fiction – Sarah Pascarella

A Loaded Word

Posted on October 8, 2022 by Sarah Pascarella

A cracked pomegranate sits on a plate with loose seeds and juice scattered on the table

“Pith”, the title of my new short story in Wilderness House Literary Review, is one of my favorite words, dense and layered with meaning. As a noun, it refers to spongy plant tissue or a body’s soft interior; it can also mean the essential part. As a verb, it means to kill. It’s a word in constant dance with its context – move this way, and it could be a refuge; shift slightly, and it’s peril. By either interpretation, it’s impactful.

I hoped to weave these multiple meanings into the story, a simple one of Dara, a young woman attempting to connect with her elderly father, newly vulnerable at this moment in their relationship.

I also wanted to create a personality test for the reader, and purposely left the time period vague. Set this story in late 2018, for example, and the tone reassures. Place it in January 2020 and inspire dread. I leave it up to you whether to support or kill.

Thank you to fiction editor Ian Halim at Wilderness House for selecting my work, and to the women of SWIG and Andrew Wagner for thoughtful critiques.

Read Pith in Wilderness House Literary Review >

Photo courtesy Margaret Jaszowska via Unsplash

Unavoidable

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Sarah Pascarella

The black coils of an Eastern Rat snake shine under a light

In my latest story, what happens when a person whose default setting is avoidance has to deal with the highly unpleasant, immediately, and all by themselves?

In Solo Shift, my new short story in The Petigru Review, Tanya, the owner of a small cafe and mercantile, finds herself face-to-face with a snake just before the Sunday-morning rush. As the story unfolds and she addresses the urgent at-hand, the long-put-off becomes clear.

Interestingly, this story first came together in September 2020 (the year of prompt stories) – and here we are, two years later, seeing it published just as September ends.

Thanks to the editorial staff at The Petigru Review, especially Sue Cryer and Maria Picone for such a fruitful collaboration, and my constant readers – the unparalleled SWIG workshop and Andrew Wagner.

Read Solo Shift in The Petigru Review >

Photo courtesy David Clode via Unsplash

Work/Life

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Sarah Pascarella

Two swimmers in side by side lanes swim the backstroke

Early in my career, work and life were separate. It was considered unprofessional to be vulnerable or personal at the office. Relationship drama? Family problems? Health issues? Check them all at the office door, focus on the bottom line, and bring maximum value to your employer, no distractions.

But as I’ve switched roles and companies over the years, I’ve noticed a shifting ethos in corporate culture, especially when I’ve taken jobs at startups. Employees are increasingly encouraged to “bring their whole selves to work,” but this got me thinking: What does that mean, exactly? Who defines “whole self”? And what type of an employee might prefer to keep things separate and private?

That’s the setup for my newest short story, Backstroke, published in the Summer 2022 issue of The Under Review.

Thank you to Meghan Maloney-Vinz and The Under Review editors for publishing my work, and to my SWIG workshop readers and Andrew Wagner for always-thoughtful feedback.

Read Backstroke in The Under Review >

Photo courtesy Ryan Fleischer via Unsplash

Tie Goes to the Writer (and Editor)

Posted on May 28, 2022June 11, 2022 by Sarah Pascarella

A view of a prison hallway seen through steel bars

In On Writing, Stephen King says the following about getting initial feedback from close, trusted readers:

“If you give out six or eight copies … you get back six or eight highly subjective opinions about what’s good and bad in it. If all your readers think you did a pretty good job, you probably did. This sort of unanimity does happen, but it’s rare, even with friends. More likely, they’ll think that some parts are good and some parts are, well, not so good. Some will feel that Character A works but Character B is far-fetched. If others feel that Character B is believable but Character A is overdrawn, it’s a wash. You can safely relax and leave things the way they are (in baseball, tie goes to the runner; for novelists, it goes to the writer). If some people love your ending and others hate it, same deal – it’s a wash, and tie goes to the writer.” (pp. 216-17)

I recently used this advice with my new flash fiction story, The Sleepwalker, published this month in Every Day Fiction. When I workshopped this story with my writing group, it got mixed feedback: Some thought it worked fine, others thought it needed an overhaul, getting more in depth with the character and the actions that created their circumstances.

Potential wash, I thought.

Then, fellow workshop member – and award-winning flash fiction writer – Kat Gonso not only championed it, but also suggested a drastic revision. She recommended leaning in to the flash and distilling even further.

In her notes, she included a ~350-word version (cut from my original draft around 500), and suggested I pare it down even further. I sat with it a bit, tweaked a few sections based on her suggestions and additional workshop feedback, and sent it out to a few journals.

Every Day Fiction expressed interest, and then also shared their team’s notes. Their reader found it problematic. The fiction editor liked it and wanted to publish it.

Tie goes to the editor, and by extension, me.

Read The Sleepwalker in Every Day Fiction >

Photo courtesy Matthew Ansley via Unsplash

Stuck in the Mud

Posted on February 13, 2021February 13, 2021 by Sarah Pascarella

A man stands on a beach in front of a beached whale that has washed up on the shore

Going into 2019, I was a bit depleted creatively. I struggled with a long-form fiction project and was out of ideas. While I did not want to take any time off, I also did not feel inspired.

I remembered I had purchased a prompt book, Judy Davis’ A Writer’s Book of Days, while on vacation in Asheville, North Carolina, a few years earlier. It had sat on my shelf, unopened. I retrieved it and skimmed the intro and its basic premise: a prompt a day.

That could be a good New Year’s resolution, I thought. Daily prompt, no pressure, no editing, no time limit or word count, just the practice.

I kept at it and didn’t miss a day. I wrote longhand. By the end of the year, I had a stack of notebooks filled with potential stories.

In 2020, I used the notebooks as starting points, with a new resolution: 12 short stories from the prompts, one per month.

Time and Tide, newly published in MudRoom magazine, is April’s story, although the process was much longer than that:

April 2019: Original prompt
April 2020: First draft of the full story
April – December 2020: Two workshops with the SWIG writers’ group, plus additional helpful feedback from Robert Scott and Andrew Wagner
January 2021: Pitches, final revisions
February 2021: Publication

For more details, MudRoom editor Maiasia Grimes generously invited me to discuss the writing process in the magazine’s newest interview.

Thanks for reading!

Photo courtesy Sue & Danny Yee via Flickr Creative Commons

Short, to the Point

Posted on October 4, 2020October 4, 2020 by Sarah Pascarella

Thank you to the team at Levee Magazine for publishing my newest short fiction, Embolus.

A bit of process notes on this one: Embolus went through multiple revisions over the years and received mixed feedback, both from my writing workshops and editors at literary journals. It certainly mystified me as I worked on it. I knew I wanted a mood piece that spoke to something the main character considers unspeakable, something she knows but prefers as mystery. Something intimate and also foreign.

I’ll say little more, just that the timing of Embolus’ publication in Levee’s fifth issue, in the throes of the novel coronavirus, and the rash of high-profile diagnoses this week, seems a little too timely. Can we ever really acknowledge our vulnerabilities?

Photo courtesy Tyler B Dvorak via Flickr Creative Commons

The Ancients

Posted on June 13, 2020June 13, 2020 by Sarah Pascarella

In 2018, I traveled to Vancouver, B.C., and spent an afternoon at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. After a few hours crisscrossing between the treetops, we descended back to the ground to exit, and passed a display titled Our Biggest Guest.

It told the story of a November night in 2006, when a storm-felled Douglas Fir tree nearly took out the bridge, and the harrowing means to clear the giant: “The park had to be closed for 3 months in order for the tree trunk to be safely removed. With 17 tons of weight on the bridge, the trunk could not simply be lifted otherwise it would create a spring-like effect shooting the bridge, tree, and any one on it up into the air. Instead, small slices were removed one at a time while pulley systems carefully lifted and swung the remaining tree from its perch.”

This story was my main souvenir from the trip. From it came my newest short fiction, Arabesque, now available to read on Fiction Southeast, or check out the audio version on Audiomack.

Thanks for reading or listening!

Book of Days

Posted on May 17, 2020June 13, 2020 by Sarah Pascarella

In 2019, my New Year’s Resolution was to work on a writing prompt every day, using A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves as my guide. Whether I had five minutes or five hours, the goal was simply to make it a daily practice. I wrote longhand each day, sometimes in plain notebooks, other times in fancier leather-bound journals. I alternated between drugstore ballpoint pens and bold purple inks. I made it the whole year.

In 2020, my resolution has been to work through those prompt exercises like a miner, extracting useful nuggets, in an attempt to produce a polished short story each month. Nearly five months in, I’ve been keeping at it, although “polished” may be a relative term.

A bit of validation, though: I’m pleased to announce the first of my prompt stories has found a home. Check out my newest published fiction, Serotiny, in issue 6.1 of The Maine Review. (Interestingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, nearly nothing from the original prompt exercise made it into the final draft.)

Thanks to editor Rosanna Gargiulo for her thoughtful edits, as well as the incredible readers of SWIG and Andrew Wagner for their invaluable feedback.

As always, thanks for reading!

Photo courtesy Matthew Macy via Flickr Creative Commons

Winter Into Spring

Posted on March 19, 2019March 19, 2019 by Sarah Pascarella

My husband tells me the first day of spring is tomorrow, yet the forecast for my morning commute is a brisk 28 degrees. Not quite there yet…

Fitting, though, that “Seeking Warmth”, the latest excerpt from our graphic novel, Stony Road, was just published this week – and by a publication in a place that’s always warm, no less.

Check out the story on the Aquifer: The Florida Review Online website.

Thanks for reading, and here’s to warmer days.

Read the First Chapter from Beneficiaries

Posted on October 24, 2017October 25, 2017 by Sarah Pascarella

This photo shows a dilapidated barn with a green bicycle leaning against its front wall.

It seems I’ve taken an unexpected hiatus here on the blog, one I hope to remedy in the coming weeks and months. Why the hiatus? I’ve been working on other writing projects, including Beneficiaries, a novel in short stories.

I’m pleased to share that Embark, a literary journal for novelists, has included the first chapter of Beneficiaries in its second issue. Embark has a great premise in that they only publish the first pages of a novel, “those crucial first pages that must engage the reader’s attention and often receive more polishing than any other part of the book”, as they so eloquently put it.

Here’s the first glimpse of “Barnstorm”, aka Chapter One of Beneficiaries:

The barn was scheduled to come down that afternoon. The demo team had arrived early, however, and worked with efficiency and skill. Caroline watched them fill a dump truck for the third time in two hours and reverse back out to the road; the driver steered with caution. The monstrous truck bleated as though it were as small and vulnerable as a lamb, as if it wouldn’t easily crush any comers that dared to cross its path, even at this slow speed. Caroline sipped a cup of coffee at the kitchen sink, shifting her gaze from the truck to the new empty space now in front of her, noting how the barn’s footprint seemed so much larger, ironically, without it.

It had come down without a fuss, without any protests or resistance. It hadn’t been a lightning storm, or a Nor’easter, or termites that had done it in—though those had all taken their toll, of course. Rather, it had been the gradual soft rains of the past hundred and three years, the sea-salty air that exfoliated the barn’s support beams, the heavy snows that weighed the roof down like a pressure cooker. When the bulldozer came, it took only two hits for the entire structure to crumble like a wad of paper. Rick, the foreman, raised the crane to the roof and tapped, then raked the shovel across the shingles like a comb untangling a strand of knots. The barn’s north and west walls bowed to the ground. Rick pivoted the truck on its base and extended the shovel toward the southeast corner, as graceful as a lion going in for its last wound before a kill. A swift puncture to the base and the barn collapsed in on itself, the old timbers groaning as they fell; a moderate dust cloud rose as the boards settled onto the earth.

Photo courtesy Alexander Shustov on Unsplash.