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WWPH Writes 81...shares wide-ranging intimacies in new work by poet Susan Scheid, SOVEREIGNTY, and creative nonfiction by Jill P. Strachan in LESBIAN LOVE AT TACO BELL.

And our September includes us being out in the world:

50th-anniversary celebrations on Friday, September 13th at 6 pm at People’s Books in Takoma Park with our co-founder Grace Cavalieri and more. Please RSVP below to join us.

A Sunday, September 15 at 1 pm reading at Potter’s House in DC with poet Holly Karapetkova along our 2024 WWPH Fellows (if you are interested in learning more about our paid WWPH Fellowship program join us at this event! Applications open in mid-September.)

Our second WWPH LITERARY SALON on Tuesday, September 17 at 5:30 pm, a FREE evening of creative writing, reading, and discussion, at the Arts Club of DC. Only a limited number of seats are still available. Please RSVP today!

Our 50th-anniversary anthology, AMERICA’S FUTURE, is now open for submissions. More details below.

We look forward to seeing you at a September event and to reading your work for AMERICA’S FUTURE. 

Read on to some thrilling poetry and creative nonfiction below, plus a very special interview with our 2024 Jean Feldman Poetry Award-winner CHANLEE LUU.

Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
co-presidents, WWPH

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WWPH WRITES Poetry

SOVEREIGNTY
after Ha Jin
I am holding my quiet center
which brims like an ocean oracle.
I walk alone in an obsidian canyon.

I am holding and waiting
for the ghost mist to clear.
I don’t know if I am strong
or stubborn or stupid.

I must hold my quiet center,
even as you are so distant
and foolish.
My perseverance feels like
a stone mountain:
too rough to climb
too solid to ignore.

I will hold quietly to my center
with my friend, Solitude, and
wait for the shadow to pass.
I will inhale the galaxy
and begin to turn.

©Susan Scheid 2024

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WWPH WRITES Creative Nonfiction

LESBIAN LOVE AT TACO BELL

For Jane

        Every time we dine at Taco Bell, we celebrate our relationship, approaching twenty-eight years together, with one brief hiatus. It’s not that we met at a Taco Bell, but our relationship was graced with a scintillating note of joy and laughter while eating there.

            Don’t worry, there’s nothing racy in this story, no parental guidance needed.

            We began dating in mid-July 1996 but were internationally separated for a month, I in Sri Lanka (where there were no Taco Bells at the time)^[1] and Jane in Washington, DC, (where there were a few franchises in the suburbs). We were intense and on edge.

            It was before desktop computers and magical phones were ubiquitous. Peter, my longtime friend and host in Sri Lanka, served as our spectacular go-between, typing my spikey scrawl into emails with his own humorous, clarifying comments inserted from time to time, and funding my long-distance calls to the US. Our nascent romance was beyond lucky to have such a facilitator.

            September proved no easier for connecting when Jane traveled to Indonesia. Without Peter’s assistance, we communicated through short, expensive phone calls. Our mutual longing was concrete and untested.

            By October we reunited in Washington and drove south to the fall retreat of the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington, DC, at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. At a minimum, the drive was five hours, which required stops for bathroom breaks, gas, and food. My car was a Miata, fun to drive but unsuitable for a longer trip. It was claustrophobic after the cool part wore off. On highways, we felt invisible despite the car’s red color. Not conducive to relaxing.

            By the time we arrived at the outskirts of Charlottesville on Route 29, we were hungry and needing to pee. Route 29 is scenic in many places, but it rolls up and down. People drive too fast and sight lines deceive. It’s difficult to judge if passing a car is a good choice. Our conversation had become strained. When we saw the Taco Bell ahead on the left, we agreed to stop.^[2] We were cranky. Or verging on hangry.

            We paid for our own orders. Jane chose a Soft Taco Supreme stuffed with beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. My quesadilla, cut in three pieces, featured chicken and melted cheese topped with hot sauce from a small plastic packet. A Diet Coke for each of us. My side was pinto beans. (It must be said, Taco Bell pinto beans are thicker but not as creamy smooth as yesteryear. I’ve stopped ordering them.)

            The fall evening light had arrived and was dwindling. Inside the restaurant it was overbright; no candlelight to cast an intimate spell for us. The car’s darkness no longer offered a shield. We sat face-to-face across a small table. We were shy.

            The Soft Taco Supreme was a hefty item. As Jane happily bit into this creation, its contents moved and pushed chopped tomatoes dressed in sour cream out the side and down to the middle of her tee-shirt. Being new to each other, we consciously avoided making a big fuss about the mess. She dabbed at her shirt with a paper napkin. But when her second bite unleashed a bigger piece of tomato and sour cream to make an identical descent, we both burst into laughter.           

            Amidst the glee, we had ignition. We had intimacy. The rest is history, thanks to a Soft Taco Supreme at Taco Bell.

Thoughtfulness is your

saving my place in the book

we read together.

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[1] Taco Bell now has a restaurant near Cinnamon Gardens, No 36, Horton Place, Colombo 00700 Sri Lanka. Order for pickup or delivery.

[2] 801 Emmet Street N, Charlottesville, VA 22903.

©Jill P. Strachan 2024

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WWPH WRITES ON OUR 2024 AWARD-WINNING BOOKS

JOIN US for the kick-off of our 50th-anniversary celebrations with our co-founder GRACE CAVALIERI along with Jean Nordhaus, Heather Bruce Satrom, and David Lott at People’s Book in Takoma Park on Friday, September 13 from 6-8 pm. Stop by and learn more about how you can submit to our upcoming anthology America’s Future with Caroline Bock and Jona Colson, co-editors. PLEASE RSVP and let us know you are coming! https://peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/wwph/

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AMERICA’S FUTURE celebrates our 50th-anniversary and the nation’s 250th anniversary, and you are invited to submit. Detailed prompt and guidelines available here. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK. FUTURE FORWARD, all!