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Washington Writers' Publishing House November 20, 2025
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WWPH WRITES 109 brings you our newly redesigned lit magazine. This issue features poet Summer Hardinge and fiction writer Diana Elizabeth Clarke, both with work that focuses on the natural world in disarmingly direct ways.
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We are also happy to invite you to our last AMERICA'S FUTURE reading of the year. It will take place on Thursday, December 11th at 7:30 pm at the Sandy Spring Museum in Sandy Spring, Maryland, and it will be hosted by the MoCo Underground reading series. Please join us for this very special culmination of 14 literary salons and readings this fall celebrating the writers of America's Future. Details are below.
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We are looking into the future, not only with our big/bold new anthology, but also as we plan 2026.
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- Our 2026 WWPH Fellows applications (paid internships) are open through November 30th. Please see below for details.
- Our 2025 Year-End Giving Campaign is now underway. Please consider a donation to your Washington Writers' Publishing House (501c3 nonprofit since 1975!) to further our efforts to publish and celebrate writers from DC, Maryland, and Virginia, to fund our WWPH Fellowship program, and to continue to grow as a vital and vibrant literary force. Be one of the first 30 to donate $75.00 or more by December 5th and receive a limited edition, hand-crafted set of 6 letterpress poetry broadsides (12 x 9 frameable posters including work by Grace Cavalieri, E. Ethelbert Miller and more) in a beautiful matching letter-pressed folder as a thank you. Or, simply donate to us. We are grateful for all contributions. Donate now.
- Big news! Our next round of manuscript contests will be open on April 1st through June 30th. We are eager to read your full-length literary works in poetry, fiction (short novel or short stories), and literary nonfiction (memoir or essay collection). $1,500 prize. All publication costs. And most of all, a chance to call WWPH your publishing home.
Read on! Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving Day!
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Caroline Bock & Jona Colson
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ON A WALK WITH WHITMAN
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Summer Hardinge lives near the Potomac River in Maryland. A former high school teacher, she leads Amherst Writers and Artists workshops in the Washington D.C. area. Summer received the 2024 Ron Rash Poetry Award, and her poetry appears in Stonecoast Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Literary Mama, Mid Atlantic Review, and elsewhere.
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HIKING JONES FALLS
“Want to hike Jones Falls?” Amy asked Kathy. Her breathing was intense as she waited for her cousin to answer.
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They hadn’t talked or seen each other in nearly ten years, not since Amy’s family moved across the country from Utah to a city known for Old Bay, orioles, and Broadway’s Hairspray.
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Amy and Kathy were close as children, playing in the tree house on Thanksgiving or playing hide-and-seek in the closet on Christmas. At only two years apart, they were best friends. Until Amy was whisked off to Baltimore, and the cousins lived different lives on different coasts. But that all changed when they were brought together again, thanks to Kathy’s acceptance letter from Johns Hopkins.
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“Uh, how far outside the city is it?” Kathy said. “I’m kind of busy right now.”
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“It’s in the city," Amy said with a smile.
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“A hike in a city?” Kathy was doubtful. All she saw in Baltimore were concrete, sidewalks, and buildings. No mountains, hills, or rocks. Where were the hikes?
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“It’s more of a walking trail, but yeah, it’s right in the city,” Amy said. “Not far from your school actually.”
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“Oh,” Kathy laughed. “That’s not a hike. What, is it a sidewalk in a pretty part of town?” Before moving to the East Coast, Kathy’s norm was red rock in her backyard and bluffs that were open to climb and explore. To her, a hike was turning your tennis shoes orange while you hunted for lizards and geckos. In her mind, if there was concrete, it was not a hike.
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“Sorry, Amy,” she said, “I’m not really interested—”
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“Please,” Amy begged. “For old times’ sake. Like when we were kids.”
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“It’s a river walk,” Amy said with a little too much enthusiasm. “Kinda like that one in Zion we used to do all the time.”
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Zion National Park was one of the only tourist attractions in Southern Utah—or, at least, the only attraction that was worth traveling to from China or New Zealand. As kids, Kathy and Amy went almost every weekend since they lived so close. They hit every trail by the time they were ten; except for Angel’s Landing. Neither of them were brave enough or old enough to hang on a chain with a 100-foot drop on each side while hiking up to the top of a summit.
But little did they know, they would need a new kind of bravery at the Jones Falls in Baltimore.
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“Ah, fine. Sounds fun, I guess.” Kathy said.
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Kathy was in awe when she walked alongside the Jones Falls trail with Amy. It was confusing and beautiful at the same time. On one side of the street there were abandoned train carts with a rainbow of graffiti. But on the other side there were luscious green trees with leaves larger than your palm that felt like sandpaper. And if you looked past the trees, a rushing river raced by that splashed bricks coated in graffiti.
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“Yeah, it’s weird but also cool,” Kathy said.
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Amy chuckled. “It took me a while to get used to it, too. But now it’s my home. And since you live here too, we can hang out again.”
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“Yeah…” Kathy’s voice trailed out for a second. “Do you ever miss the mountains?”
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“No.” Amy did not miss a beat when she answered. “The buildings are my mountains. I mean, where else could you find a river walk and street art in the exact same place.”
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“I guess you have a point—” Kathy stopped walking. “What is that smell?”
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“Forgot what?!” With each question, Kathy’s voiced raced from panic.
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“Sewage overflow.” It only took two simple words for the awful smell to turn to disgust, cringe, and fear all at the same time.
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“Are we standing in it?” Kathy was hesitant to ask as she stood in what she thought was a puddle from yesterday’s rain.
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Amy didn’t speak. All she did was nod.
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In that moment, the two cousins were trapped in shoe-soaking sewage water. But before Kathy had a chance to say something, Amy spat, “It’s not normally this bad, I swear.”
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Just then, a car going ten miles too fast drove by. When the tires hit the sewage puddle that leaked through the street, poop water doused Kathy and Amy.
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“Ah!” both of them screamed.
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They stood there, wet and smelly, for a moment or two before Amy broke the silence and laughed. “Remember when we were hiking the Narrows in Zion, and you tripped on a rock and fell face-first in the water?”
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Kathy forced out a chuckle.
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“Well, this ain’t as bad as that, right?” Amy nudged Kathy’s arm.
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This time, Kathy released a real laugh. “Hey, but the Narrows wasn’t poop water.”
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All Amy did was shrug. “Welcome to Baltimore?”
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The cousins laughed until their stomachs hurt as they decided to hike further up the Jones Falls trail, despite the sewage water.
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“Thanks,” Amy said as they walked with squishy shoes. “I needed this. I’ve been pretty lonely out here.”
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“I’m glad I came. It’s not…too bad?”
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“Not everything in Baltimore is this stinky.”
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“Maybe you can show me more of the city later?”
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Amy nodded with a smile. “Deal.”
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And just like that, the cousins were best friends again. It was as if the ten years apart never happened.
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Diana Elizabeth Clarke is an Utah-native who has lived in Baltimore for the past three years. She has an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore and is the author of the award-winning collection Under Water: Stories. She prefers to write women-centered fiction and often draws from true experiences for her stories. You can learn more about her and her work at linktr.ee/DianaEliz.
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America’s Future With MoCo Underground - Last Event of 2025!
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JOIN WWPH AT MOCO UNDERGROUND AT THE SANDY SPRING MUSEUM THIS HOLIDAY SEASON Featured readers from AMERICA'S FUTURE include Jessica Simon, Neha Misra, Fran Abrams, Laurie Ward, Kay White Drew, Edward Belfar, Caroline Bock, and Julia Tagliere. Special holiday cookie reception with writers. Copies of AMERICA'S FUTURE on holiday sale! Bring a canned or dried good for donation to Olney's …
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Big Congratulations again to all our 2025 Manuscript Contest Winners!
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WWPH WRITES is open for submissions, and we are actively reading for winter of 2026. We are now a paying market ($25.00, which we encourage you to pay forward and use to purchase a book from a small press). We are looking for poetry (up to 3 poems) and prose (up to 1,000 words of fiction or creative nonfiction). Free to submit. More details at our Submittable page here.
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Thank you for being part of our WWPH Community!
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Prose editor, WWPH Writes
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Poetry editor, WWPH Writes
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Copyright © 2025 The Washington Writers' Publishing House, All rights reserved.
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