Skyline 2014: The Villa's Curse

Skyline 2014, an annual publisher's anthology produced by Cyberworld Publishing, showcases the juried and invited prose and poetry talent of Central Virginia writers. The title of the anthology is taken from the Skyline Drive, the parkway skipping along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and providing centering for the region in which the authors showcased here are living and writing. There is no overarching theme for the works in this anthology, so each can be discovered as a fascinating gem of its own luster.

Edited by Olivia Stowe.

Includes works by:

David Black

Lori Dixon

Phyllis Anne Duncan

Justin Fike

Cornelia Clay Fulghum

Jody Hobbs Hesler

Sarah Collins Honenberger

Gary D. Kessler

Phyllis Koch-Sheras

Jean Lancaster

Susan M. Lanterman

Linda Levokove

Sigrid Mirabella

Deborah Prum

Elaine Ruggieri

Marilou Schunter

Elizabeth Doyle Solomon

Olivia Stowe, ed.

Jack Trammell

Leonard Tuchyner

Marvin Welborn

Lavonda Lynn M. Young

Excerpt:

From: "Don't Iron Your Clothes While They're on Your Body No Matter How Late You Are," by Deborah M. Prum

One night years ago I'm supposed to meet my husband and his colleagues downtown at a fancy restaurant at 6:15. It's 6:00. I'm not dressed. My three little kids have not been fed. The babysitter is about to walk in the door.

I'm stirring a pot of Kraft Mac and Cheese with one hand. And I'm running so late that, with the other hand, I'm ironing my black wool pants while I'm wearing them. Worse yet, I'm using a steam iron which is scalding my legs. But I'm desperate to be on time, so I keep pressing ahead.

The phone rings. I try to answer the call on my cordless phone. No luck. Dead battery. So I head across the room to the wall phone in the kitchen, the one with the very short cord that I had been meaning to replace.

A mellifluous voice comes on the line. She says, "I'm calling from The Ladies' Home Journal. May I speak with Deborah Prum?"

Oh no, I don't have time to deal with a subscription spiel. But I had just moved to the South. People here accuse us Northerners of being rude. So, I want to prove them wrong by shedding my Yankee ways. So I say, "This is she, but I have to tell you I currently receive more magazines than I can-"

"I want to talk with you about an idea."

With my short phone cord, I can barely reach the stove, and the orange, goopy mixture of macaroni and cheese begins to burn. "This really isn't a very good time. Could you call back next week?" Or never.

The woman seems taken aback. "Well, I don't think so. We have space for your article in our next issue and the deadline is in a week. I don't think we have the time to discuss it later."

My article? My heart fills with conflicting emotions-elation because I realize she's an editor-someone is finally responding positively to one of my query letters-and panic because I have no idea which query letter.