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Prince of the Midwest

Whether you are from the Midwest or not, this essay by Michael Perry is so engaging–a wonderful weekend read, if you’re so inclined. “A friend said Prince created his own creative world around him, something many of us in the Midwest have had to do in one way or another. When I heard Prince, when I saw Prince, I felt moved to be more than I was.” I just love that! Don’t you? My first memorable Prince moment was hearing his “Raspberry Beret” in an arcade on vacation in French Lick, Indiana. Somebody with more quarters than I picked that song on the jukebox (yes, this was the 80s, not the 50s) and played it over and over. I discovered something new each time it played. For those of you celebrating Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S., I have no cute tie-in with Prince–go ahead and suggest one–and to everybody else, the world over, who still gets goosebumps at the Prince of the Midwest, read on… ~ Rebecca

Longreads

Michael Perry| Under Purple Skies| Belt Publishing | May 2019 | 10 minutes (1,861 words)

You’d never dream it looking at me, all doughy, bald, and crumpling in my 50s, but I owe the sublimated bulk of my aesthetic construct to Prince Rogers Nelson, circa Purple Rain. The film and album were released the summer after my fresh-off-the farm freshman year in college. I sat solo through the movie a minimum of four times, wore the hubs off the soundtrack cassette, draped my bedroom with purple scarves, stocked the dresser top with fat candles, and Scotch-taped fishnet to the drywall above the bed. Intended to create seductive shadows of mystery, it wound up a pointless cobweb.

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The Shape of Things: Reading Sarah Smarsh’s HEARTLAND

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

One particular shape captured my attention freshman year of college. That was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory triangle. Remember that one? A foundation of basic needs building up, I.M. Pei style, to more lofty psychic needs, like self-actualization: the needs-lite, if you will, that keep people like us writing and reading.

I don’t recall taking any social science courses in high school, so introductory Psychology and Sociology were a revelation. Our high school courses were cut and dry: dates, times, rules of usage, facts, and figures that were set, that didn’t depend on personal or group experience. An isosceles triangle was the same, whether it sat in a wheat field in Kansas or a steel mill in Ohio.

Of course, like shapes, people are also the same everywhere. Isn’t this what we like to think? Americans are Americans, wherever they’re set down? Heck, I grew up in Ohio, The Heart of It All (my home state’s tourism slogan then). The world was my oyster, or, perhaps, zebra mussel. But I digress…

I did not grow up in Sarah Smarsh’s American heartland of Kansas. Yet, Smarsh, the author of HEARTLAND: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, and I share enough similarities that I recognized much of the emotional terrain of her memoir. We’re both white females who were born into Catholic Midwestern families of German extraction with Amish down the road; we’re both college educated (at state schools). Only, our roads to college were decidedly different, due in large part to what sociologist and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich calls “America’s most taboo subject”: class.

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Welcome Rebecca Moon Ruark!

I started blogging for a couple reasons: to connect with the writing and writers of my native Rust Belt and for fun. Two years later, and a couple other things have happened along the way. I’ve improved my personal essay-writing skills (that is what so many of our blog posts are, really) and I got “out there.” Not “out there” in a huge, platform-developing way for the nonfiction book that’s coming–because, of course, I’m a fiction writer–but out there connecting with you awesome people who keep coming back here. Not sure why, but I love you for it. So…I’m excited to share my news. I hope you’ll check out Parhelion Literary Magazine. Now, it’s your turn. What have you gained from blogging? I’d love to know your take. More soon. ~Rebecca

Parhelion

I have big news, folks! Today I’d like to introduce you to our new Features Editor, Rebecca Moon Ruark.

Rebecca Moon Ruark

I’ve wanted to add more “regular” content to the magazine for a while. I’ve probably been thinking about it since last summer. Darren and Leeta and I have talked about this with great enthusiasm, but because we were so busy, we never seemed to come up with any of this imagined content despite our good intentions.

Rebecca submitted a story to us back in November 2018 that we published in our February issue, called Scooter Kid. And then I started stalking her online (yes, I look at the links people send me). I started connecting Rebecca with this content idea. I thought about contacting her for a long time—since the end of last year, and she stayed stuck in my head, swirling around in there, so finally, I just asked…

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“Rust in Bloom”

Issue No. 8 from Barren Magazine is out, and features my story, “The Virgins,” among among so much fantastic poetry, prose, and photography for your weekend entertainment. (Thank you to the editors for letting my story sit among such great company!) See also my friend (and Rust Belt Girl follower) DS Levy’s flash fiction piece, “Tengku,” my fave poem of the day, “Barrels of Fruit,” by Caroline Plasket, and more gritty, rusty photography–along with sweeping skies and far-off places–than a girl could shake a stick at.

Happy weekend, and happy reading and viewing.

What’s in store for your weekend?

~Rebecca