Unplugged in East Lansing
This fall's first Red Cedar Review Open Mic Night will be held Thursday, September 21 from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at Archives Book Shop, 517-519 West Grand River Ave. in East Lansing. Bring a story, a poem, an acoustic guitar or a friend. Readers, performers and listeners are welcome, and refreshments will be provided.

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Put Vol. 41 on your shelf
The latest issue of the Red Cedar Review is now available for purchase at the MSU Press web site. Buy the entire issue or download individual essays, stories and poems.

Three of the pieces appearing in this issue are first place winners from Michigan State University’s 2005 Creative Writing Awards. Colleen Farrow is responsible for two of those pieces, the poem “Minus My Mother” and the non-fiction memoir, “Not Walls But Shelves”. The latter is a personal favorite of mine, as it explores her relationship with books and reading. It won’t surprise me if many of those who pick up this issue, especially if they are writers, find themselves relating to her accounts of trips to Barnes & Noble or afternoons spent with their nose buried in a book. On a different note, Jared Gerling’s non-fiction essay, “Four Years to Live. Six Minutes to Die.” takes the reader through the challenge and thrill of a crew regatta, and the sacrifices a person makes for the things they are passionate about.

If you’re in the mood to laugh, I suggest you start with Kurt Ayau’s “Calling It Off,” which outlines one man’s increasing suspicion that he is being persecuted by telemarketers. Conversely, Robert Habermeyer’s “The Fertile Yellow” takes a more somber look at eccentricity, introducing
us to a couple that has tried everything from holistic medicine to the downright bizarre in an effort to get pregnant. Charles Harper Webb makes another appearance in our journal with “Notes to Myself,” a mediation on the possibility that lies in the little scribbles we make throughout the day, only to later wonder what on earth they meant.

- Teal Amthor-Shaffer, General Editor

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