
Melissa Reynolds: 00:28
And I’m Melissa Reynolds, also an editor here at The Metaworker.
Cerid Jones: 00:32
And I’m Cerid Jones, the international editor here at The Metaworker.
Elena L. Perez: 00:38
And today we have a special guest joining us, our new podcast intern, Nevaeh. Say hello, Nevaeh, and give us a quick intro.
Ne’vaeh Dudley: 00:46
Hello, everyone. I’m Ne’vaeh Dudley. I’m a first year sophomore at Howard University, and I’m super excited.
Elena L. Perez: 00:53
So, she’ll be with us for the next couple months. She’ll be editing these Pushcart episodes and learning about how we put our podcasts together. You won’t hear too much from her today, but she has a couple ideas for future episodes. So, we’re all—me, Cerid, and Mel—are really excited to work with her to produce those. So, sign up for our newsletter to get notifications about when those episodes will be dropping.
In this episode, we’re featuring Reyzl Grace, Carol E. Anderson, and Allister Nelson.
So, I’ll start by introducing our first author. Reyzl Grace is a writer, librarian, and translator whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in Room, Rust & Moth, So to Speak, and other periodicals. Currently a poetry editor for Psaltery and Lyre, she lives as an expat in Minneapolis with her novelist girlfriend, arguing over which of them is the better writer. It’s her girlfriend. Find more of her at reyzlgrace.com and on social media @reyzlgrace. That’s R-E-Y-Z-L, Grace.
Reyzl Grace: 2:06
Hi, everybody. My name is Reyzl Grace. I’m from a lot of different places and from nowhere in particular, but now I live in Minneapolis. My piece is entitled “Sharh On Sunan An-Nasai 736”.
When you ask me to sleep on the couch, you wince. You know I know you’ve banished others who were good enough for the sofa when you tired of them, but not for the sanctuary of your bed. You needn’t worry, Nujaym. I’ve already tasted the kiss of your pillow while I’ve slept, different from the kiss of your lips, and I’m learning how your kisses can be as different as the sun’s rays. Who would compare the shine on the backs of the camels coming into the market with the perfect shaft placed as delicately as a kiss on the nose of a molly curled asleep in the mosque? On the nights I have passed in your bed, I have dreamed myself a cat, the only animal that enters the masjid. But when nights grow warm, and you wish to sleep only with the breeze, I learn how this couch can be as different as two kisses, as two rays of the sun. Muezza, (Muhammad’s beloved cat), was asleep on his sleeve when the muezzin called, so he pulled the stitch and prayed with his arm bare. At isha, I think of your naked arm by the window, realize how close he kept her, fall asleep on a piece of a prophet’s robe. At fajr, my ears prick. You call me back to your bed, explain that sometimes, when you need your space, you are like a cat. I smile, remembering how gently I drew my arm from beneath your tired head, how deeply green the couch was in the dark. When the sun comes through the window, I don’t know which of us is purring harder, only how sacred the place is where we lie, how unlike any other kiss is our coming together, how freely you, like any cat, might come and go without breaking the rhythm of our daily prayers.
My academic background is in comparative theology. And nearly all my writing shows some trace of the Torah or the Talmud, of the Bible or the Lives of Saints, of the Qur’an or the Ahadith, the stories told about the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his companions. May Allah be pleased with them.
This poem is titled with a bibliographical reference to one of these ahadith, about how Muhammad’s favorite cat had been sleeping on the sleeve of his robe when the call for prayer came, and he didn’t want to disturb her, but he also did really have to leave, so he removed the sleeve and went to the mosque without waking her. The poem offers itself as a Sharh, a traditional commentary on the text, though, of course, neither the form nor the substance of the commentary this poem offers are traditional.
Very early on in our dating, my girlfriend, Rose, who overheats easily and was tossing and turning on a particularly warm night, asked me to sleep on the couch so that she could sprawl out on the bed. I understood why, and I didn’t mind, but I could see on her face that it pained her to ask, because she knew that I knew that the fact that I usually slept in her bed was special. Overnight guests before me had, as a rule, been kicked to the couch when she wanted to sleep, and she was afraid I would think I was being demoted. So, as I lay out on the divan, listening to her flip and flop in the next room, I wanted to reassure her that she hadn’t offended me, and the first thing I thought of was this hadith, and then the long tradition, born of Muhammad’s love of cats, of the cat being the only animal that is welcomed into a mosque, just as I was usually welcomed into the bed, and these became the basis for the poem.
There is another long tradition in the Islamic world of styling calligraphy in the shape of different objects appropriate to the text. I am no calligrapher, but I used to work in publishing, and I knew a thing or two about typesetting, so I adapted the same principles to my medium and formatted the poem in the silhouette of a sleeping cat. When the editors of The Metaworker posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter that they were especially interested in submissions of concrete poetry, I figured I’d found my unsuspecting victims—I mean collaborators—in bringing the piece to print as both a literary and a visual work. If you liked this poem, you’ll probably like another Islamically-themed, cat-shaped poem I wrote called “The Tigress”, which you can find in the second issue of Bleeding Thing magazine. It’s on page 10.
What does it mean to me to be a writer? A lot of it is about making old tools do new work. I’ve spent much of my life studying religious traditions that, as a gay woman, I know were not intended for me. And yet, they are the cultural foundations on which the entire world I inhabit was built. In Judaism, there is a beautiful tradition of commentary called Midrash, by which the rabbis and the sages dug into every little detail of a scriptural passage. And from a single letter that seemed superfluous, or from the absence of a word they expected, they would extrapolate what isn’t stated directly, offering stories of what happened just before some biblical scene began, for example, or what was going on off-screen to what we read. Sometimes they built on each other’s stories, and sometimes they rewrote them, and the accretion of these different extrapolations and elaborations, rather than being a site of conflict, was instead taken as a way of seeing from every angle, of appreciating every possible realization of the words in the sacred text. When I take the stories and the symbols of the Abrahamic tradition and use them to speak my own experience, my own desires, the reality of my body, I write myself into the stories. And in doing so, I gain a deeper appreciation for, and reclaim a little power over, all the ways that these stories are unavoidably written into me.
To be nominated for the Pushcart for that work, in this case for a reading of lesbian intimacy into this story that has always inspired me, but in which I am traditionally not expected to appear, is a great encouragement that the work I am doing is not just creating a place for me within these stories, but for others, too. I write short form, mostly poetry, and I’m never going to make my living from this or appear on the New York Times bestseller list. So I asked myself once, how would I know that I’d made it? What would it take for me to feel that the years I’ve invested in this craft were worth it and really made a difference? And I imagine someone coming up to me and saying, ‘my brother or my daughter or my friend is gay, but these traditions mean so much to them, whether as a site of active faith or just as a matter of cultural heritage, and they’re having trouble figuring out how to reconcile that, so I sent them your work’. This nomination helps me believe that I’m on my way there, that someday I might really hear that from someone.
What am I working on now? Well, I’m still writing my girlfriend poems, of course. However, she’s a prose writer, a novelist, so I’ve been making more of an effort lately to speak her language with some short fiction, original fairy tales mostly. They’ve been a big hit with her, and I’m excited to start sharing them in print. By the time you listen to this, one of them, “The Sunday Tree”, will be out in the fourth issue of All Existing. Give it a read and let me know what you think. I’m also working toward the release of my debut poetry collection, “Angelolatress”, which is an autobiographical cycle about fragmented ethnic and religious identity and growing up with gender dysphoria.
My perfect writing environment is laying on the bed, a good tea within reach, resting my head on my girl’s lap as she clatters away at her novel. But alas, it appears that I do my best work from the couch.
Cerid Jones: 10:31
What I really like about this poem is that not only is it showing—depicting —the form of a cat, but the sense and the feel of the whole thing mimics that so beautifully. You know, like you really do—especially when you hear her read it. I mean, the way she reads it is absolutely like a purr basking in the sun. It is just beautiful. But that is how you feel reading it, too. You get this warm sunlight sort of shifting through a window. You get this kind of luxurious laziness sort of sink in. And it is just melty and drippy and lovely. And on top of that, we’re getting, or at least for me, a cultural insight to a different place that feels romanticism and romantic all at the same time. And I think that there is such a beautiful mastery of language cross-culturally and feeling cross-culturally that really just resonates and comes through. I mean, even if this piece wasn’t in the shape of a cat, you’d still get those kind of feelings. Just doing that, the typesetting, gives it a whole new layer that makes it interesting to look at from the first instance. And it really becomes kind of an immersive, almost theatrical event to read and experience. And then now, thankfully, being able to listen to. I just think it’s just so charming.
Melissa Reynolds: 12:18
Yeah, tied into the looks of this piece, it’s the type of poem that you could put in a little frame and put on your wall and use it both as art and read it as a poem. And that, to me, is amazing because I just can’t imagine how to take the shape of a poem and make it also fit with what the contents of the poem is saying. It just boggles my mind. So , that was what impressed me almost more than the contents was just the, ‘oh my gosh, look at this’. It looks like an adorable little cat and I love it so much, which is kind of surface level, but that’s really what got me. Especially there’s even like a little symbol there that is pink. So that looks like the cat has its nose nestled down while it’s sleeping and—ugh—I just love it.
Elena L. Perez: 13:13
Yeah, I also really love the imagery in this. And like you said, Cerid, I could really feel that sunlight warming me , like I’m a cat or something , while reading this. I really liked the comparison of the lover to a cat. To me, it was really relatable because there are people like that who are kind of, you know, they need their space and they allow you into their space on their terms, but they can still be very loving. So, I like that topic being addressed in this poem. And I also kind of, I also liked the use of the slashes because I feel like that also kind of reinforced that need for space. So even though the poem is in the shape of a cat, you still understand with those slashes that there’s pauses. There’s breaks. There’s that sort of distancing a little bit. And then another thing I liked was the mention of the different kind of kisses, which also mirrors that need for space, because you have the different moods. So, depending on the mood, you know, it could be a tender kiss or a quick kiss. I liked that distinction between the different kisses.
Melissa Reynolds: 14:20
Oh, real quick. I love that you bring that up because it also says a lot about the speaker and the person who is looking at this cat-like person because it’s showing that they understand so completely their—I hate to say lover. It always feels so strange to say, but the speaker so fully loves and understands the other person in this relationship that there’s no judgment in that. In fact, it’s become something that they adore about this person. And that’s just beautiful.
Cerid Jones: 14:51
Actually, that’s pretty much exactly what I was going to say. It’s about that acceptance of the give and take and the present needs that are not sacrifices, but allowances. That there is space for all of that. And I think that’s what really makes this so romantic. And then when you hear her description about where the inspiration of this poem comes from, it adds a whole new other layer of meaning that I just think is absolutely fantastic. And I would never have seen that. I’m not schooled in those myths or those stories. And I just think what a beautiful way—
I really want to point out that Reyzl says ‘old tools to new work’ and I think this absolutely encapsulates that on so many levels. You know, we’re talking about the relationship dynamics. You know, there are old mentalities and ideas in and around space and acceptance and giving this a new window to look at that through —from historical and a contemporary and a personal and a sociopolitical—there are just so many layers that are encapsulated and the whole experience of this duality that this poem kind of gives, us the duality of romanticism and romance.
Melissa Reynolds: 16:19
Our next author is Carol E. Anderson. Carol is a life coach and former organizational consultant whose passions are writing, women’s empowerment, and travel photography. She is the founder of Rebellious Dreamers, a 25-year strong nonprofit organization that has helped women over 35 realize dreams that they’ve deferred and women of all ages to come into their own. Carol holds a doctorate in spiritual studies and a master’s degrees in organizational development and creative nonfiction. She is the author of the award-winning memoir, “You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties”. Her work has been published in The Metaworker, Across the Margin, Bending Genres, Hippocampus, Lit Break, and others. Her goal at this stage is to live with a peaceful heart, a state regularly cultivated through walks in nature, meditation, and heartfelt conversation with friends. She lives with the love of her life and her sassy pup in the nature sanctuary in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Carol Anderson: 17:29
Hello, everyone. My name is Carol Anderson, and I’m from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I want to begin just by saying how honored I am to have my nonfiction piece, “Rubies”, nominated for the Pushcart Prize. And I want to thank the editors of Metaworker for choosing my work to be considered for this very prestigious award. It is a huge affirmation of my ability to tell a meaningful and heartfelt story that can touch others. It also inspires me to keep writing, to share truth, to be bold, and to write fearlessly. My gratitude to you is boundless.
“Rubies” is about my experience of falling in love with a woman in college in 1968 at the age of 21, and my inability to face such a daunting awareness, given how dangerous it was to be gay in that period of time. There was no DEI training, no gay advocates, no books about being gay that I was aware of, and certainly no one I could call on to share these feelings or any place to find support. It was especially complicated growing up in a fundamentalist Baptist family where the thought of being gay made me fear I would lose everything—my apartment, my friends, but most of all, my parents’ love. When such a profound thing happens and you are not able to process it with any kind of clarity at the time, the longing and confusion of the experience remains, in part. Now, even after 55 years, I can still call up those feelings of intense attraction and awe around this special person and our unrepeatable connection . My hope in writing this , really, was to convey the beauty, constraint, and longing of love, as well as its power to transform us, and for that love to linger long after the person is gone. Writing this was also a way to honor my younger self and to acknowledge the innocence and tenderness of such a precious relationship and to affirm something we could never share with others in public at the time. This is “Rubies”.
Remember that night in the basement of Draper Hall when you wrestled me to the floor? The sweet smell of musk oil on your neck made me dizzy. My hands—damp with sweat— lightly touched your hair. Your mouth an inch away, your breath the smell of berries. I longed to brush my lips next to yours– to taste the tang of rubies on your tongue. You smiled. Your eyes flashed. My eyes averted.
I heard you married a doctor, that your father died and you won teacher of the year back in your small town.
We wanted each other yet had no words for our devotion kindled by evening talks in a tiny dorm room painted lime green, an ancient wooden desk the only barrier between us. You picked up a matchbook next to the lamp and struck one—a flicker, a spark, a flame— a blaze. We sat silently and watched the fire burn until it reached your fingertips. Our eyes met and you blew it out.
I imagine you now, with four children, balancing beef dinners, budgets, and baseball games—desire lost in the fray of expectations.
Remember the day you gave me a massage when I said my back was killing me? You told me to take off my shirt, that you would work on me. Lying face down, I felt your hands glide over my shoulders and down my back. It was the first time you touched me without pretense. Everything quivered, dulcimer strings in search of perfect sound. I jumped when someone knocked at the door.
When I cleaned the closet yesterday, I found the plaque you made about friendship. You’d written on it by hand—a promise we would always be friends– though we knew we were far more than that. Do you still have the book I gave you that promised the same?
When you left that night, my body buzzed with fear—of my feelings being discovered. Of being gay.
I saw on Facebook that you’d gotten a divorce from your husband, that you’d moved. I wondered why we grew apart, fell out of love. I wrote you a private message on Facebook. You never answered.
Remember when, later that year, you got mono and had to go home? Your father came and piled you and all your belongings into his station wagon. I held out my hand as you passed by, window cracked open. Your fingers reached—brushed my own—before you drove away.
Even now when I think of you, I taste the tang of rubies on my tongue and wonder if you ever loved another woman.
This story reminds me a lot about what it means to me to be a writer. But I never took writing or literature as a major in college. I was always writing as a way to discover more about what I felt about things, what mattered to me, and to become more thoughtful and curious about what it means to be human. Through decades of introspection about love, despair, loss, and hope, I found that writing is a vehicle to help me deepen my awareness of life’s mysteries and how we all navigate them. While I was drawn to writing, my professional interests took me into a 40-year career in coaching and consulting, which was great training, actually, for learning more about people and appreciating the complex challenges of working and living
When I flew up, which is my term for retirement, I returned to school and got an MFA in creative nonfiction at the age of 68. My first book, “You Can’t Buy Love Like That, Growing Up Gay the Sixties”, came out in 2017, and then I got hooked on flash and began to get pieces published in literary magazines. I continue to write because it compels me to reach, to search for the deeper truths in myself that have been hidden, and actually to reclaim parts of myself that have been stolen through fear and repression or others’ judgments. I write because it expands my curiosity, it challenges my beliefs, and it actually leaves stretch marks on my heart. I write because I believe stories are the threads of life that connect us to our humanity and allow us, really, to touch the interior world of others.
To be a writer to me ultimately means to take myself both seriously and lightly, to remain in awe of the human experience, and to appreciate and honor the stories that have shaped my life and the lives of others. To tell those truths enriches ownership of my own journey and moves me toward greater self-acceptance and inner peace. Writing also invites me to be more vulnerable than makes me comfortable, but I’ve learned in doing so, it also makes me more fearless. I know I am most powerful when I am truly authentic, and that is what, more than anything, touches people.
My hope this year is to put together a flash memoir tentatively entitled, “I’m Not Afraid of Dying, I’m Afraid of Missing the Point”. It will be a collection of flash pieces around that topic as I reflect on my own understanding of the point.
Thank you once again for this amazing honor of your nomination and for inviting me to share more about my writing journey on your podcast. So much appreciation. Blessings to all.
Melissa Reynolds: 25:29
So, Carol’s Story, “Rubies”. It has such beautiful detail in it that is so vivid that I felt like I was there in the room with them. I felt almost like I shouldn’t be because it’s such a tender moment between these two that I might have blushed a little. There’s also great sadness in this because we time jump. Well, no, she’s remembering that night when all of this crazy connection between these two happened. And then we find out that the friend married a doctor and they didn’t come together, which is sad. So, there’s this very distinct longing, but also but also almost like a—she’s wishing this woman well and that, even though she couldn’t be with her, there’s this kind of like still a deep caring for her that’s just lovely. I really like that aspect.
Cerid Jones: 26:28
Yeah , I like that aspect, too. Um, I like that there isn’t—it’s bittersweet rather than bitterness. There is such a —for a creative non-fiction piece, the cadence and the storytelling and the poetics of the language is just irresistible. You really, like you’re saying, Mel, you really feel every heartbeat in this and I think that’s incredibly powerful and also incredibly brave in lots of ways, shape, and form. To be this vulnerable on something so personal yet something that I kind of suspect is more universal than we might dare to think, you know. We always have those stories of our ‘becoming’ years, of the the romance that wasn’t quite, you know, that love that never got to blossom into being a relationship. And this has those added layers of the trepidation. It’s that perfect balance between closeness and distance and longing and giving that really just pulls you in all the different directions and doesn’t have any judgment, even though it’s really clear throughout the story, there is a societal judgment that underlies the distance that is felt. At least in some way, shape or form.
Because it’s never told exactly whether the love interest in this story or in this, you know, memoir reflection was…may have actually been somewhat the same. We don’t know whether she was curious about having these experiences or whether she really felt that same deep intimacy of the same kind of romantic love between the two of them and felt, for whatever reason, that that couldn’t be explored further. We don’t get to know that. So, that kind of questioning that gets left there is what I really appreciate. And like you say, there is no bitterness in that questioning. It is this perfect romance in so many ways, because nothing could tarnish or take away from what that experience was. And that almost makes me weak at the knees.
And I think for other people who relate more specifically close to the story, who have had these experiences where they’ve encountered people in their lives who weren’t ready to accept themselves or were just sort of exploring along the way, it’s such a powerful story to kind of hold and feel a connectedness to. Because I think there are so many people out there who often feel like things like this have to be kept kind of secret or sort of shameful and there is no shame in it . It is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And it doesn’t need to have any negative connotations attached to any form of ‘almost’. Yeah, I love this piece so much and for creative non-fiction —woah—so powerful. It’s so powerful.
Elena L. Perez: 29:50
I agree. I really like that. It’s like these scenes are snapshots in time. And I could really feel, like you were saying, Mel, I could place myself in the situation with these two people and feel what they’re feeling, see what they’re seeing. And the innocence of the flashbacks really shines through, you know. Like you were saying, Cerid, discovering that part of yourself that you didn’t know was there before and being unsure, but it feeling good and you wanting to —wanting more of it. And then those societal pressures or expectations, you know, hidden in the back of your mind. This piece just captures all of that really well. And, I agree, the contrast between the two different states of this narrator was really powerful.
Cerid Jones: 30:46
I’d also like to kind of point out that it’s absolutely by happenstance, but there is a kind of mirror in this piece to “December Rain”, even though “December Rain” is sort of fictional. They follow similar kind of identity explorations, but from two very different perspectives. And so it’s like, I just think I only realized this when I was listening through the recordings earlier today, that we seem to have been drawn to these kind of self-exploration stories that speak to a bigger question about identity of ourselves. And I think it’s especially fitting in the difficult kind of turbulence that we live in now in our sort of global society, I mean, especially in America. But it’s completely by happen chance that we just happened to pick two stories that have some similar themes, even though they come from different perspectives. I don’t know if you guys picked that out earlier and I just missed it, but it really struck a chord with me just today. So, I wanted to make note of that.
Elena L. Perez: 31:51
Yeah, I really do like exploration stories, for sure. There’s something intriguing about those because, yeah, it’s the unknown, right? And just the fun of exploring that.
Cerid Jones: 32:03
Our next Pushcart nominee is Allister Nelson. Allister Nelson is a technical writer who has been published in Apex Magazine, Eternal Haunted Summer, Funded Publications, Gothic Anthology, Sudden Denouement, The Snow Bear Family Circus, and more.
A note on the audio narration for “Ashmedai and the Hairdresser”. Unfortunately, the narrator AKA me, Cerid, was not able to successfully produce an accent suitable for the characters set in Berlin, Germany. However, I do hope that the fantastical nature of the story and the accents that are chosen bring some life to this piece. There is no intent to make the accent anything specific to any particular culture. This is a fantasy mentality and idea, and I hope listeners enjoy and the author approves.
Cerid Jones reading Allister’s words: 34:10
“You are not the first Jewess to entertain a demon, you know. It’s more common than you think.” “Perhaps the first to give one a haircut. Pu pu pu!” I retorted saltily, gently tasting the coffee. It was perfect. I served him the black forest cake with caution. Adonai would not like me to disgrace a guest, entertaining angels unaware… only, I was sure he wasn’t an angel. Ashmedai languorously licked his spoon of the chocolate. “Mmm, delicious, did you make this?” I stuck my nose in the air. “Yes, in fact, I did. I had it in my mind I was entertaining a Duke of Spain, not King of Gehenna.” “Spaniards, demons, same thing, don’t you think?” Ashmedai teased. He inhaled the cake like he was a parched man back from the forsaken desert with a water glass. “You’ll make a good wife, Ilsa.” “Like your dear Sarai?” It was Ashmedai’s turn to flinch. “You had to remind me. I paid my dues for that, you know, ten leagues under the ocean for years and years. It was only when the barnacles ate my chains that I was free. I hate fish and water.” I pointed to Milham the Hol Bird, the Jewish Phoenix, tapestry on one of my mirrors. “Including burnt bird?” Then to Leviathan. “Or the demon fish the faithful shall eat at the coming of the Messiah?” Ashmedai sighed. “Haven’t you Jews realized yet, the Messiah will never come? There is no such thing as goodness in the world. Angels, sure, G-d, yes. But a Promised Messiah? Never.” I set my coffee down sharply. “Watch your tongue, demon. Words matter.” He leaned forward, tracing my knuckles. I shuddered, suddenly aware of his bulging yet sleek muscle, how badly he needed a haircut… it was my profession, after all. “Words are only air.” I jerked my hand away, coffee spilling on the floor. I sniffed. “I think you are a sore loser, Ashmedai. To Raphael, to Solomon. To Adonai. And to me.” I looked at the cursed pile of gold level with the table, topped by the queenly, perfect ruby. “I will give you the best haircut of your life. I will keep the gold, but not the precious ruby. And then, you will promise to never set foot in Berlin again.” “Is that what you truly want, Ilsa, Revke Rubenstein’s daughter?” “I… yes?” “What about Sigmund? What about having him madly desire you? What about bairns, and a wee little cottage in the Black Forest with the next Beethoven? Domesticity would suit you, Ilsa. I tasted your heart’s desires in the cake.” I shuddered, tempted by the demon of lust. “He is a Protestant, Ashmedai.” “And yet, you want him.” I steeled my mint-colored eyes, then let my dark gold ringlets fall from their place atop my head. “To the shaving chair, Ash. You need to be knocked down several pegs.”
Cerid Jones:
Allister Nelson is born from Centerville, Virginia. Allister sent us answers and I will be reciting them on their
Cerid reading Allister’s Words: 37:46
I grew up reading the Book of Tobit and a book series called Bartimaeus that dealt with the jinn and demons imprisoned by King Solomon, both of where I learned about Ashmedai, piquing my interest. I love tales of King Solomon’s wisdom and court and the deadly tale of Sarai Bat Raguel and Ashmedai’s murderous love for her, so I wanted to do a tale set in my own native Germany, where my family is from. Many of my loved ones are or have been Jewish, including my husband, who is ethnically a bit Ashkenazi. So, it’s always a wonderful culture that has fascinated me. I have a great love of the late 1800s in my fiction because it was such a time of rapid modernization, change, and women were just getting the right to work.
The Metaworker seemed like a place that would enjoy the tale of Ilsa, a rebellious Jewish hairdresser trying to start her own business, that must administer to Ash. The Metaworker has always stood out to me as a magazine for original thinkers with a taste for the literary and fantastic. I’m glad it was a good fit.
Being a writer means holding a mirror to the truth and holding back glimmering fractals of light. I function best in poetry, short stories, novellas, chapbooks, graphic novels, and science and technical writing. My goals for 2025 are to make sure that my chapbook launch of an Appalachian-based Fantastica project with Laughing Man House, called “Southern Saints”, goes off swimmingly, and to finish up a few other book and novella deals I have while continuing to write short fiction.
I have never had much luck in submitting stories before 2023 because I had no idea they were out there. I just happened upon Duotrope in late 2023 and it opened a whole world to me. Like a digital literary salon. And of course, I work on my ever-growing list of Ashmedai novels and short tales. I have hundreds of ideas.
For me, being nominated with “Ashmedai and the Hairdresser” for the Pushcart Prize is an incredible honor. I cried tears of joy when I got the email. I was so humbled that The Metaworker took my little tale of a gritty, smart, determined woman and the demon that can match her fire, and chose not only to publish Ilsa and Ash’s love story, but also to nominate me. I love Ash and Ilsa so dearly, and I’m glad that they brought others joy. I hope the story helps those a bit out of the box, or who feel they don’t fit in, know they are loved, and you always matter.
Currently, I am working on a few novels, novellas, and a graphic novel that retells the myth of Hades and Persephone from the original tale’s narrator, her mother, Demeter, who pairs up with Hecate to find her daughter. I also have a fun one revisiting a 15th century Hakalot text of a Jewish girl in Wolfbaden, Germany—made up tale—who goes on a Book of Enoch-themed tour to the mansions of Sheol and Heaven with her guardian angel Duma, the prince of the grave and silence. It’s an expansion on my first foray into short stories and Jewish fiction, “Life and Death”, which you can read or listen to at the Kaidankai podcast with the wonderful Linda Gould.
Ideally, my perfect writing environment would be the Hogwarts library. Because that is not an option, snuggling up with a pet at home while my husband makes me coffee and we get to cuddle with writing breaks, or breaks for cuddling, as I stay up writing yet another Talmudic or Paradise Lost inspired piece. Or, in my favorite cafe, this delightful little Korean coffee shop called Jireh in Centerville with the most amazing pastries and garlic fries. It even has a meditation garden. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Metaworker staff. I’m honored.
Elena L. Perez: 42:24
What I love about this piece is just Ilsa’s no-nonsense voice. I like that, you know, she knows who she is. She knows what she wants. You know, she’s this really accomplished woman. And it really shines through throughout the whole piece. You know, the way that she talks to herself and then the way that she interacts with Ashmedai. And it was consistent throughout the whole piece. And I just really liked her demeanor overall. I also liked that… the sensual details. A detail here, a detail there until. [inaudible] But I like that it’s intentional, you know, there’s build up to it.
Melissa Reynolds: 43:11
This piece was kind of one of our more controversial pieces because we actually had a few questions about, ‘hey, why did you guys decide to publish this’? Because we typically don’t feature pieces that are a little more risque in nature, but that was actually—not to almost sound like a smut hound, but that’s what I liked about this piece, is that it wasn’t just, ‘oh, this woman who is a hairdresser is having this sexual experience with what I believe is a demon’, but it’s more about she’s taking back her power and he is offering her an avenue to becoming this beautiful, strong, empowered businesswoman. And I felt like, in a way, that transcended just a mere sex scene that you might find in a romance novel. It’s more about, um, again, identity. We keep coming back to that in this episode, but, um , yeah. And it elevated that act from just some simple carnal thing to being something that could have a lot of meaning. And that really resonated with me.
Cerid Jones: 44:43
So, I have to say, Mel, every time we’ve both gone in to say something, you’re trying to say exactly the same thing that I’m going to say, so I really appreciate that. And I think it’s fantastic. And that does say something about, you know, like, we’ve been working together such a long time now that we do, we have very similar tastes in lots of ways. Because we discuss all these pieces before we publish them, so we’re, you know, quite familiar with the intricacies of what we liked and what we didn’t like in a lot of the pieces.
And, yeah, for me this story is encapsulating empowerment despite any preconceived notions of self-identity, cultural identity, gender identity. It breaks down all of those walls and goes ‘what would it be like if you were just free to choose, without any judgment, exactly what it is that you wanted for yourself’ and how empowering that is, you know. Especially when we look at the context of this piece, uh, you know, coming from a Judaic kind of background, being set in Berlin, you know. There are —I think in the Western world, we have a lot of misconceived notions about a lot of these other cultures and other identities that we don’t see a lot of. And this story brings not only the romantic sort of, you know, and yes, I am also a smut lover, so I’m in the same house with Mel on that one. Not ashamed of it, not one damn bit. But, you know, not only is it bringing that up, but it’s also…
Hey, listen, and this is a conversation that we had with, um, one of our community members who was just like, ‘hey, this is really different from what you publish. Can I ask you, you know, like why you guys sort of liked that’? And it’s one of the things that we talked about, is that there is a real cultural identity that’s present and behind the romance storyline and behind all of these other things, that does give readers a whole new perception that they might not have had before about the cultural setting in which this takes place. And that’s what really excited me about this piece is that it is so well considered in the mythic traditions. It brings to light something—a lot of things—that we don’t often talk about inside romance genre, of course, inside identity, but inside the culture, as well. But that is to just prove how really passionate I am about this story. I absolutely adore it and I cannot wait for more stories about Ash. Like, I am I’m clicking on. I know that the author is writing more stories about Ash and I’m ready for it. It was a lot of fun to voice, as well.
Elena L. Perez: 47:50
Yeah, I really appreciated that, too. I feel like I learned a lot reading this story, like you said, Cerid, because it brings in all those cultural older story aspects. You know, I had to look some of [inaudible]. I learned a lot. I like learning, so… despite me not being familiar with those deeper meanings behind all of that, I still enjoyed reading this story because the characters were so strong and the situation [inaudible]. You know, I was really invested in [inaudible]. I really enjoyed the story.
Cerid Jones: 48:32
I think it’s really remarkable, that these collections of stories—like now that we’re looking back and sitting together and talking about them collectively, that there are similar themes that really stand out. All of our Pushcart nominees have a fearlessness and a boldness. They have the willingness to reclaim something that might be hidden, forgotten, lost. They have an exploration of self-understanding, but not just the self, but how that’s reflected in our greater society and our cultural norms and our socio-political world. There is a real sense of vulnerability. And seeing that as a strength rather than a weakness that is expressed in all of our writers.
All of our writers, too, have drawn inspiration, or a good majority of them have drawn inspiration, from some form of mythic tradition, which I also think is a really interesting thing to point out as well as didn’t register this at all when we were selecting but we’ve actually got a really good representation of a lot of various rainbow community identities and I think that is just wonderful. I’m so excited. Like, when I realized that, I actually went ‘oh my goodness that was not intentional but look at that’. That is phenomenal, um, and I think —you know, like I really hope that these writers, when they hear this and see the others that are boxed-in into a Pushcart selection , which was a really tough decision this year by the way, like really tough, that they can see some of those similarities . Even though the works are all very different, that they can see a sense of that community and what voices really do matter. At east to us, you know, but we know our readers love them, too. But that’s the thing. All of these voices are proud. They’re bold. They’re shameless and fearless. And it’s so encouraging and so inspiring to read and get to be a part of these kind of great works that forge ahead, you know.
Melissa Reynolds: 50:38
Cerid, you always are really good at saying the perfect thing in the perfect way. So, I will add my own little humble two cents, which is: the type of writing that you’re talking about, I have always called honest writing. So, even fictional writing can carry a lot of truth and a lot of different parts of ourselves that we might not reveal in any other setting. And that type of writing is usually extremely powerful, just as Cerid has said. But it’s also kind of terrifying to share. So, I want to applaud all of our authors’ bravery in sharing these tender writings that are extremely honest. So, thank you all.
Cerid Jones: 51:31
Thanks for the bravery to be seen and make others feel seen.
Elena L. Perez: 51:36
Yes, echoing Mel and Cerid, thank you so much to all six of our nominated authors for, first of all, submitting your work to us and also for participating in this podcast. It was a pleasure to hear more about your pieces and you as writers. Thank you for trusting us to be a home for your beautiful work. As I said, you inspire me, and I look forward to reading more of your writing. We’re glad to have you in our Metaworker community. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. Head to the episode description to read all six of our nominated authors on our website. And come join our writing community on Discord.
