Susan Isla Tepper has a Novella just out from Wilderness House Press titled GIRL UPSIDE DOWN. Currently it is only available from the author direct.  A twenty-year writer, she has penned 14 published books of fiction and poetry and 7 Stage Plays. Honors include 25 Pushcart Prize Nominations, a win in the Francis Ford Coppola Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award and more.

Her stage play ‘The Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022, at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review.
http://www.susantepper.com

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By Susan Isla Tepper

A week they drag the river
just one week
blaming the currents
then the falls— repeating
no one comes out after 
that tumble—
 
 
All back-slapping smirk
paid flunkys—
Making it sound 
chalk board simple:
His kayak neatly docked
nothing in disarray
—he took a flight of fancy

Happy to wash their hands
of the whole matter. 
 
They know you have information.
Friends have advised me to lay low.                                                     

~ ~ ~

No easy trek 
sleeping rough 
and the next night,
hard terrain
mud, rock, overgrowth
the long days ahead:
compartmentalize.

In bed you always teased
when I came out of the shower
head toweled: 
Wash, rinse, repeat
you’d joke, tugging me
into the sheets.
 
Missing over a week now.
 
Some one of us should
have mentioned love.
 
I trudge the caustic
shoreline rife with
bears, snakes, wolves
no easy journey—
hungry carnivores lurk
around any bend.
 
The  need to find you
greater than any need
human or otherwise.
 
Wash rinse repeat.

Photography by Keith Pearson

Keith Pearson teaches mathematics at a high school in southern New Hampshire, where his passion for numbers is matched by his love of language and art. A published poet and photographer, his work explores the intersections of observation, emotion, and form—capturing both the precision of thought and the spontaneity of experience. Whether writing verse or framing an image, Keith seeks to reveal the quiet beauty hidden in ordinary moments. An amateur wanderer and keen observer of the world, he finds creative inspiration in nature, travel, and the subtle rhythms of daily life. His poetry and photography together form a contemplative journey through landscapes both internal and external.