Douglas Wright III

A cramped bathroom, knees and elbows hitting the walls. Tired tiles, once white, yellowed with years, smudged with stains. I finish my business and begin to wipe; my finger tears through the paper. Fuck. Standing, pants around my ankles, I twist to use the micro-sink installed above the toilet. I flub it, smudging shit on the spout. I run the water, to clean the spout. More shit exits the…

Like art? Like literature? Live in Maine? Feel like exploring the liminal?

Eastport Arts Center are hosting a reading of the "Echoes in the Fog" anthology this Thursday, June 25 at 6pm Come down, support art. #books #writers #maine

It’s the morning. I’m groggy, stumbling. Wiping the sleep off my face I see my eye swollen in the bathroom mirror. The lids are glued shut, puss crusted and dripping. Poking at it, I peel my lids open. It’s the eye itself that’s swollen, not the lids. Where there should be an eye, a normal eye, brown and a bit tired, rests a rheumy orb, cataracted, slick with puss. Poking, my finger sliding…

June 6, tomorrow, 3pm in Searsport, ME. 12 Willows Press & Anodyne Bookshop are hosting a reading of the "Echoes in the Fog" anthology.

Come down, support art.

Daily writing promptWhat’s a moment that made you question reality?View all responses I was playing on the jungle-gym behind my gradeschool. It was new, rounded corners, smooth metal columns and bubble plastic mouldings all bright primary colors over a carpet of brown mulch. The geography of the schoolyard is burned into my brain, games of tag, my first crush and her big eyes–sorry Randal, I’m…

Hiking a New England trail, wet stones and brown leaves underboot; flannel type weather. I’m limping but the pain is dull, in the background, and easily ignored. It’s not my first hike, pain is part of the process, a catharsis bled and sweat upon the passing stones. I stumble and I look down at my lame leg and I’m unsurprised to find an eight inch framing screw sitting in the middle of my ankle.…

Daily writing promptWhat’s a moment you wish you could freeze and live in forever?View all responses Stillness is stagnation. It’s also an illusion. The world rotates, the breeze blows, your cells hum and divide and die, your bladder fills. That’s not to say there aren’t moments I’d like to savor a bit longer; sex, drug-induced stupor, my face buried in my cat’s fur, laying in an autumn field…

There’s an odd futilism to labeling oneself a writer. The image, in my head at least, is of one that can make a living off it, even if its only a meager wage. Through journals or books, articles or as a copy-editor they are “in” the industry and working the craft. The sad truth, that’s only a fraction of us. Most write in the corners of their lives, stealing moments from friends or family or work…

We’re on sleds, flat slabs of wood, like the tops of trunks lopped off, thrown to the ground with our bums sat upon, criss-cross-applesauce. It’s a jungle around us, green and humid. I can’t see the machine pulling us, only the dozens of sleds strung in serial, sluicing through the muck. Large waxy leaves slap us in the face. My brother is behind me covered in the flying mud. Some dispute, a…

There’s something about listening to Sam Harris that took me a while to put to words. I’ve been a listener for years, off and on as I tumbled from one career to the next and had more or less time to hear him expound upon his subjects of choice. There’s an old school slow rhetoric to his voice and a willingness to discuss touchy subjects without the use of jokes to soften the blow. It comes off…

Daily writing promptIf you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?View all responses My mind is immediately drawn to the Joseph Campbell types. You know, the Lukes, the Bruces, so many god damn Johns; all filled with virtue, unyielding faith and jaws made of marble. However, as I started to whittle down my selection, tossing one character aside for the next, I realized…

A cat black and odd, friendly, mine. As I weave my fingers through its pelt I notice oddities with the texture, curious departures in the direction of the fur. Inspecting it, where there should be straight lines, head to tail, the fur bifurcates, splits, it branches out into something resembling emu’s features; single long causeways with dozens of little off-ramps, splitting off, crisscrossing,…

Like art? Like literature? Live in Maine? Feel like exploring the liminal? April 15th in Northeast Harbor 12 Willows Press and the Northeast Harbor Library are hosting a reading of the "Echoes in the Fog" anthology.

She was bent-over, naked, her ass slapping against my hips in a slow applause to our bodies. We tumbled in and out of a few positions, her face forever obscured but I knew who it was. We sped up, her moaning as I grunted, more a boar than man thrusting, seeking, hunting the orgasm. She tensed, body going rigid as the last thrust, last slap of the hips, last flick of the fingers brought her to, on…

Daily writing promptHow often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?View all responses As a parent there’s but one rule you have to follow: Do what’s best for your child. That single, simple rule has profound consequences on how you live your life. It informs the food you buy, the hobbies you allow yourself, the car you drive, where you choose to call home. And for…